Getting Through This with Tom and Scott

As scrupulously honest and transparent hosts, who accept no recompense(not even cows), for their praise of products, Tom and Scott hope the day never comes when betting will taint the podcast world with hosts tipping off their friends about what they're going to talk about.

The Flaneur in Winter. As the foremost flaneurs in America, Tom and Scott stroll with no set purpose or destination in mind. But how do they navigate their flaneuring under freezing conditions?

Tom fears wearing a scarf. But more shockingly, Scott not only embraces scarf wearing, but he recently bought one that feels so soft on his neck that he feels like a million dollars. Which is different than actually being a millionaire.

Facial tissues are nothing to sniff about. Scott never leaves the house without them, and we explain, rather persuasively, why you should too.

Tom hasn't slipped on the ice so far this winter, but will celebrating that fact tempt fate?

Scott announces that he is adding a new profession to his resume which already includes comedian, comedy teacher, self appointed unelected co-mayor of Irving Place in Manhattan, and of course Nobel Prize deserving podcaster. What is this profession and how will he work it into his busy schedule? The answer may surprise you.

Skiing is expensive, difficult to learn and causes injury, so we propose a teturn of long neglected winter sports, and lavish resorts exclusively for sledding, tobagganning, and making snowmen.

A trip to the nations capital and a particular exhibet at a huge museum yields a brain storming event about how to make using the dishwasher, taking care of a demanding cat and even shaving extremely fun and creative.

Scooping legacy media, Tom and Scott vividly describe a birthday dinner for 10 in Chinatown's best restaurant that was completely ignored by the press. The event, managed ably by Tom's fiancee Sandy, is likened to a festive scene in a Bob Hope-Bing Crosby road picture. But that reference raises a dark question: what if, as in those old films from Hollywood's "golden age", we were actually being fattened to be eaten by cannibals? The truth is wonderfully reassuring.

The entire news media, from The New York Times to youtubers with selfie sticks, ignored Tom's birthday -- and he couldn't be happier. This leads to a discussion of a bizarre birthday tradition affecting children in the Midwest during Tom's childhood. Trigger alert, this could be traumatizing to older, extremely sensitive listeners.

Scott tells a riveting and important story of how he recently opened an old earbud case and found a wad of cash which he had forgotten about. Tom suggests this powerful true life account could warm the hearts of every human, even criminals. This leads to exciting speculation about Scott reading his podcast intro to convicts, a la Johnny Cash singing at Folsum Prison!

Cable news pundits have discovered that "two things can be true at once" but we start out by making fun of obvious truth and wind up telling true stories about chicken feet in China.

Scott's annual proclamation in earlyJanuary heralding the beginning of slightly longer days also inaugurates the season invented on this podcast of "pre-spring". Tom predicts our little tradition will one day become a world-wide week of wild celebration -- but will sarcastic "snarkos" spoil the party?

Under garments thrown at celebrities leads to a realization Scott could be a CEO for any company at least for a year. We also explain the potental dangers of "the golden parachute".

Socks have gone missing for centuries, but Getting Through This reveals one man's lonely but determined effort to get to the bottom of the neglected problem and track down missing socks as if they were missing people.

On this podcast we tell a true-life modern Christmas Story about four adults and their effort to enjoy a Christmas meal in New York City. But will "Twas A Dinner In Chinatown" take it's place in the pantheon of 'Christmas literature alongside such enduring classics as "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"? Or will our story evaporate from the public consciousness like snow on a warm weekend in March?

Two vacation trips, one idyllic, with Scott lolling in the Carribean with his girlfriend Ginger while Tom and his fiancee Sandy's trip to Lisbon runs into a road block: a general strike in Portugal means all flights are cancelled. No trains either. But Sandy and Tom don't give up -- which in this case is rather costly.

Finally our "podcast of record" deals with Artificial intelligence, but as always the conversation evolves, and the discovery of a new pleasure and source of secret pride: being the "first laugher".

Tom reveals he is not on Facebook and tells why in a devastating rant that could end social media in general. But then he drops the other shoe, in a twist that will flummox media experts.

