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Welcome back to the gutter where the living ain’t easy and the joys of scraping by are . . . well, few and far between. But like, ‘community’. And like, ‘therapy’. Because while everything is on fire you can at least anaesthetise with self-care and yet another instalment of whatever the Kardashians are up to these days (*vomit sound). On the Kardashians, the rats revisit Kanye’s public apology for like, the last few years in which he identified as a Nazi and made songs about hitler, as well as rubbing shoulders with soft-cock fake-goth abuser Marilyn Manson, and a slew of albums which suffered not only from ironic fascism (???) but also lacked the glory of previous albums in which craft was the priority and not flaccid alt-right shock. Can we really forgive a balding bipolar has-been because, to quote his apology, he had a ‘head injury’ that made him think jews bad hitler good? Probs not tbh. Also; clearly Nicola Willis is terrible at her job. But with one of her few credentials being in English and poetry, the rats wonder what a poet Willis used to write about. Did she subvert canon and use kiwi imagery steeped in the miseries of Sylvia Plath? (Think a pavlova drizzled in period blood). Or maybe she used staccato stream of consciousness, like an affluent Janet Frame, minus the flare or urgency (and talent). The rats can only guess without eyes on Willis’s actual work, but they have to assume she’s a better poet than treasurer because if not, the safest thing would be for this early work to stay buried lest it resurface as just another humiliation on an already long list; somewhere between disappearing boats, e-scooter fails, and a collection of Blazers so plain they’d make Margaret Thatcher look like Liberace. Support us because nobody else will: patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here we are in the new year, and any hopes of an improvement over the cluster fuck of 2025 are well and truly shot to shit. Because apparently we’re all expendable when it comes to the resource grabs of sycophantic billionaires. Bleating sheep marching obediently to the slaughter (sooooo brat summer). And yet the world is still so full of wonder. Like pussy sponges, an ancient solution to the age-old snafu of having sex on your period. Historically retrieved from the sea there are all sorts of synthetic materials available to those too far a drive from the coast for the humble sea cucumber and its absorbent variants. Cotton wool? Literal wool? The world of household items is your literal oyster. However, as one of the rats points out after recent first hand experience, a sponge lacks the tampon’s convenience of a drawstring. A help-mate to pull it out after use is recommended. Also, Johanna shares a recent experience of spontaneous non-sexual exploration of other women’s bodies in a club bathroom. The kind of sensual camaraderie men can’t consent to without the garb of contact sport or war, but which they would obviously very much like to have without risk of terminal gayness (an irremovable stain). Which begs the question; what’s more fulfilling, romance with a partner or romance with friends? The rats do not have an answer. Just voracious sexual appetites that no amount of cottaging can satisfy. They do try though. Frequently. And athletically. Also, what IS a functioning city, and what lengths are we willing to go to live in one? And more importantly, what does it matter in a resurgence of global fascism remaking every city in its own image anyway? Hold on to your t**s girls; coz Paris is burning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wow, what a year this week has been! Just when you think the stink of western madness couldn’t get thicker on the air…it does. But anyone living on this side of 9/11 knows already that it can always get worse; and just in time for Christmas! One of our favourite things to do over the Christmas period is spiral in the family home after declining to join your loved ones at lunch, only to pull back from full dissociative affect by watching a familiar movie. Often this is Batman Returns or Eyes Wide Shut. But this year, why not remember the year that was by spiralling into a classic Rob Reiner, who we are presently mourning after he and his wife were stabbed to death in their LA home. The man gave us Princess Bride, and also This Is Spinal Tap, among others. And much like the inconceivable tragedy on Bondi Beach, Reiner’s death has already been re-framed by a toad-faced politician with a tic-tac-choad. Apparently, his death was an inevitable result of being anti-Trump (or so says Trump). Also on the agenda this week; theorist Byung Chul Han’s notion of terrorism as the ultimate selfie (kms), the offering of comedians versus the offering of