Kristen Meinzer

What is it like getting older when you’re part of the first generation of gay people to live fully out of the closet? And who cares for you as you exit the world? We explore these issues with Laurie Young, aging policy analyst at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Brenda Austin, a retiree in her late sixties, who lives in New York and has been out of the closet since the 1950s.

What will the biggest movie at the box office be this weekend? It very well may be "Knight and Day," the new romcom-action send up of the action movie genre with megastars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

James Mangold, director of "Knight and Day," joins the program to talk about why his new action comedy isn't that different from his Oscar-winning film "Walk the Line," and how "Girl Interrupted" (another of his Oscar winners) and "3:10 to Yuma" have more in common than one might see at first glance.

Takeaway film contributor, Rafer Guzman reviews this weekend's big movies.

The Adam Sandler powered "Grown Ups" is positioned to lead the box office. The film follows Sandler and fellow comedians (Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider) who play childhood friends who still can't quite grow up. But, says Rafer, don't expect any surprises from this one.

In "Knight and Day" Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz join up in the fast-paced, action-comedy; and although the plot is implausible, Cruise is at his best in a long time.

Thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, many aspects of our private lives are made public – whether it’s where we ate dinner last night or the person with whom we chose to eat that meal.

Of course, most of these bits and pieces are benign, or, depending on who you ask, even boring. But for some people - specifically gay people who are closeted or trying to come out - they can serve as an announcement about their sexual orientation.

It's summer time, and what better time to enjoy a fruit pie or the triumph of culinary competition? We're doing both in The Takeaway's summer fruit pie smackdown.

Melissa Clark from the New York Times is ready to rumble with her sour cherry pie. And Deb Perelman of smittenkitchen.com brings her own strawberry rhubarb pie to the competition.

Serving as the judge is Emily Elsen, third-generation pie maker, featured chef on the Cooking Channel's Unique Eats, and owner (along with her sister Melissa Elsen) of Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Shop in Brooklyn, NY.  (recipes after the jump.)

With the unemployment rate for people in their twenties hovering around 15 percent, it’s tempting for recent college grads to just skip the terrible job market and stay in school. And many of them are doing just that. Last year, there was a 6 percent increase in graduate school enrollment, and this year, 27 percent of college grads will go to grad school instead of entering the job market. But Takeaway work contributor Beth Kobliner says it might not be the best choice for everyone.

Most people know Michael Chabon as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”

And most people know his wife Ayelet Waldman as the controversial essayist who once ruffled feathers by claiming she was more in love with her husband than her kids.

But behind Chabon and Waldman’s high profile writing careers is a very real family, consisting of two parents, four kids, and – as Ayelet writes in her book, “Bad Mother ” - her own mental illness.

Fifty years ago this summer, Harper Lee’s only book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” was published. Popular with critics and readers from the beginning, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and a year later was adapted for film, with Gregory Peck starring as Atticus Finch, and Mary Badham as his daughter, 'Scout.'

Today, in honor of To Kill a Mockingbird’s anniversary, we talk with Mary Badham, about her Oscar-nominated role in the film.

This week, thousands of gaming professionals from around the world are gathering in Los Angeles for the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. Buzz is building around new gaming toys, including Microsoft's "Kinect": a camera-based controller that watches your every move, and lets your body serve as the joystick. But while these new technologies will change how we play video games, Tom Bissell says videogames have already begun changing in a more fundamental way.

It's the time of year when companies around the nation ask employees and employers to have what's usually an awkward conversation: the 'performance review.' We'll be hearing from a management professor who thinks we should simply do away with them entirely. Do you have to do one? Do you have to conduct one?  Are they helpful, or is there a better way to get the information across?

Rafer and Kristen talk martial arts movies, including new ("The Karate Kid," 2010) and old ("The Karate Kid," 1984).

In American culture, the mantra is that we’re all created equal, and for many of us, that message begins at home with our parents, who claim they love all their children equally and choose no favorites.

Dr. Ellen Weber Libby is a clinical psychologist, and says that, while parents may indeed love all their children equally, they’re lying when they say they have no favorites.

We all know Joan Rivers as a comedian, talk show host, red carpet personality, writer, and season 2 Celebrity Apprentice winner. But now, the woman famous for asking “Can We Talk?” is adding the job title “documentary subject” to her resume, as well.

Rafer and Kristen talk with comedy legend Joan Rivers and Ricki Stern, director of the just-released documentary, "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work." 

Last Friday, Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser began an unusual experiment. They published the first three chapters of their young adult vampire novel “My Darklyng” on slate.com. Every Friday for the rest of the summer, they’ll be publishing three more chapters.

Of course, for anyone familiar with the history of serialized novels, none of this is particularly newsworthy. But there is something unique about “My Darklyng” that could pave a new way for novels and technology to play off each other in the near future: Specifically, each character in the story has her own online life outside of the novel – including Facebook pages with photos, twitter feeds, Wikipedia entries, and videos posted on Youtube.

For this week’s food segment, we host an all-new Takeaway cooking smackdown.

On the menu: Barbecue sauce.

On the mat: Chef Rossi (of the Raging Skillet and Bust Magazine, as well as star of WOMR’s "Bite This") and Cathy Erway (blogger behind noteatingoutinny.com, author of "The Art of Eating In", and host of Heritage Radio Network’s "Let's Eat In").

On everyone’s minds: How will Cathy Erway’s history as a BBQ judge influence her sauce making? Will Chef Rossi’s reputation as “New York’s Wildest Caterer” be evident in her BBQ sauce? What secret ingredients will each of them be bringing to the table? And whose sauce will win The Takeaway’s crown? Recipes after the jump.

Rafer and Kristen discuss live action animal movies, from this week's "Marmaduke" to older classics ("Babe," "Ol' Yeller"). No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast.

The American workforce is still surprisingly segregated by gender, and this separation does not seem to benefit women. Two-thirds of working women are concentrated in only five percent of occupational categories. And in the few fields where more than 90 percent of workers are women – like childcare and food preparation – the pay tends to be low. Compare this low pay to male-dominated industries (there are a lot of them). Almost one in four job categories, such as construction work and trucking consist of workforces that are almost exclusively male. And those same jobs pay up to 30 percent more than traditionally female jobs like secretarial work.

How do you raise a child who's going to grow up to be wildly successful? (And maybe even a centibillionaire?) That's a version of the question every parent asks themselves. Every parent wants their kids to be successful, to be wise, to be decent people. Very few, when their children are born, think, “I want my kid to be the world’s first centibillionaire.”

It's Friday, it's summer, and that can only mean one thing: it's movie time. Today we take a look at the latest in a long line of bromances, “Get Him To The Greek,” which hit theaters today.