Doomed Planet

#091: Billionaire owner of trailer parks and destroyer of newspaper worlds Sam "the grave dancer" Zell has taken his last ride. PLUS: Podcast shoutout to Ironweeds out of Troy, New York. One of the hosts is the author of The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America. ALSO: Anti-abortion goblin Mark Gietzen lost his right to life in a plane crash.

#102: Gig economy food delivery startup Instacart has finally filed for an initial public offering. Sales peaked during the pandemic and are now flat, with little realistic growth on the horizon. An exploitative business model continues to harm the company's image and alienate employees. Formidable competitors have emerged, and relationships with supermarket corporations are tenuous. The founders and their venture capitalist sponsors will cash out, but not at the levels they dreamed of even a year ago. The Instacart I.P.O. will be a disaster for the drivers too - they get nothing.

#094: The Gooey Duck Song was a regional hit inspired by the geoduck, a giant mollusk named by aboriginals for it's phallic appearance.

ALSO: Evergreen college claimed the geoduck as it's mascot in 1971. The Gooey Duck song became a standard campfire ditty for Washington State summer camp kids. Koch brothers lackey Mike Rowe defiled a geoduck corpse on his reality TV show.

PLUS: Obituaries for the damned! We asked Chat GPT to write farewell songs for Berlusconi, Watt and the Unabomber.

#098: We tour a cemetery and see rabbits, gated communities for the deceased and a lavish monument to Seattle guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

PLUS: Mulletsploitation films American Movie, The Dancing Outlaw, Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Demon Lover Diary.

#008: Tacoma chef and minister Jeff Smith sold millions of books and had a hit TV show, but when multiple victims of his sexual abuse came forward his career was destroyed and he was forced to pay millions. He died a lonely and broken man.