musicians, the semiotic wasteland of techno neo-feudalism, the mirage of nationalism, and the unlikely power of Lynn Ramsey’s latest film Die My Love, in which impending climate doom and The Malaise Of The End are gorgeously rendered as one woman’s struggle with post natal depression (serious, it’s lit; and also the most punk thing you’ll see this year). Let rats live in 2026 by supporting us via patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The rats are in mourning this week as Jimmy D, perhaps NZ’s last source of spiritually consistent urban gothic, closes its doors. As longtime fans of death-eater adjacent hotness, we feel the loss, and pity New Zealanders who wouldn’t bat an eye, and who clearly never grew up with the kinds of adolescent anti-social malcontent that leads later in life to success in the arts. In memoriam, we list our favourite Jimmy commodities, which include Berghein ready meshes and a VERY limited edition perfume which had notes of piss and cum braided so subtly with the linen-fresh of post-coitus Sunday morning bedding. Magnifique! Of course, there’s some confusion as to how this effect is achieved in the world of perfumery. Contrary to a very uncommon misconception, when a perfume strives to emulate bodily secretions in an aesthetically pleasing way, literal cat shit is generally not a viable (or legal) ingredient. With the ball rolling down an inevitable and endlessly quotable trough of listicles, the rats proceed to name their top five books, films, and tv shows; which makes sense in a saturated media landscape where digital consumption is technically our new civic (and moral) duty. Obvious crowdpleasers like David Lynch and Buffy abound, as well as lesser known but semi-popular favourites; like the centuries long submarine classic Das Boot, or the lush family romance of Salo (cough). Also, we ask the question everyone’s been too afraid to ask; is Johanna POC? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is officially Wicked Season and if you’re not a shrill femme jumping on the Ozian Express and getting your landing strip dyed a pleasing shade of verdigris, are you even ALIVE??!! Arguably, as our producer has pointed out, the true cinema of Wicked is the press tour, and by golly if Cynthia and Ariana haven’t ratcheted up the lezzy-platonic-whatever-it-is thing that they have going on like a director cut sizzle reel of the L Word. Truly, Cynthia Erivo is a force to be reckoned with and any mere mortal would be questioning their sexuality around her. Who doesn’t want to be Cynthia’s little pocket princess right now? Even if Ariana doesn’t get the Oscar, she’s got Erivo’s jacked arms and soothing upper-crust-British accent (worthy consolations). Oh to be the quasi-erotic fixation of a superhuman vocalist with the physical discipline of a Russian gymnast. Also, while the rats opine their lack of a Cynthia-Ariana style romance in their own lives, they discuss how finding a partner at this point is predominantly about just having someone beside you when we inevitably all burn together. You know, a fellow witness for the End of Everything (feasibly f*****g imminent LOL). But in their chronic singleton status there’s always the symphonic stylings of Rosalia’s LUX (a cultural landmark akin to Moses’ high camp unveiling of the Ten Commandments on Sinai) to ease the stubborn agony of being alive in 2025. *sigh. Support us and Cynthia Erivo at patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s something rotten in the South Pacific (it’s cops, we’re talking about cops). Recent salacious pedo-adjacent revelations in NZ’s law enforcement aside, there is just SO MUCH to cover here at the end of everything, and the rats feel so honoured to have an avid listenership to join them in bearing witness to the rising seas (and everything that comes with that). Firstly, Auckland’s hornet problem, made more terrifying by the fact that they’re squirters (relatable, but ya know; time and place). Secondly, Johanna revisits her experiences as a young aryan-looking dressage aspirant at Horse Camp, a REAL THING THAT HAPPENED. While tumbling down nostalgia lanes, Johanna also tours us through the good Welly times of a local dairy-cum-party-hotspot, of which it’s reasonable to say Auckland has its own variations (not without a meth element though, which just isn’t everyone’s cup of tea). Second-to-lastly, we explore the recently disused Anthropocene moniker, and elect Cthuluhcene as a possible replacement, even though it feasibly all ends the same (so who tf cares; like, everyone dead etcetera). And last but not least, MUSICALS! Believe it or not Sam only saw Cabaret for the first time THIS YEAR, and is aghast at his own cultural lethargy. Turns out Bob Fosse is something of a genius. Get amongst! Support our broke asses and see the video episodes and bonus content at patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

