It's a repulsively glorious fall day in Brooklyn. Seeking respite from his upstate rustication, Greg Jackson comes to the city to ask us, "Who are you guys?" In trying to answer him, we discuss Conrad, infantile ejaculation, polite literary readings, and nested storytelling. We take frequent breaks. Drew becomes rather maudlin. Lauren eats Port Sal…

We're so back, as they say, and we've recruited some struggle favorites to join us for a most unseemly return. We gather in Park Slope with 3 microphones, 4 dudes, and 1 Lauren. We talk about the text, for once. We talk about sojourns abroad and encounters with Kentuckian gastronomy. We perform close readings then forget our reading entirely. We si…

Listen as we discuss how we have the hard conversations in life.Από τον Guys With God

Listen as one man shares how God showed up in his life to give him a second chance.Από τον Guys With God

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Listen as we discuss how we deal with selfishnessΑπό τον Guys With God

Listen as we talk about loving our parents as they age.Από τον Guys With God

Listen as we talk about forgiveness in our lives’.Από τον Guys With God

Drew finally lifts his editing embargo and the show recently described as "your boyfriend's favorite podcast" returns with a special guest-- the esteemed, humble, and oddly jacked translator Max Lawton. We talk about...what the hell did we talk about? Many arcane Russian writers we don't know about, non-binary bombs, a bizarre fascistic musical (al…

We all struggle with finding balance in our lives. Listen as we share how we struggle to find balance in our lives.

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We all go through pain in our life. Listen as we share our pain, and how we try to find purpose through it.Από τον Guys With God

Often we focus on the future. Today we talk about being in the present.Από τον Guys With God

How we deal with our ideas of our lives versus God’s plan for us.Από τον Guys With God

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We all struggle with anxiety. Listen to how we share our struggles together today in how we handle anxiety.Από τον Guys With God

In this episode with cult fave 6'4" writer SAM KRISS, all motifs are on the table - literally. Drew has been heroically managing dry January by replacing alcohol with weird food and on the Wednesday evening we gathered at the Park Slope Manse, he presented Sam and Lauren with the most deranged assortment of snacks imaginable. As we loudly munched o…

We all doubt ourselves, and our faith at times. Listen as we share how we deal with doubt.Από τον Guys With God

The importance of having someone in your life to hold you accountable. Someone to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. A true friend!Από τον Guys With God

Love is boring and breakups are banal. Flight attendants are gay and have extraordinarily high body counts. We’re calling for a New Sensualism! Have you read The Line of Beauty? Drew’s getting into astrology and martinis, Lauren’s still running the show. Alex Dimitrov is, in fact, a respected poet–published in The New Yorker, no less. He likes gett…

If you want to see changes in your life, those changes have to start with you!

We're back! Really! Having revived ourselves with grapefruit Spindrift and coffee following our lackluster 2nd anniversary show, we invited Andrew 'actually Armenian' Martin, author of the novel Early Work and the short story collection Cool for America, to join us at Lauren's Park Slope manse for a rollicking discussion of Book 2's famous face-sla…

As that haunting summer feeling takes hold, Lauren and Drew languidly reflect on another year of podcasting and readerly fellowship. Along the way they read some KOK and respond to calls from the usual band of dilettantes, devotees, and detractors. A goblin-schnozzed Czech puppet called Mickey makes a special appearance as well.…

Good news: it's our first in-person recording in half a year. Bad news (a la Teddy St. Aubyn): Audio interface ran out of battery so it cuts off sorry Buy Jon's book: Body High We'll get back to Karl Ove soon we promise. Have brain damage? Consider donating to our Patreon: patreon.com/ourstruggle

We're back! We're talkin schlong! We're on Patreon, finally! It's season 4....after taking a month and half off from the show to work on their tans, Lauren and Drew return, joined, this time, by the beloved novelist Gary Shteyngart, zooming in from his Rolex-stuffed country estate in the Hudson Valley. Knowing that many of our listeners are fans of…

***TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR OUR 6/2 LIVE SHOW! EVENTBRITE LINK HERE*** -KGB is a very small venue and we've already sold 60% of the tickets so if you want to see our first and likely last ever live show, do buy your ticket ASAP! -Friends of the show Christian Lorentzen and Dean Kissick are confirmed as guests. And there will probably be 1 to 2…

We're back! And joined by Felix Biederman, a promising young podcaster recently arrived in Los Angeles whom we condescended to let on the show. Although by no means a "bookhead" -- to appropriate his charming coinage -- Felix is a longtime fan of Karl Ove Knausgaard. The Norwegian author became a source of strength for Felix when he first encounter…

A lot of people when they realize that Drew is not on this episode are going to say I betrayed him but what you need to know is that we're actually POLY now and I can podcast with any man I choose. Also Drew was supposed to show up to this recording and didn't. WE HAD A LOT OF FUN WITHOUT DREW! My good friend Alec Niedenthal and I went to see The N…

Finally! It's Rhythm Time! To discuss one of the most notorious and worst written passages of Book 2, we invited back our homie James Griffiths, the Welsh warrior and three-time struggle King, who told us that these pages made him "want to get a vasectomy." Also in this episode: A "lover's quarrel" between Lauren and Drew (saga to be cont.); we unc…

We're still alive! And at the incessant nagging of the Our Struggle Office of Diversity and Inclusion, joined by Canadian woman writer Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood, and the newly out PURE COLOUR (note the canadian spelling). This was a great episode - we didn't talk about Knausgaard so much (although Sheila had a good …

