Send us Fan Mail

Jen and Chris Fenton sit down the day after the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards and serve a classic Plate & Ponder mix of glitter, grit, and empty-nest parenting. They kick off with the simple luxury of lunch at the Sunset Marquis while L.A. is still buzzing from Madonna, Swift, Snoop, and the rest of the VMA circus—proof that sometimes the best part of awards season is the quiet table the morning after.

Then the conversation splits, hot and cold. Jen is all-in on John Mayer taking “Your Body Is a Wonderland” (and the rest of his catalog) to the Vegas Sphere in April; Chris is cooler on the spectacle, the ticket prices, and whether another giant-orb residency is what the moment needs. That banter becomes the on-ramp to bigger questions: the world’s shortage of basic humanity, the need to actually protect Good Samaritans instead of punishing them, and what parents should tell their daughters and sons after this week’s Cornell story—the alleged 2024 frat-house assault, the lawsuit, the reopened investigation, and the ugly texts that followed. They treat it as a teaching moment about consent, bystander courage, institutional failure, and not looking away.⁠

They close on two kitchen-table headaches that feel very 2026: airfares that keep climbing, and emergency rooms nationwide that are still short on attention, resources, and people. Typical Fenton: funny about the hotel lunch, split on Mayer, dead serious about how we raise the next generation and what we owe the people who show up when it counts.