WARNING—contains a full minute of dead air as Johanna leaves the studio for a spew. A prerequisite of living in the gutter is humility—which, this week, Sam and Johanna seem to be in short supply of. Maybe we can blame the fact that narcissistic personality types are the new normal, or maybe it’s a contagion spread to us by our affluent gay friends who are more white and liberal than a Jacinda Ardern plush toy doing the hokey pokey. No Ardern shade really; only the world’s gonna need a lot more than ‘kindness’ to pull it out of its seasonal funk (side note; Ms. Ardern has recently done a speaking tour with Zionists *gag). Perhaps in aid of redeeming the complicity of white liberalism, ala terfy white gay guys and the Be Kind crew, the rats look to the Bible; and a heartening example of twinks fighting the good fight. You guessed it, it’s David and Jonathan from the Book of Samuel! Did you know that ‘harpist’ was code for pass-around party bottom? Look it up! (Must be able to translate Hebrew). Also; we question the true radical nature of neurodivergence, and whether deterritorializing flights from instrumentality are actually capable of culture jamming, or if it’s just another identitarian ploy for commercial anti-capitalism. Or something. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get ready non-paying listeners (cough; no shade) for a very special and hopefully consistent-hereafter Agony Aunt section in which we answer your queries qualms and primal screams. Well, we do our best. As we see you have; your responses to our calls for willing plaintiffs has been voluminous and shrill (a compliment). And how can we blame you—life feels like a succession of vertigo-inducing obstacles in this particularly fraught historical moment. Obstacles the rats give a brief but strangely comprehensive tour of, from the national blight of Judith Collins, to the tragic regional loss of Bacios, one of Whangarei’s long standing (and infamous) night clubs where both rats have had formative experiences, on par with how golden age celebs of the seventies wistfully talk about Studio 54 (minus the A class drugs and human trafficking . . . we assume). A stretch sure. But not a place without its charms. Like . . . the enduring appeal of the Great Unwashed, a type of bush-man known only to rural areas that city folk CANNOT comprehend. And as anyone that is viscerally repulsed by class violence will know, once you get a whiff of His forever-pheromones (soap and hydrochloric resistant) you’re under His spell, and you’re either ending the night in the back of his ute, or drinking enough whiskey you can give him a languid gobby in Bacio toilets without thinking about why the floor is so sticky. Sigh—truly the end of an era. Also, Azealia Banks has turned her fetid coat on Isreal yet again, in a string of tweets nearly identical to the last time she played in Tel Aviv in 2018. First she loves it, then she hates it. We’re presuming not because her common humanity rightly opposed genocide, but because the venue didn’t provide her with the kind of drugs that make playing in an apartheid state possible. Silly bitch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello there, our beloved and non paying listeners. This week the rats weave and wend their way around a world teetering on total shit f*****y (some would say we’re already there, or have been ever since the Iron Lady mainstreamed pillaging public infrastructure for the benefit of a ruling elite; tomay-toe toma-toe). In the rat’s shared world, which is still shared despite being separated by the Tasman sea, so much is going on that it’s difficult to put into words. Easier to put into a sustained note of primal screaming. In the undying spirit of the Avantgarde the rats offer a shaky middle ground with a near-hour of hyperbole and paranoia, with a dash of crowd-pleasing body horror. Like, the fact that Sam was recently grindr-catfished by Whangarei’s finest. Which would’ve been fine if it wasn’t for the upset stomach he got from swallowing A LOT of . . . well, you know. Add to this the whole block of Ghana he ate to get the taste and feel of hot white rancid lava out of his mouth/gut, and you might be able to guess how he’s finding his impromptu trip up north—familiar, bloating, and a little salty. This particular complaint leads Sam and Johanna down a nostalgic lane of old Whittaker’s campaigns. Specifically, the one where a biracial couple (for reference, a very hot svelte athletic couple; for the optics) dive into creamy vats of opposite blends; a white woman goes Ghana, a dark skinned man goes Milky Bar. The pair emerge as delectably coated racial cosplayers—roll branding. As if to say chocolate and eugenics go hand in hand—at least since (insert whatever year Whittakers was established). Also, we’d be remiss if we didn’t temper our id-fuelled verbal bricolage with some general pessimism about the approaching race/class/water wars. Which we do here. Enjoy (and see you in the thunder dome). