The 58th Episode of "The Five 8"

The Season Finale of our live YouTube show, and other PREVAIL programming notes

As longtime PREVAIL readers know, I rarely use this space for announcements and administrative updates. I regard these pages as a 21st century take on an old-fashioned newspaper column, and I prefer to use them for that purpose. I don’t send around pitches for subscriptions, and I never put anything behind a paywall.

However, because I am on hiatus for a few weeks, and because I have an influx of new subscribers—Welcome to our lovely comment-board community! And: thank you for your support!—who may not be familiar with the schedule, I wanted to briefly explain what to expect at PREVAIL:

On Tuesday, I run long-form news analysis pieces. Sometimes these are more journalistic in nature. Sometimes they are more op-ed. Always, there are jokes.

On Friday, the podcast comes out. “PREVAIL with Greg Olear” is about politics, history, national security, foreign affairs, organized crime, dirty money, global corruption, and the fight for democracy. To supplement the audio, I write a shorter piece here, inspired by something touched on in the podcast interview.

And Sunday is for “Sunday Pages,” where I write about a poem, song, novel, short story, or some other work of art that I find inspiring. I have found that if I don’t spend a little time each week focused on, you know, non-evil, it is bad for my mental health.

As O.G. subscribers can attest, I rarely take breaks. And even when I do take breaks, I post content on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. Because I’m on a hiatus for the next two weeks, and because the podcast will be dark until Season Six kicks off on August 25, PREVAIL will be more eclectic than usual during that interval. I hope you enjoy what I’ve cooked up for you. As always, I thank you for your support. My work is not possible without you, and I am grateful.

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Another project of mine is The Five 8, a live YouTube show I co-host on Friday nights at 5 Pacific, 8 Eastern, with my friend Stephanie Koff (aka LB, for Lincoln’s Bible). This is a blow-off-steam kind of show, where we discuss five of the week’s most fucked-up topics for eight minutes each. So: five topics, eight minutes, two hosts, a guest, some singing, a lot of curse words, and as many cocktails as we deem necessary. (The rate of Manhattan consumption is directly proportional to the uptick of f-bombs, much to my mother’s chagrin.)

Tonight, our Season 3 Finale, is also the 58th episode of The Five 8. My occult leanings don’t extend to numerology, but that seems significant somehow. You can watch here:

There’s also evolving opening-credits animation by the brilliant Chunk, as well as a weekly karaoke or similar satirical bit. Usually this is something that originates in audio form on my podcast, that LB and Chunk then go to town with. Here are some examples:

One of the pleasures of the live show is the chatroom, where members of our esteemed audience leave comments. As with the PREVAIL comment board, this has evolved into a wonderful community. If you haven’t watched, and you’re bored tonight, please do join us.

Keep cool, enjoy the weekend, and again: thank you!