It Could Happen Here - Hot Dogs Are Horrifying Ft. Jamie Loftus

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Mia, Shereen, and Gare chat with award winning podcaster Jamie Loftus about her new book Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, hot dog labor and animal rights, and some truly accursed hot dog movie...s. linktr.ee/jamierawdog See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.
Starting point is 00:00:32 I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers
Starting point is 00:00:44 as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. It's It Could Happen Here. Look, I didn't think of an intro for this one I really should have I apologize to the readers I was reading about Chinese osu! wii's instead
Starting point is 00:01:47 Yeah, this is a podcast that's I don't know, it's about things I'm here with Garrett What a useful description Unlike all those other podcasts Which aren't about things And ours is actually about things And today it's about hot dogs.
Starting point is 00:02:06 And in order to talk about hot dogs, we're joined by Jamie Loftus, whose new book, Raw Dog, The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, boldly asked the question, what if a book was good? Welcome to the show, Jamie. Hello. Hello. So good to be here to talk about things. This is like the thingiest thing uh available i think yeah so i i read this book in okay i don't know how you're actually supposed to divide up like if you stand up to go to the bathroom in the middle of a sitting is that still one sitting but is it
Starting point is 00:02:36 now increased to two things yeah so i read this book in one sitting and it was great oh one sitting with a with a bathroom break there. I think there was two technically. But yeah, yeah, it was a good time. Yeah, I'm so glad you liked it. Yeah. And so, OK, so this is a book that's about hot dogs and also about it's a tale of human human and animal misery and suffering. And so as I was reading the book, my playlist pops up. Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird song, The Butcher's Share.
Starting point is 00:03:03 And so I'm like reading about this and the song starts going let's take a walk around the old bazaar where every little thing has traveled far every pair of pants and grain of rice contains a horror story and its price wow really uh really theming right at you. Yeah, I was like, wow, wow. Okay, I guess reality is just sort of telling me what the plot is right now. Yeah, I mean, in another case, I think it's really important that we're talking about this right now is that I believe your book was officially published on May 23rd. Yeah. the 23rd day in the fifth month, which is obvious of the year 2023, which is very important in the,
Starting point is 00:03:46 in the discordian calendar and your books about hot dogs, which is a specifically, it is the one sacred food in the religion of discordianism. So we, we like for these reasons, I think it's really, it's really important. We talk about this because you,
Starting point is 00:04:03 you must be a very powerful wizard to have figured this out. Yes. Yes, I had to reserve this date years in advance. I saw it coming. And, you know, and then by the time people caught on, it was too late. I had already wizarded my way into the most potent release date. And now, I mean, we all may be fucked because I didn't. Someone's going to assassinate JFK again.
Starting point is 00:04:33 It's going to be great. And this time his head is going to explode. Like there's twice as much blood in it as the original. It's going to be really shocking. The original. I love that. It's like, as the original series or movies, there's going to be a second, there's going to be a second grassy kn original. I love that. It's like, ask the original series or movies.
Starting point is 00:04:45 There's going to be a second grassy knoll stacked on top of the book depository. It's going to be amazing. Has reboot culture gone too far? You know, it's not that good. It's a good question. I was trying to do a reboot culture plug cycle back here thing, and I can't do it.
Starting point is 00:05:04 I'm a hack and a fraud, but I wanted to, yeah. So I wanted to talk to you a bit about one of the things you mentioned in the book is that you were trying to get into like, like try, try to be able to get tours of these, of these beef,
Starting point is 00:05:17 like packing plants. And it's just, they just like, didn't let you. So I wanted to ask a bit about like that process, because that seemed like it was incredibly chaotic. Yeah, it was really frustrating and humiliating. Kind of every step of the way where, I mean, as we were traveling, I had, you know, the map of places that I wanted to go. And then I also had a map of like a meatpacking plant that we could
Starting point is 00:05:40 possibly go to on the way. And so I reached out a little bit in advance and either got, I mean, got a ton of just no answers and I would try to call. But generally the excuse I was given was, well, we don't let people tour anymore since COVID because there were a few places. I know that the Vienna Beef Factory in Chicago used to do tours of very specific areas of the factory, kind of the least gnarly parts, which is saying nothing. But, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:14 there were places that you, that used to let civilians tour. And now it's just, unless things have changed in the last year or so, no one can. And on top of that, in certain states, and this is also shifting, but, um, ag-gag laws, I think make it way less possible and, um, appealing for any meatpacking plant to allow other people in, um, which is, I mean, the ag-gag law, um, rabbit hole is so sinister of just like instead of any meaningful improvement in meatpacking plants, they're inventing new laws to combat technology, which is just like terrifying. Yeah, I mean, that was a, well, was that technically pre-green scare? That's a good question. I think that was mostly like a mid-90s thing.