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everything is faaaaaaaarked. And yet, the rats are here. Picking the carcass of the west for views and likes. This week, Winnie Peters is a big brown anti christ! Doxing is not all good, but self-hating brownies who live in glass houses (or the beehive) should NOT throw stones (cough cough lol). Also, Taylor versus Charli. Taylor McSwift made a serious blunder when she came for the people’s princess. Furthermore, clapping back to a considered nuanced exploration of horizontal violence between professional women with playground mudslinging is not a good look. The equivalent of pee-pee-poo-bum. Get a grip Tay (grow up). Theeeeen a very erudite but seriously un-researched deep dive into a maybe-global-network of white supremacists. Like, actual reich personnel being rotated out of Germany circa 1948 and installed at various sites around the world, making the hellscape we know and love today. Finally, Sam quite can’t believe when Johanna tells him that our blighted government has rebranded literal inequality as ‘a two speed economy’. Not a great time to be a person. Envy the rat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Another day, another National bequeathed nightmare. And yet more fixation on the unbearable incompetence of Nicola Willis. I know I know blaming a single person for the ruinous policies of an entire party is a bias, and in this particular instance borderline misogyny. But at this point we’re kinda not feeling beholden to considering the feelings of our shit-brained self-interested bloated-bellied government because they’re LITERALLY forcing everyone in this country to be complicit in an effing genocide. To take her mind off the profound national shame of our ELECTED leaders allying us with this century’s Nazis, Johanna goes to the ballet. Dracula to be precise. And finds herself surrounded by a frankly unreadable crowd. Who would’ve thought that Dracula the ballet would pull both borderline steampunk cosplayers, and cat eared femboys? A hybrid audience to say the least. But then I guess suffering at the hands of a nocturnal parasitic aristocrat is extremely relatable in our age of melanin deficient tech moguls. And once more, we turn to Nicola Willis and the mysterious case of the emperor’s new boats. Sam is horrified to realise the full extent of Willis’s suicidal approach to the NZ economy (if there is such a thing; pure theology). For example he didn’t realise a bargain deal on boats had already been secured, which Willis then scrapped, only for another more expensive deal to be struck when she realised that actually, it’s kinda important. Because the South Island is like, a real place. It definitely exists. People definitely live there. It’s definitely still quote unquote New Zealand. Also; Charlotte Gainsbourg’s sentient and detachable clitoris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Melbourne vs Auckland. Which is better? Just kidding; it;’s obviously Melbourne. And yet the rats, being measured journalists, provide a balanced review of both locales, two places that are so different but also so similar; like their resemblance in local cuisine (meth). Or the casual and continued usurpation of the indigenous! With that in mind Johanna is settling in well, having just sourced an apartment in the scabies-riddled hipster paradise of Fitzroy; rivalled in plaid and stick-n-pokes only by neighbouring digital nomad hot spot Brunswick. Could this be the beginning of a dynamic cultural exchange between Australia and New Zealand, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Gallipoli? Maybe. Also on the agenda—as always—the inevitable decline of the west, whether or not nazis deserve sex, the unbearable lightness of Lime bikes, small dogs, dank matter, the conspicuous collapse of Grindr every time more than one Republican enters a room, the timeless allure of femboys, the scheduled war between China and the US, how Sam’s been helping Johanna’s dad out of remission, human faeces, a waning interest in whether we live or die, and the on going beef between Nadia Lim and Missy Elliot. Get behind the paywall at: patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

