Boomer Has It!
Two writers, two cities, two opinions on culture and politics from a boomer perspective. Veteran creatives JB Miller and Jim Gialamas, reporting from London and New York, offer up a surprising take on a world going somewhere on a handbasket, if not a steamer trunk. All aboard. Jim Gialamas is a writer and former journalist, widely acknowledged as the cultural mayor of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. JB Miller is an author, playwright, and former New Yorker now haunting cafes in southwest London. Drawing on their transatlantic dispatches, they meet here to figure out what the flip is going on.
Episodes
It’s been a dour year so far, so Jim and JB have some comedy film suggestions to help everyone get through the summer. The remit was to each list his top 5, which turned out to be near impossible, so both have honorable mentions. The choices go back to 1926, featuring a century of laughs, including some gems a lot of people won’t be familiar with. JB provides his film historian’s perspective, and J...
It's not enough that MAGA controls all three branches of government, it wants to control the culture too. But what exactly is MAGA culture? Your favorite Boomer aesthetes trace the Republican cultural revolution, covering movies and TV, music, comedy and cultural institutions. From The Sound of Freedom and Gutfeld to the UFC and NFL, we’ll give you the lowdown of the high points of the grievance aesthetic and ...
Dude Desert? Guy Gridlock? Brocopalypse? A 2025 Gallup study revealed a disproportionate 25% of young American men suffering from severe daily isolation. JB and Jim trace the cultural evolution of male bonds—from the post-WWII "strong, silent" to the vulnerable "bromances" popularized by Judd Apatow and Ted Lasso to today’s "strong, violent type" idealized in the modern manosphere. If the male friendship...
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 an...
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 th...
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 ...
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 d...
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...
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:
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...
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 behin...
In the 1960s, there was a clear counterculture to the political upheavals of the time, led largely by music, but also by key novels such as “Catch-22” and “Slaughterhouse-5,” despite being written by representatives from an older generation who had fought in, and were writing about, World War Two. There was a clearer generational divide, stemming largely from the fact that the older generatio...
What is a “national treasure”?
In the UK there’s wide consensus about who are the nation’s living “treasures” — people like David Attenborough, Judi Dench, Paul McCartney and Elton John. One benchmark is to be a senior citizen with a large body of work behind you. But another is to be largely above politics. In the US where everything has become politicized under Trump, can t...
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