Starting point is 00:07:13 Yeah, but they've definitely kicked up. I mean, I think awareness of them in general has kicked up in the last couple of years. In sort of in step with how horrible conditions were for workers uh during lockdown after the executive order um i think there was like all of a sudden a heightened interest in wanting to investigate it and they were just blocked at every single turn and there are some i mean i know that some have been uh overturned or in the in the process of being overturned but um i don't know it it seems pretty bleak to me yeah yeah like you know i think on top of that right like we found out like what like a look up was it like a month ago like pretty recently also that there were a bunch of companies of these meatpacking companies that were just like using child labor and the children were getting horribly named. Yep. That, yeah, that, that was in, didn't make the book,
Starting point is 00:08:08 but I could have taken an educated guess. I, you know, like, it is like often so comically bad, it feels wrong, but it's just like so over the top horrible. And when it sounds like describing current meatpacking conditions in the U.S. sounds like you're describing meatpacking conditions 100 years ago, and they were actually slightly better 100 years ago. So it is very bleak. And the unions that still exist, but they are somewhat weakened and making it possible for laws like this to sneak through and active child labor. And there's, I know I put this in the book because it's something I think about all the time where,
Starting point is 00:08:54 you know, down the line, it was reported that not only was working at a meatpacking plant, one of the least safe jobs in the country during lockdown. But on top of that, a year later, it was revealed that the top brass at Tyson and Smithfield were directly colluding with the government and essentially drafted the executive order that was given in April 2020 to keep the meatpacking plants open. There were foremen and sort of middle managers at these companies that would take bets on how many of their employees would get sick. It was just like, it was cartoon evil. It was- Yeah. I'm constantly haunted by the taking bets thing. I think about that like once a week and
Starting point is 00:09:41 I'm like, I think your line was like a continued thing of how, how okay with you are you, are you with bringing the guillotine back? And I was like, you know, like, and it's the worst when it's like middle managers. I'm like, what is your, what is your end game here? Like it's, I mean, I know what the end game is, but it's so bleak to, you know, be making, you know, just getting by and still betting against your like, like vulnerable people that work for you, who you see every day. It's just like, I mean, whatever, not surprising, but yeah, it's like, wow, there's no, there's no justice in hot dog land. I'm so curious about how curated, what what they what information is allowed to be shared
Starting point is 00:10:27 like i'm curious if i don't know if they know how bad it is even or if they're just like conditioned not to not to think about it yeah from what i can tell uh there are and i write about one at length in the book because it's one of my favorite youtube clips of all time this like canadian tv show um that's like a i think it's just called how it's made uh yeah this is a very popular canadian television show it's i watched this a lot as a kid really yeah yeah yeah i i love i mean i love shows like that and i love specifically when they show you how something gross is made because they're really trying to like keep the mood light in a way that it's like so funny with hot dogs where it's like just these big machines farting out goo. And then there's like this baseline playing that's like a boom, boom, boom,
Starting point is 00:11:19 boom. The next step in the hot dogs journey is going to the shit. And you're like, like what it's so good but it's really i mean those those clips are ridiculously curated and to the point where it's like i can't even really tell you what's missing but i you know you can tell weird pr when you see it and um and yeah like they're sort of showing the easiest. I don't know. It reminds me. I don't know why I'm like in I'm like Theranos pilled today, but like it reminds me of the anecdote about Elizabeth Holmes where she was like taking Joe Biden around Theranos. And then there were like people in each room setting up the next room to look like it was a functioning business as they were taking him through the through the rooms and successfully deceived him that's very much what hot dog production clips feel like to me which is wild because they're still disgusting like you cannot make it look good um but yeah i don't know i mean going
Starting point is 00:12:19 back through years of reports um it's it's uh difficult, understandably so, to speak with people who work at meatpacking plants as well, because there's not a lot that they stand to gain from talking to reporters. But there was a good Washington Post report about it in the early 2000s that detailed not just labor abuses within the workforce, but how when you're not paying your employees enough and not keeping the equipment updated and are factory farming focused on just production, production, production, the animals are far worse off too.