A possibly historic SNAFU resulted in the 800th episode of GTT turning out to be episode 801! But if that weren't shocking enough, in an important and serious twist we imagine the world leaders gathering in Tom's Fiancee Sandy's 9 bedroom bed and breakfast in the Catskill Mountains and working out their differences over one historic weekend. But would Putin be happy with the "Gazebo Room?" or would he still complain? More questions than answers, but still lots of shocking answers.

We're back! The historic four week long blackout of our podcast due to technical difficulties has finally ended. And in the returning episode we reveal the folly of lamenting something that never happened.

Scott is back from Italy, and describes how he decided against doing the podcast entirely in Italian since he doesn't know more than a handful of Italian phrases. This turned into a spirited ongoing conversation about whether travel stories need to be primarily about travel mishaps and disasters, and if so, does jet lag count? Jet lag as an excuse for extreme or even criminal behavior is discussed, and as always our discussion results in a workable solution to a problem no one else is talking about for which we should receive a Nobel Prize.

While Scott is in Italy,with his girlfriend Ginger, Tom admits he exagerrated his friends Scott and Ginger's relationship to Italian Royalty when describing them to his visiting nephew. In an effort to keep from disappointing his nephew, Tom tries to get Scott and Ginger to return to New York for just one hour and pretend to be related to Italian royalty, then return to Italy. Will Scott make such a grueling trip, just to keep Tom from being embarrassed?

Tom made a visit to New York by his nephew, nieceand grand niece by describing cohost Scott as Italian royalty, even though he isn't Italian or royal. Adding to the pickle, Tom promised that Scott and his girlfriend would fly back from Italy just for one hour to regale Tom's relatives with royal Italian anecdote, then fly back. What would be Scott's response?

Scott is a modern day jet setter, suavely performing on a podcast by day, jetting off to Italy with his lady friend by night. Yet, weighing on him is the unfinished business of a storage unit in Brooklyn. Obviously this led to a time-travel enabled 1960s style movie half in color depicting Scott's swinging flight to Italy and the other half a black and white 1950s Italian neorelist movie grimly forcing us to look at the Scott's struggle to empty a bleak storage unit.

A recent dinner results in no acts of heroism, which Scott recalls in an intro that explores acts of non-heroism. The intro is positive and pleasant that Tom imagines it could shock a huge auditorium of a well-dressed podcast audience into complete quietude. But what happens next will even warm the hearts of the congenitally cynical.

Tom struggles with a new identity: hero. For driving his fiancee and friends to, around and back from the Catskills he is amply lauded by his grateful passengers . But will random strangers find out about his heroism and expect him to perform heroic acts at their beck and call and whim? "you'd be a REAL hero if you drove our toddler to school while my husband and I have breakfast in bed" Yikes!

Scott gets a covid shot, igniting a spirited Lasker Prize-worthy discussion of the pandemic and its lingering effects that inspires Tom to devise a totally new take on the "breath of fresh air" cliche.

Tom stares a horrible truth in the face: in college he came within a hairs breadth of choosing to pursue a career in philosophy, but instead how he dodged a bullet that would have resulted in never coming to New York, never pursuing comedy, never doing this podcast, and the rest of his life being tragically worse than pointless.

Scott's summertime ferry ride to Far Rockaway adds to a growing mountain of evidence that he is not the land-lubber he and everyone else has always assumed, and in fact he could eventually become the captain of a huge cruise ship, almost by default.

On a rainy day in the Catskills Tom finds himself forced to check in guests to a hotel, despite it not being his job or even something he kmows how to do. This while his fiancee, the actual owner of the hotel, has gone sightseeing with an extremely talkative home-wrecker.

When Scott attended a "cabaret concert" at a nearby Polish Consulate, he couldn't have known he would wind up having a lengthy face-to-face conversation with a high ranking official in the Polish government -- or that his conversation may have averted an international incident, just by not causing one as the result of a joke or something that doesn't translate well and causes serious confusion.

Despite being on the list of the 500 most embarrassing people in North America and despite the fact that many of the embarrassing events that put Tom on that list occurred at parties, Tom accepted an invitation to a friend's labor day gathering in New Jersey. Spoiler alert: get ready to cringe.