Welcome back! This is a classic struggle, in which we were joined by our new friend, yet another Jewish writer named Andrew. You can buy his (Andrew Lipstein's) novel LAST RESORT out now. It's getting good reviews. Lauren's half awake notes: 0:00 – marc maron-style appeal to buy mug 3:30 - geriatric pregnancy, half of face paralyzed, run into a pol…

Thursday night, a living room in upper Manhattan. Two podcasters - a wayward English teacher (Andrew Ohringer) and a sardonic nanny (Lauren Teixeira) -- have invited their friend, a young playwright recently arrived from Flatbush (Matthew Gasda), onto their show to discuss his new underground hit play "Dimes Square," a razor-sharp send-up of contem…

In which we discuss Mating (Norman Rush's luminous 1991 novel), and mating. Happy Valentine's Day PS. Please buy our mug

Alright folks - we finally got equipment for IRL recording but the catch is, we did too much IRL hanging out this weekend so by the time we figured out the equipment we were out of things to say. I mean there's some good stuff in here but shouldn't be any kind of priority unless you're some kind of freak who's desperate to hear the EXQUISITE TIMBRE…

WE'RE BACK! In the Our Struggle Pod season 3 premiere, L&D are joined by the author, critic, panelist, flaneur, enfant terrible and Ratatouille character inspiration, the giant (confirmed 6'5") of British letters, Mr Will Self. In this barn burner of an episode, Will talked to us about why he has no time for his fellow towering autofictionist Karl …

Original tune by Drew Ohringer, with some Zombies at the end

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, HELP US WORSHIP MAMMON! Link to store ---- In this end of the year Christmas special, our two Hebraic hosts convene to discuss the Yuletide-set Part One of Ingmar Bergman's 1983 masterpiece, Fanny and Alexander. What resonances does this warm, nostalgic account of a Swedish boy's fantasy life have with our Jesus in the sea seei…

He was late; he always is. - Kyle C. doesn't seem too put off my his riff about misogyny in the kitchen, at least. - My Struggle, minimalist or maximalist? Is all autofiction minimalist? Is it funny to call her "Rachel Cuck"? A lot of questions, not so many answers. - Vanja puts on her golden shoes and goes to Stella's birthday party. Vanja shows o…

WE'RE BACK! After a long illness, Drew returns to the zoom stage and helps Lauren to heartily welcome certified Knausgaard expert Professor Claus Andersen to the pod for an extremely, almost disconcertingly, on-topic episode. itemization: 0:00 - molasses cookies; Boston trauma; struggle mug plug (preorder yours today! link to store) 31:40 - we welc…

A rainy Sunday night in ---. Two broadcasters, a man and a woman recently arrived from Central Park, convene in the cramped kitchen of the man's lodging with Malbec and Port Salut. There is much to speak of - the Kinks, a mangled papaya dog, an invective against tweets by Wallace Shawn (Swan?) - but as their trivial chatter progresses, a mystery em…

October 31, 2021The autumn has been long; and the weather, a mood. The leaves are perfectly gold here on the Gold Coast (that swathe of Brooklyn lining the East River - Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens -- where the bourgeois-bohemian class reproduces) and soon I, William Staley (more commonly and phallicly known as Willy)…

Drew's cover of All The Things She Said by t.A.T.u.

She showed up smoking marlboro lights and talking about a ribbon store nearby. This was on west 38 street, where I’d rented, for 250 dollars, a studio for the recording sesh. My voice was ragged, frayed, like late period Dylan, on account of a cold I acquired in Greenpoint, at a play, and three classes a day on the Metamorphosis: I encouraged my st…

I have to go to Dayton Ohio in a second to visit my Aunt Bunny but long story short it was the afternoon of the Brooklyn Tote Bag Fest, Drew took shelter in the den of the Wizard of Remsen Street fka Christian Lorentzen and he podded from there while the Cousins beamed in from across the POnd. (I was back in the finished basement of the Old House.)…

After a run of guests who are total sweethearts in addition to being huge fans of the show & Knausgaard, Lauren and Drew, longing for some friction, welcome the notorious sex writer & Knausgaard skeptic Delicious Tacos to the pod. Turns out the pseudonymous de Sade actually bears a lot of similarities to Knaus (albeit much hornier) - but can L&D co…

Drew is shirtless and eating 5% Fage. Lauren walks us through her coffee making process. We respond to a series of increasingly deranged missives and talk Marguerite Duras, Pirates of the Caribbean, Little Rascals, situationism, Morrissey in Sweden, spinach, fapping to Wallace Shawn. We promise to not do this again for another year.…

Well we were GOING to do this all in one go but then Drew supposedly got recognized at local watering hole Clandestino by a listener who took him to the underworld (brooklyn) and I guess something unspeakable ensued because Drew showed up an hour late to our recording session and looked and sounded like absolute death. It actually made for some pre…

We're back! After their triumphant NYC debut, Lauren is back in DC, Drew's moved into Morningside Heights with his Jane Goodall-fancying roommate, and they're ready to chat Grandma's shit death house with their pal Donny Morrissey, an investigative journalist and fan of the show who was first K-pilled some years ago during a stint in county jail fo…

After six years apart, Lauren and Drew reunite in the Den of the Wizard of Remsen Street (noted literary critic Christian Lorentzen) to produce [sic] an episode that some will call unlistenable and others mumblecore. They bear witness to the completion of a new Lorentzen piece (“I’m going to see my editor at the bar later,” he says). Lauren fiddles…