Starting point is 00:12:57 And there were some pretty horrifying descriptions of what would happen to animals when people didn't have the the workforce or the um or the tools to be able to um you know slaughter an animal in not the most horrible way possible um i i i i like thought i had a like i'd like watch stuff before on factory farming and like i i don't i'm gonna have a real fun time sleeping tonight thinking about the fucking like I don't know I mean the illusion probably content warning this because this is
Starting point is 00:13:29 like the animal stuff and this is genuinely horrible like the specific thing I was looking at was like them talking about like they're like stunning the animal to kill it but the animal comes back and they're like literally chopping the animal apart while it's alive the animals like blinking at that like Jesus Christ it's like it's alive the animal's like blinking out there like jesus christ
Starting point is 00:13:45 it's like it's hot and then on the workers end it's like and don't stop or you're fired and like and you have no protection it's just like it's a it's a nightmare in a lot of places and there it came around in an interesting way with um Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest last year. Because they use, I don't know if they use Smithfield plants for all of their food, but certainly some of them. And there was a protester who came on stage while Joey Chestnut was gobbling 75 glizzies or something like that. And the protester was wearing a Darth Vader mask. And he had this sign that said like take down the smithfield death star and it was a good like a pretty solid protest it made it on tv
Starting point is 00:14:31 but then joey chestnut tackled him to the ground and then just stood up and kept eating hot dogs it was like i mean the protester was so in the right, but also watching Joey really take someone just in the middle of eating. He was like 40 hot dogs deep, tackled this guy to the ground. And on like the low res feed I was watching, it looked like he killed him. And I was like, what did Joey just do on ESPN?
Starting point is 00:15:01 Did he just kill a man? He didn't, but he injured someone. And he also had a man? He didn't, but he injured someone. And he also had a broken leg at the time. Joey, not the protester. So it was just like... And then he went back to eating hot dogs. And then he finished the contest
Starting point is 00:15:15 and he was like, well, I would have beat my own record, but unfortunately I had to pause for five seconds to kill someone. But anyways, yeah, especially Smithithfield i think is uh uniquely bad but smithfield and tyson is just like her like horrendous with with labor practices yeah i mean i think that was like i had a thing i was gonna say and then it simply evaporated from my mind uh you know what fucking ad break We're doing an ad break here to cover up my failures.
Starting point is 00:15:54 Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by
Starting point is 00:16:04 iHeart and Son sonora an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of latin america from ghastly encounters with shape-shifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.
Starting point is 00:17:03 has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology.
Starting point is 00:17:28 I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba.
Starting point is 00:18:02 He looked like a little angel. I mean, you look so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian.
Starting point is 00:18:13 Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:18:58 I keep having this like false memory. I feel like it's like this like Mandela effect thing, where when everyone says, whenever someone says Joey Chestnut, I keep, I feel like it's like this Mandela effect thing where whenever someone says Joey Chestnut, I keep thinking it's a character from I Think You Should Leave, but whenever I look at it, I'm like, no, it's not. It does sound like that. Every single time.
Starting point is 00:19:18 I mean, it does sound like that. And I think You Should Leave has such god-tier hot dog jokes that joey should be on that show but unfortunately he lacks charisma and so he also seems kind of like a bad person he's he's definitely complicit in in in a number of things very hard hard to know what Joey's politics are, which I know is intentional,
Starting point is 00:19:46 but I'm like, what's going on with him. He's from San Diego, but now he lives in Indiana. I just don't feel like it bodes well, but I can't say for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:57 You know, that was another part of this that I was like, I was reading this and especially like given the shit that's been happening the last few weeks, reading about takaru kobayashi uh the the the four the the former champion competitive eating guy coming to the u.s and then like having the very common asian american experience of like coming to the u.s and then slowly realizing holy shit this place sucks ass like there's just a bunch of
Starting point is 00:20:23 racists here and they hate us and my boss is is going to run a racist PR campaign against me for money. Like mask off every day, all the time. And here's the guy I'm going to be replacing you with. And you will be only abused until this guy can beat you and then goodbye forever. And that's what happened it's so i mean i don't know i i think it's fascinating in a very sick way because it's like he is just hot dog vince mcmahon um like it's absolutely who this guy is and clearly idolizes Vince McMahon the guy George Shea like his wife wrote for the WWE and soap operas and so he's just like very well versed in uh very racist anti-woman
Starting point is 00:21:15 high drama like it's just like what he it's his favorite. And I hate him. And he's so uniquely in control of that world. It's it feels very Vince McMahon ish where you're like, surely someone else could do this job. But but it's just not not allowed. If he's the Vince McMahon of the hot dog world, what are what are you now in the hot dog world? The question, the study of hot dogs. what are you now in the hot dog world? Good question. The study of hot dogs. I'm one of the people who Vince McMahon covers up the murder of. I think probably that's eventually me.