Scott describes his walk in Central Park and ponders the end of summer in an intro that Tom claims is better than anything ever written in The New Yorker. To drive home his point, Tom declares that as soon as they finish building their time machine, the first stop should be New York in the 1920s, when Scotty will join the wits and literary giants who share their bon mots around the famed Algonquin Round Table.

This one is hard, as we revisit the fact that Tom is one of the 500 most embarrassing people in North America, mostly because of a horrifying series of party fouls. But we also talk about Tom's brave struggle to finally get off "the list that no one wants to be on".

Cab you have a memorable meal in a 106 year old Italian restaurant in the Bronx and live to tell about it? Scott Blakeman's true story reveals the surprising answer to that seldom asked question, and the stakes couldn't be higher.

Beauty has always been and always will be skin deep and even more deeply unfair -- until someone invents "lovliness glasses". These digital marvels will make anyone who wears them think everyone else is amazing looking. But there could be unintended consequences.

While therapists flee their profession during the August "dog days", Tom and Scott continue our podcast mission, while exploding our assumptions about the origin of the term "dog days".

Have we created a new digital type of archeology? Tom unearths past episodes of Getting Through This, that reveal the dawn of our podcast. The result is like exploring King Tut's tomb for the second time, which is still very thrilling. The many fascinating and signficant treasures include the true story of a heroic young woman who once upon a time made Scott's Hanukka very special, using only her hands.

Hollywood keeps this part of the process hidden, but in a historic behind the scenes peek at the birth of a new youtube series Tom and Scot discuss the ideas that will turn them and their friend Bill into the Three Non-Stooges! The opposite of the famous Stooges of yore, they would respect each other and never hurt each other, especially not putting their fingers in anyone's eyes. Oh, and they will explore the best ideas culled from the podcast over the years, competently.

Francis Ford Coppola's efforts to make his film Megalopolis profitable by appearing at screenings to answer questions prompts Tom to imagine the next level of movie Q and A sessions in which he and Scott appear on stage in large theaters with no movie, just Q and A sessions in which they discuss with audiences a film that was not yet made, and probably never will be.

Scotty dares to does what on this podcast has been controversial, to put it mildly: He opens the episode with a travel anecdote, in this case about a recent trip to Chicago and the northern suburbs of Northbrook and Evanston, in which everything is wonderful and no accidents occur, no mishaps, no embarrassments... no etc. Everything is wonderful. Instead of chiding Scott about this yet again, this time Tom goes future-positive and imagines Scott's ultra happy anecdotes herald a new kind of story telling, fiction and non fiction, with no villains, no conflicts of any sort, only lovely people being nice!

Time travel in real time as for the first time ever Tom plays audio recordings he made with a friend 50 years ago in Munich West Germany (before the fall of the Berlin Wall!). Now shocking improv efforts reveal the 1970s, an era when adult comedy knew no bounds and "cancellation" was only something people did with an unneeded airplane reservation.

Tom and Scott's plans and hopes for the remaining days of summer are threatened by the seductive siren call of Lady Procrastination.

A Tree Is Chopped Down In The Catskills, angers a neighbor and becomes the hottest bestseller yet to be written and published -- then a movie and finally a Tony winning musical!

Tom and Scott update listeners on the delights and danger of flaneuring during extremely hot weather:

A terrrified call in the middle of the night sends Scott on a mission in Manhattan to see why Tom is not answering his phone.

Tom boldly declares his opposition to a national dress code, which no one has yet proposed but better safe than sorry. Scott proposes he recieve for this a Nobel Prize.

A spur-of-the moment trip to glorious Lake George New York with a shockingly delightful outing to a summer camp for musical prodigies is marred only by loud and unwelcome trivia contests. But fortunately Tom's ordeal is not shared by Scott, whose 4th of July was flawless.

A fantastic dinner at an iconic Italian restaurant in Queens could result in a hostile congressional hearing in which Scott must defend the truth of his claim that he "traveled around the world" but never ate such good chicken parmigiana.

A torrid 'heat dome' that plunged the Northeast into record uncomfortable people, and a new slogan to promote a mass movement to a mountainous region north of New York City..