Today’s episode was one of my favorite kinds — the kind where the conversation goes everywhere in the best, most eclectic, totally on-brand Whatever way.
and I opened with musicals (Wicked: For Good? Not so good, I thought), Stranger Things anticipation, and my personal PSA about men who rule themselves out as too clueless to date within three texts on dating apps.But the moment joined us from London, the show locked into this gorgeous, geeky, cultural groove.
Corina — longtime culture writer, former food critic for The Stranger, former writer for The Village Voice, and now host of the podcast
— is exactly the kind of guest we adore: sharp, funny, self-aware, politically awake, and deeply committed to amplifying women’s voices.She talked about her Stranger days — the joy of writing restaurant reviews that were actually weird and fun (“my sandwich is going to eat me, dude”), the freedom alt-weeklies used to give writers, and the thrill of developing a voice outside the constraints of “proper” criticism. She and I bonded, hard, over the glory days of Seattle’s indie scene and the Three Imaginary Girls era.
Then we got into her move to London — a dream twenty years in the making for an ’80s new-wave girl who grew up worshiping British bands. Now her life is a resurrection tour of all the English bands she loved: Suede, Bauhaus, and Jarvis Cocker pulling random objects from a trash bag at the Southbank Centre like some kind of chaotic art priest. I wanted to teleport through the screen and go with her.
But the heart of the episode was Corina’s podcast, where she interviews women doing extraordinary work across art, science, technology, advocacy, and food. Her recent interview with Olivia Campbell-Cavendish, the first Black trans woman accepted to the UK bar, was a lightning-bolt moment: Corina described floating for days afterward, the kind of conversation that reminds you why you create anything at all.
We talked about women’s rights in the U.S. and U.K., the exhaustion of being expected to educate everyone as a marginalized person, and the ongoing fight against disinformation, fascism, and the erosion of dignity. We talked about representation, connection, hope, and why centering women and queer voices is not just joyful — it’s necessary.
Corina’s dream is simple and ambitious at once: keep interviewing amazing women from every corner of life. Wrestlers. Forensics experts. Psychologists. Artists. Anyone whose work reveals something essential about being alive right now.
And honestly? Same. That’s why we keep showing up here at The Daily Whatever Show six days a week.
Thank you
, , , , , and many others for tuning in.We love you, mean it!