Starting point is 00:21:57 I'll be involved in a very small, suspicious incident in this man's life. I don't know. I mean, yeah, unfortunately, I feel like that's the best shot I have. It was interesting, though, when I released an excerpt of my book that was about Joey Chestnut, and they did not run this by me, but they just named the excerpt, I'm in love with Joey Chestnut. I was like, okay, I guess I do say that. But I wouldn't lead with it. Anyways, the major league eating PR team reached out to me and I thought it was going to be, I was just going to get like reamed, but they, it was just a light fact correct.
Starting point is 00:22:41 It was very weird, a little menacing, but i guess that they're fine with me uh calling them evil they're like hey when you said we were evil your number was a little bit off just so you know and i'm like thanks i guess that's nice knowledge is power uh and i changed my mind i think they're great now due to this small fact correction ringing ringing endorsements we're attempting to confirm live there is not in fact a gun behind Jamie's head right now look I can't say I can't say uh I think the two things yeah with the book being out now it feels nice in most ways and then two ways where i'm like stressed out about it where i'm like i'm afraid that george shea is gonna come for me and i'm also afraid the entire city of chicago is
Starting point is 00:23:38 gonna come okay i want to talk about this because okay all right so i'm gonna have to go into witness protection after this but i agree with you that the chicago hot dog's not that good yeah like i think i think celery salt on hot dog is really good but yeah i there's i like it doesn't it just it's it gets too soggy pretty quickly it like the flavors don't necessarily go together like it's it's only okay it's it's too it's wet and there's too much going on and it it's just like, yeah, it's a catastrophe. I, well, okay. I was promising myself I would dial back on Chicago Hot Dog Slender. But it's like not, it's not, it's not very good.
Starting point is 00:24:19 And I think the main thing, it wouldn't bother me as much if they, I'm like, those people in Chicago. But if the Chicago hot dog loving community was just like, hey, we have this gross hot dog and we love it. That's fine. Unbridled enthusiasm for something gross. Love it. But then they top that off by being like and if you like ketchup you should walk into traffic and get hit by a car like so aggressively hate ketchup in a way that i don't know i love something disgusting but hating something innocuous is such a weird thing to do it's very bizarre
Starting point is 00:24:59 i also got like just absolute whiplash reading this because one of the places you go to is the I'd incomprehensibly named Fatso's Last Stand and I was literally there last week by accident because I no way yeah so I was like an absolute fool I was trying to travel at 7am
Starting point is 00:25:19 on 2 hours of sleep because I was writing an episode and I took a bus the wrong way and I ended up there and I was like what the fuck have I just walked into and I opened this book and I was like oh my god what is happening to me Empty Fatso's Last Stand sounds like a very scary
Starting point is 00:25:36 liminal space to exist it was so accursed I was like getting off the bus and the bus driver was like are you sure you want to get off here and I was like yeah well I mean that's the beginning of like a I don't know goosebumps episode I was like getting off the bus and the bus driver was like, are you sure you want to get off here? And I was like, yeah, well, I mean, like a,
Starting point is 00:25:46 like a, I don't know. Goosebumps episode. It was a whole thing. Yeah. And then you find out that Pat's last stand burned down 20 years ago. Did you get anything? They weren't open.
