Men: An Explanation Podcast

About Men: An Explanation Podcast

What are men like? What is up with them? In this podcast you get to listen as two guys get to know each other, covering the topics about men's impulses, reactions and behaviors. tomhart.substack.com (https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Tom Hart and Tim Miller

Category

arts · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Apr 2025

Latest episode

30 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

21 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Jul 2026

   Men: an Explanation: Jim Steinman

   In this episode, Tom wonders a lot about Jim Steinman, writer of Meatloaf’s two Bat Out Of Hell opuses, and author/producer of Total Eclipse of the Heart, and other aural monuments to desire and excess. Tom wonders, now that Steinman is no longer with us, what are the secrets? What perversions fed the appetites in these songs? Spoiler alert! We can’t find any! But follow Tim along as Tom guides him through the fabulous career of excess and low taste that was Jim Steinman’s, and the creative partnership that was Steinman and Meatloaf. Thanks for listening! Jim Steinman episode timestamps 0:00 Jim Steinman and Meatloaf 2:00 Bat out of Hell for the uninitiated 3:43 Steinman’s sort of handsome! 4:20 Total Eclipse of the Heart etc. 5:10 The songs, excessive and adolescent. Teen sex, etc. 7:00 Describing how young and beautiful we are, going all the way, Phil Rizutto’s play by play 11:00 Tim and Tom on podcasts 12:45 The relationship, the dynamic, between the author and the ego 13:30 Car crash songs 15:50 Todd Rundgren supplies the motorcycle crash sound 17:15 Curious about Steinman for 40 years, he has to be insane 19:00 For Crying Out Loud, crotch joke 21:55 Stanley Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell 23:45 Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel 24:45 Steinman the performer? 26:20 The 90s songs 27:45 He’s healthy? There has to be a catch 29:00 Now I’ve got the guy to sing my songs 31:30 Low taste, the canon, etc. 32:30 MFA programs and theory 34:30 Tim: If you can find something ecstatic that moves you, who cares where it comes from 35:45 Tim: The best we can do is find 5 minute here or there to find something to latch on to that seems alive and real. 36:30 Andy Warhol 38:10 Objectivity, and the new Beatles song 43:00 Art artifacts, The narrative of the creation of it. 44:00 The most expensive guitars ever sold on auction 47:30 The early Beatles albums, 2 minute songs, The Doors’ The End 48:30 Creative partnerships holding it together 50:30 Tim’s black rock from Iceland, Tom’s Dogwood tree. 52:00 Tom’s Reading Corner: articles about Jim Steinman This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com (https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   3 Jul 2026

   Men an Explanation: Baseball

   In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about Baseball. Tom is having cosmic experiences with it while fall asleep to Northwoods Radio Sleep Baseball (https://www.sleepbaseball.com/). And he’s wondering about the abstractness of it, the beauty in its weirdness, the storytelling of it all. Tim has the history, and the love of it, and strong memories of loving it and giving it up. Thanks for listening! Timestamps 00:00 Tom has been experiencing insomnia and listening to Sleep Baseball 01:50 Abstract stories 04:35 Sleep Baseball’s sense of humor 05:50 Americans don’t deserve baseball 6:00 Tim loving baseball and baseball history 7:00 Most fans back in the day never saw a game 8:00 Would the announcers just make stuff up? 9:15 Tim sees the Yankees final home game at Yankee Stadium 10:20 The strange, perfect rules, the quiet parts of the game 12:00 Pickup games 12:45 Dropping the ball 13:45 Friends with books of statistics 15:00 History of baseball, generations, history of Stonehenge 17:30 Tim stopped playing because he couldn’t hit curveballs 18:20 Tim’s ritualistic departure from baseball 21:00 Charles Schulz’ final Peanuts Sunday strip 22:30 Baseball field as magic space for Schulz; Peanuts Sandlot 24:00 Baseball stats in the paper, photos of Tim playing 25:45 Tom’s theory about the players being pinpoints of light 26:20 What is story inside the body and mind? 27:00 The old baseball stories you would have heard, but can’t confirm 28:24 AAA baseball, and AAAAA baseball and the proximity to the majors 30:30 Tim pulls out his old baseball jersey 31:15 Tom pulls out his dad’s baseball jersey 32:00 Willie Mays catching the ball in center field, and the radio announcer’s reaction 33:06 Tim’s Reading Corner intro 46:00 Stories Baseball’s Unforgettables by Mac Davis This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com (https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   18 Jun 2026

   Men an Explanation: Henry Darger and Pablo Picasso

   In this episode, Tom and Tim start with Henry Darger- the kind of artist you’re supposed to not want to be, and get to Picasso, the kind you’re supposed to want to be! We unpack it a little, and might come back to this. Ends with a reading from John Berger’s The Success and Failure of Picasso Thanks for listening! 00:00 - Henry Darger 01:28 - Mythic Henry Darger is not who you want to be 3:00 - The Vivian Girls and the mythos 3:45 - Tom's connection to Darger and the discovery of the Darger work 6:00 - "Henry would just scurry" + his life 9:14 - William Blake, rejected and "crazy". Mad and bitter 11:30 - Creative impulses and art school 12:00 - "You want to be Picasso" 13:00 - John Berger's The Success and Failure of Picasso 14:00 - Late era drawings no one talks about the work 15:55 - Joseph Campbell on Picasso, how do you keep going, when you were so accomplished at 13 and 14 years old? 17:00 - Darger's full life 17:50 - We create our own experience to develop from 19:00 - "He's just one of those people" 20:00 - William Blake, unaccepted 20:30 - Blake's nemesis 21:30 - Blake's isolation 23:45 - Darger had no centering principle 24:45 - Darger, impenetrable, Blake not so much 26:00 - Donald Ault, Blake scholar and Uncle Scrooge scholar 27:00 - Tom's reading corner: The Success and Failure of Picasso by John Berger 33:21 - Portrait of Ms. HP and Nude Dressing Her Hair 35:40 - Sees self in women, can only be known via sex, he returns sex to nature 38:40 - Last great works, he has only ever expressed sensations through his own body 41:45 - Picasso, communist 44:20 - Picasso, King of Californie 49:20 - The final 180 drawings. The body ages and the imagination does not. He envies the monkey. The very idea of art attacked by nature. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com (https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 2 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

3

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

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