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Cultural Futures Exchange

Cultural Futures Exchange

Here’s the place where we examine different elements of cultural ephemera, be it music, movies, tv, stage and dive into the context and time that they came out, what’s happened since, and our take on the future “valuation” on an imaginary stock exchange of this item in terms of if you should go long--the value will go up--go short--the value will decrease, or stay neutral. Join us!

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All Episodes

208:50

Ep 65: Real Genius

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2026/02/01

This week CFX takes on one of Jeff’s favorite movies, the 1985 comedy Real Genius. Featuring a very young Val Kilmer, Real Genius does some of the same classic tropes as other teen comedies of the day, and it may break the record for the “most montages in a single film”, but it really is a cut above other similar movies of its time. Not only does it stand out for the way it depicts college life at a very exclusive scientific institution, but also excels in its satirization of the 1980s military

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168:12

Ep 64: 70's Variety Shows

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/12/28

To celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year CFX is rolling it all out: Songs! Elaborate Dance Routines! Corny Banter! Skits! Sketches! Disco! Ice Skating! Washed up old celebrities! Sid and Marty Kroft! Fred Silverman! Uncle Milty’s schlong! The 70s! That’s right, the CFX Holiday 2025 70s Variety Show Spectacular is here. In this episode, we wipe away the cobwebs on what essentially is an extinct TV show phenomenon, focusing on four shows in particular: two that were very successful and two

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207:09

Ep 63: Devo

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/11/23

Q: Are we not men? A: We are DEVO! With that simple question, the world was introduced to one of the strangest, most unique, innovative and irreverent music/art projects of all time.. DEVO! So, put on your hazmat suit, monkey mask and don that energy dome, because this week your resident CFX spud boys, Sloppy Slip Tomato and Booji Boy Jeff, immerse themselves into the world of DEVO, covering the band from their humble, suburban beginnings in Akron, Ohio to the shootings at Kent State that first

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172:00

Ep 62: The A-Team

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/10/26

This week CFX goes on the lam riding shotgun with that ragtag squad of noble ex-Special Forces mercenaries, The A-Team. One of the most popular shows of the 1980s, The A-Team combined ridiculously over the top action,broad comedy and larger than life characters into a “must see” TV formula that couldn’t fail…until it did. We go into the backstory of each of the characters and the actors who played them. We talk about the phenomenon that was Mr. T aka B.A. Baracus-–the cartoons, the breakfast

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132:37

Ep 61: Repo Man

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/09/21

We know what you’re thinking… PLATE OF SHRIMP! Are we right? That’s crazy, but since the fabric of the universe is just a lattice of coincidences, it’s only right that just when you were thinking that, CFX decided to cover Alex Cox’s 1984 film Repo Man, a satirical, punk rock, sci fi cult classic that would influence a whole generation of independent film. We talk about how this all came to be, the real life repo story, the casting, the cars, the aliens, the punk rock criminals, and, lest we forget,

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02:47:28

Ep 60: Toto

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/06/01

This week CFX switches gears to evaluate the pop culture impact of the world’s most innovative maker of toilets, the Japanese company, Toto LTD. Just kidding! We are of course talking about the band Toto. Started in the late ‘70s by a bunch of San Fernando Valley high school friends who also happened to be some of the most accomplished studio musicians in the world, Toto would peak in 1982, creating one of the biggest selling albums of that year in Toto IV, and, arguably, one of the most popular

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02:43:01

Ep 59: Grease

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/04/20

This week CFX covers one of the most popular OLD movies ever, Grease. This classic 1970s/1950s musical about a bunch of high school SENIORS, with its mix of fun musical frivolity and MATURE subject matter, seems to have AGED well....or has it? We do the usual..going into the whole 1970s/1950s nostalgia that birthed the original stage show and eventually, thanks to the growing popularity of actor John Travolta, led to the blockbuster film and soundtrack, a worldwide phenomenon. We also do a

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02:15:25

Ep 58: The Six Million Dollar Man

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/03/23

This week CFX takes you back to a simpler time, a time when bionically enhanced astronauts and former tennis pros saved the world from Bigfoot, aliens, Russian death probes and evil "robuts"—all while wearing fashion tracksuits and the finest fashions that the Sears Roebuck catalog had to offer. And doing it all in beautiful slow motion! That’s right, this week we are covering the very popular and successful mid-1970s show The Six Million Dollar Man and also a bit of its just as successful spinoff,

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01:16:05

Ep 57: Talking Heads Part 2

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/02/23

Well, we know where we’re going and we know where we have been. It may seem like we were on a road to nowhere with Talking Heads Part 1 since it’s been a while, but the future is certain because here we are with Part 2. We start things off with a bang, with 1980’s Remain in Light and then cover the Talking Heads’ most commercially successful years including their landmark concert film, Stop Making Sense. Then we cover their detour into commercial, American-influenced pop on albums such as LIttle

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02:02:17

Ep 56: Talking Heads Part 1

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2025/01/26

This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. This ain’t no foolin’ around. This is CFX. Episode 56: Talking Heads and we get so “lovey dovey” that “we ain’t got time for that now”. That’s right, we had to split this into two parts. In this first part, we go into our personal histories, the zeitgeist that created Talking Heads and a detailed history of the band. We also cover the bands’ 1970s albums, Talking Heads ‘77, More Songs about Buildings and Food, and Fear of Music. We take you on a journey

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01:29:53

Ep 55: Does Anyone Remember Laughter? (The Best of...