Starting point is 00:26:01 Oh, pretty good. It was, it was pretty good there. And then I've since gone back to chicago because i didn't have time to go everywhere i wanted to and i've since gone back and i do genuinely like the chicago style hot dog at red hot ranch i'm a big red hot ranch head i've converted uh but but a lot of it is yeah it's just bizarre and the hating the ketchup thing
Starting point is 00:26:22 is confusing and then i went to pittsburgh recently and their ketchup city usa and so i was having some interesting conversations and um yeah this is what my life is like now i do everything okay so there's there's two more very specific hot dog questions you need to ask one is uh do you have portillo takes oh um not really i i like i like portillos and i i've been in illinois and i've been in uh california too it's it's a classic it's good i i it didn't uh it didn't make it into the book because there was like so many hot dogs that didn't make it into the book because they're like all right that's just you saying like there were so many paragraphs in a row like and then i had this one and i liked it and then i had this one and I liked it. And then I had this one and I liked it. So my editor was like, all right, we can, we can, we can cut. But yeah, I had to cut whole chapters. It's so wild how long this book could have been were I not reined in. were I not reined in um but there was well this is Chicago relevant too I took a a two-day course called hot dog university through Vienna beef from this guy that's a thing I'm gonna I can you
Starting point is 00:27:34 repeat that for me sorry oh uh yeah I'm a graduate of hot dog university uh it's a course where you it was on zoom unfortunately it used to be in person this is guy mark uh phd professor of hot dogs and uh you take the course and he teaches you how to open your own hot dog stand and over the course of two days and it was actually i learned a lot how many people were on the zoom there were three people it was me and I learned a lot. How many people were on the Zoom? There were three people. It was me and two guys from Chicago. And I was trying to like be, I didn't want to say why I was there. So I was trying to just like,
Starting point is 00:28:15 oh, my name's Jamie and I'm interested in opening a California hotdog stand. And Mark was really interested in the idea. And it was a couple months of me kind of like dodging some emails of like i'm not gonna do it i'm like i never told them but i'm not gonna do it okay so all right i need to i got i'm now conflicted because i have a great hot dog stand pivot but also i want to ask you the second hot dog question which is have you had japa dogs
Starting point is 00:28:42 no i haven't had japa dogs yet i wanted to go because i know that there's like a bunch there's some vancouver is that right like i know yeah yeah it's a very yeah it's a canadian canada coded my my friend in vancouver keeps insisting i eat it and i refuse i wanted to go to vancouver and try it because like northwestern hot dogs there's like there's a lot going on there in a good way. Like Portland, Seattle big fan of their hot dogs. Yeah. I didn't get to Jap a dog. There were a few places. There was a place in Maine. I really wanted to go to,
Starting point is 00:29:13 but it was so on the side of the highway and open two hours a day that it was like, it would be so logistically hard to be there, but working on it. Yeah. I want to go to japa dogs someday i went to uh i got hot dog poutine in montreal recently which i guess is calm a common poutine make um it was great so now that you've dedicated i'm guessing multiple years of your life two years yeah not getting those back too i guess it's studying both hot dogs and the cultural conditions that are created around them. Do you feel like a better person? Oh.
Starting point is 00:29:57 Or have you learned something extremely useful about American culture that will improve your life going forward? Thank you for the two alternatives to the question. I would say that knowing more about hot dogs did make me a better person. I think, I hope. And I also, I think that like, I don't know, it's like, it feels better to, or, or I don't know. Like I enjoy stuff that it's like, you can get to a really dark and serious place, but they seem so innocuous. It's like, um, whatever.
Starting point is 00:30:30 And getting Hansel and Gretel to come into your candy house. And then being like, actually it's fucking murder city. Everyone's fucked in here. Like you're going to have fun for a little while. The food is delicious, but then you're going to die. Like,
Starting point is 00:30:44 I just, I like, um, I like subjects like that. Um, and getting to, I don't know, I've met genuinely. I, when we had the book release show the other night, I've met so many nice people through the hotdog community. It's true. I had this guy I met in a parking lot in Culver City um he was a Wienermobile driver at the time and he like brought his fiance and we talked on stage and he was reflecting on his Wienermobile heyday and he told me this oh I'm excited because at the time he was still working for Oscar Mayer and I was like do people have sex in here and he was like i don't know probably um but now he doesn't work for oscar meyer so i was like do people have sex in there you have no loyalty at this point and he was like okay well i never did but there is like there's like six seats in the waiter mobile and i guess on the back left it's called the meat seat. And that's where you fuck.
Starting point is 00:31:46 The meat seat. I know. It was really shocking. And he's so sweet that it was really scary to hear coming out of his mouth. So there is the meat seat. Anyways, I've met a lot of nice people through hot dogs. And I've learned stuff I did not know. So it's fun.
Starting point is 00:32:11 Well, you too can become a better person by purchasing the book Raw Talk, wherever books are sold. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters
Starting point is 00:32:50 to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley
Starting point is 00:33:32 into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.
Starting point is 00:34:10 So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. everywhere. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.