well well well the rats are back and despite their hiatus they are NOT feeling rested. If anything their personal lives reflect the disarray of global politics. Though if they had to pick a favourite cluster f**k from the last week, it would definitely be the Nepalese uprising of angry zoomers literally burning their government to the ground for kicking them off twitter. In that vein, the rats would like to formally apologise for ANYTHING they have ever said about Gen Z, whose vacuous phone addiction and digital nativism might actually have an unanticipated radical potential (!!!). That said, the rats can’t help but feel disaffected about Charlie Kirk. Not the death of the guy (literally f**k him); more how his death will inevitably be spun into an unhinged attack on the dreaded left, despite the fact that kirk’s shooter was a friggin Groyper (an alt right douche). As Johanna’s dad conveniently points out while overhearing our less than informed historical speculations, it’s not dissimilar from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, in which biased spin about who did what and why triggered the First World War, which arguably engendered the second, which arguably put the tinders of a third world war in cold but living storage (and here we are). So yeah, pessimism is rife this week. But at least the Palestine march in Auckland had a hearteningly massive turnout; even if our government is too dickless to take a stance. In the rats humble opinion the world is currently over abundant with ugly middled aged men gaming public institutions to benefit private interests. How’s about we make like Nepal’s Gen Z and thin the crowd. Get in behind (and behind the paywall too) at patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What a time to be alive! The states are stating, the gulags are gulaging, and the labubu continues to rise as a new synthetic super power with total fractal. Domination of the collective human psyche in its sights. But what of toy-crazes of yesteryear? Such as, the Sea Monkey. Revisiting Johanna’s private shame this week, we reminisce about an earlier episode in which she confesses (is found out, actually) to having thought the eponymous sea monkeys had the simian form of their artful marketing. Mandela Effect? No; psychosis. Or, the luminous slippage between expectation and reality which we’re all prey to within these mortal coils and their roving dreaming, which seems hell bent on unknitting the limits of the corporeal with bigger bolder more destructive dreaming. Or whatever. Also this week, were stuck on Saveloy Squids on both sides of the pay wall, for which the rats are extremely sorry (‘why is the precious meat brown?’). Like the labubu and asbestos, Saveloy Squids are a novel craze destined to ravage a significant cross section of the population with stealth carcinogens, predictably designed to thin the crowd before anybody even notices what’s going on. Forget the greys; squids are the REAL threat. The rats also discuss the perennial conditioning of women to be nice to men (vomit sound) and a Titanic-sinking conspiracy that’s as well researched as the government budget (cough). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What a world we’re living in! They say god is dead but the rats know our One True Lord and Saviour is convenience, a modus operandi that’s convenient to some and kind of a bum deal to others depending on which side your bread’s buttered on; (Global) North or South. And so, the rats spend some time swapping misadventures on Uber Pool that’s equal parts sympathetic to the plight of neo slavery (which our gig-economy indelibly is), while opining the acute angles of the inescapable human zoo we all find ourselves in (like with everything there are pros and cons). For example, what do you do when your uber driver’s on the tail end of a 12 hr shift and is clearly showing symptoms of a potentially homicidal nervous breakdown? Not much tbh because you’re not behind the wheel, so if he decides to take a sharp and final left off Grafton Bridge there’s not really much you can do about it; the fact he’s letting you vape in the car should take the edge off though (true story). Also also, join the rats in their mutual salivation as everyone’s favourite (maybe guilty) pleasure Florence and the Machine gears up for another bombastically operatic release. We don’t know about you but the rats enjoy Flo’s self described ‘incorrigible maximalism’ as a salve to an otherwise risk averse media landscape that’s all petit blondes and fourteen carat labubus (snore). Also; are you team Ethel or team Lana? Also also; does it matter which pale-skinned pop star you’re allegiant to when we’re cusping societal collapse? You bet it does! Inevitably, our pop preferences will dictate which cannibal urban gangs we self-organise into once the beehive goes radio silent and we’re fighting nazis for bags of pestilence riddled flour in the streets. I know which swamp queen I’m rooting for. Protect your local rats and get bonus content here: patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.