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/12/22

Alright, internet! How y’all doing out there? You wanted the best and you got the best…stage banter that is. That’s right, this week we take a look at the best and worst stage banter in history for the first (and maybe only… we’ll see…) time. There’s no Grammy award for best stage banter and we attempt to rectify this grave oversight as a quasi-awards show that I guess you can call THE BANTIES! We start way back in the past and cover all the way to the present day. We cover the most skilled

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02:41:54

Ep 54: Judy Blume

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/11/17

Are you there Judy? It’s us, CFX, and this week we are here to ask you, when will we grow? Haha, all kidding aside. That’s right, we are covering the great Judy Blume, an author who has influenced several generations with her frank, honest and realistic books for kids and young adults. We go into her history, highlighting a few of the books that are both her most notable and also most controversial. Of course, we talk about Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, Blume’s breakthrough and most famous

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02:39:09

Ep 53: Purple Rain

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/10/20

Dearly beloved CFX fans, we are gathered here today to evaluate this thing called Purple Rain. Will it stand the test of time forever or just a mighty long time…well, we’re here to tell U. That’s right, we evaluate the film, the music and the artist (thankfully known as Prince which is good because I don’t know how to print that damned symbol…). What about the movie? Should U “dig” the picture or “smash” it? Is the music “sheer perfection” or is there “something wrong with the machinery”? Is Prince

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02:43:57

Ep 52: Bosom Buddies

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/09/15

When we first came up with the concept of the show, namely leveraging our pop cultural expertise to put cultural artifacts under the CFX microscope to see if they will stand the test of time, the short lived early ‘80s sitcom, Bosom Buddies, was one of the first shows we both thought of covering. Well, in episode 52, we do just that. We dig into not only the production history of the show, the before and after careers of all cast members, including the conspicuously successful Tom Hanks, but also

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02:11:44

Ep 51: Warren Zevon

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/08/18

This week CFX covers Warren Zevon, an artist that the general public, if they’ve heard of him at all, usually think of as a one hit wonder and associate him with one that song, “Werewolves of London”. As great as that song may be, CFX, as you’ve come to expect, digs deeper to discover the real Warren Zevon, the oftentimes frustratingly brilliant and brilliantly frustrating songwriter and musician’s musician who went from childhood classical prodigy to ‘60s flame out to the peak of popularity and

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02:33:03

Ep 50: Rush-Part 2 of Synth

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/07/28

Part 2 picks up right where we left off on Part 1, by tackling the post-Moving Pictures journey of our Canuck music heroes. They’ve just experienced their greatest commercial success (artistic as well, at least according to CFX) to date and ready to fire the up the synths for some emotion transmission on 1982’s Signals. How do the next 11 albums over 30 years of the band’s studio recording history go down? Are they cool with their rapidly growing, hard-won, post-Moving Pictures fan base? Or will

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02:36:37

Ep 50: Rush-Part 1 of Fear

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/07/14

ATTENTION PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION! WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL! WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL! That's right, eh! This is the big one, episode 50, and so, it's time to grab a Molson Golden, don that kimono, and tuck into some poutine, because CFX are covering one of the all time greats, Canadian rock gods, RUSH. This is an episode so huge and magnificent, that we couldn't do it in one go, but had to split it in two. That's right, for a total of 5+ hours, we dive into the history, zeitgeist and take on

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02:32:23

Ep 49: The Breakfast Club

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/06/16

Teen archetypes! Melodramatic method-inspired soliloquies! Stepford Wives teen makeovers! Flaring nostrils! Hairy butt loving sportos! Quarterflash sound-alikes! And, who could forget… Neo-Nazi Zoom DWEEBIES?! If you’re wondering what we’re talking about, you’ve obviously never seen the 1985 classic John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club! We were bound to get to this one sooner or later and this week we do, diving into the history and zeitgeist of this film and deciding whether it is indeed one of the

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02:32:35

Ep 48: Firefly

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/05/19

This week CFX takes on the short-lived cult sci-fi show, Firefly. We dive into the history of the show, explore its eleven TV episodes and the 2005 fan-driven film Serenity to decide whether this oddball mix of western and space opera is “shiny” or just a whole lot of “Fei-oo”. What about this show made fans dress in space cowboy outfits, speak bad Chinese to each other, serenade Renaissance Faire crowds with Firefly-inspired ballads, and finally wage an internet battle against the evil Hollywood

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02:08:38

Ep 47: The Catcher in the Rye

Cultural Futures Exchange ·

2024/04/14

This week CFX tackles one of the most popular and controversial books of all time, J.D. Salinger’s 1951 coming of age novel The Catcher in the Rye. This is a book that nearly everyone has read and we talk about how the book affected us when we read it as teenagers and how we view it now. We got into Salinger’s incredible life story, including his harrowing experiences in World War 2 and how his experiences influenced his writing and his difficult relationship with success eventually led him to live

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