Starting point is 00:34:57 His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:35:30 One actual serious question. Have you ever watched the movie Food Fight? No. Wait, when is it from? The 2012 computer animated movie starring supermarket food mascots that, and they unite to fight the generic brand food products in their grocery store. And there's a lot of really weird Nazi imagery,
Starting point is 00:35:54 really uncomfortable, like, over-sexualization. And some of the most garish animation you've ever seen. It's a pretty wild movie. It was in development for, like, almost like a decade and a half um early sheen evil longoria hillary duff oh my god mad lib what a different yeah christopher lloyd plays plays uh plays one of the villains um it is sure it is one of the worst like acid trips of a movie just just because of like it
Starting point is 00:36:25 it is just really bad um that is so crazy that i have zero recollection predominantly features hot dogs so well i can i mean hot dogs are certainly prominent on this poster there i'm just like shocked at them billing the starkest tuna above the Twinkie? It doesn't make sense to me. Also, there is a dog character who's just like Indiana Jones, but a dog. No. But they're also in a romantic relationship with a human woman. I don't want to know where the Nazi stuff comes in, but I am.
Starting point is 00:37:05 This is so wild because it's like I thought that Sausage Party was the worst thing to happen to this very scary genre. And it's horrible, but this is like the dark side of Sausage Party. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Oh, and there's a maybe there's a sequel. Food fight. It's about time. I I've not I've not heard of this. Oh this is fake no maybe this is fake i hope it's fake yeah this is so ugly holy shit no it is
Starting point is 00:37:33 it is one of the worst movies ever ever made it's it's it's it's garish it's upsetting it is weirdly fascistic um and it's also like primarily based around like brand promotion also a lot of these big food companies like signed these contracts in the late 90s and of course the film didn't come out until 2012 oh my god there's a whole bunch of really weird like food fight merchandise that was made with all of these brand mascots. And it's all extremely questionable. That does explain the cast. Yeah. Because it's a late 90s cast to have Wayne Brady playing Daredevil Dan and Christopher Lloyd playing Mr. Cliffboard.
Starting point is 00:38:16 Chris Kattan is in it? Yeah, this movie has been in development for a long time. Wow. Holy shit. Anyway, I was just wondering, is it is supermarket food hot dog adjacent and it does does often draw draw uh draw parallels to sausage party which is also obviously one of the most famous hot dog films one of the most famous yes films motion pictures cinema I have I've been wearing them at the shows I've have
Starting point is 00:38:49 they did make Halloween costumes for sausage party and they have the bun that looks so visceral like though like it has like vagina mouth and then they gave the bun huge boobs and a huge butt.
Starting point is 00:39:07 Anyways, she's voiced by Kristen Wiig and I have the costume and I've been wearing it. Wait, you have the actual costume? Yeah, I have it. It's right over there. Oh no. I'm wearing it tonight. Oh gosh. You're wearing it for your book stuff?
Starting point is 00:39:23 Yeah, I love a costume change especially when it is also a jump scare yeah yeah wow yeah well that's incredibly upsetting um that's about all the time we have today jb where can people find the hot dog book oh you can find it uh all over the place uh but I would recommend getting it from bookshop.org if you're ordering online it's a really cool website that will uh automatically purchase from your nearest independent bookstore and send it to you um so yeah it's a pro labor book so don't buy it from somewhere shitty use your head um but yeah get it and there's also i also narrate the audiobook if you like many people have been
Starting point is 00:40:13 telling me for the past couple of days or like a book kind of a long podcast in a way and i was like whoa sure feels great feels great to hear all right And where can people find you on the internet and the stuff that you also do that's not the hot dog book? Bravely still on Twitter at Jamie Loftus Help and Instagram at Jamie Christ Superstar. And then you can listen to me on the Bechtel cast every week on this very network. Well, I sure hope you cover Food Fight in an upcoming episode.
Starting point is 00:40:46 I do. We just covered Sausage Party and I think we both have PTSD. You have like a detox period first. And then come back with Food Fight and by the end be like, you know, Sausage Party
Starting point is 00:41:01 wasn't actually that bad. This is the one you do when the paperback comes out oh my god honestly nice not the worst idea i i i do want to watch this movie now but i like looking at the poster i'm like i don't know if i can watch it alone but i will watch it we can we we can surely plan something let's do it all right uh thank you thank you for coming on and talking about hot dogs and labor and all of all of your hard work um you can find us on cool zone media on most of the instagrams and twitters and other places and uh happen here pod uh keep on dog dog and yep okay as they say as they say yes
Starting point is 00:41:49 it could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America.
Starting point is 00:42:34 Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting.
Starting point is 00:43:06 Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.
Starting point is 00:43:32 Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.

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