The Daily Zeitgeist - 867-530Zeit 4/10: RIP XFL, Apple and Google, Rudy Gobert, Save the Post Office

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

On this edition of 867-530Zeit Jack and Miles discuss the XFL suspending operations entirely, Apple and Google are working on a surveillance tool together, Rudy Gobert's antics are not sitting well with his teammates, and #SavethePostOffice is trending because they received no part of the $2T Stimulus Package and are especially hurting during this time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest, because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day.

Check out our recent episode with Grammy award-winning rapper Eve on motherhood and the music industry. No, it's a great, amazing, beautiful thing. There's moms in all industries, very high stress industries that have kids all across this world. Why can't it be music as well? Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence 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. 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. Hello, the internet, and welcome to 8-6-7-5-3-0-ZI-I-E. That is courtesy of Johnny Davis. That's Miles

Gray. I'm Jack O'Brien. This is What's Trending this Friday afternoon. Oh, boy. How are you this Friday afternoon. Oh boy. How are you this Friday, by the way, Miles? Oh man, another week. Another week down. Another week down. This is it. I'm trying to push on, trying to make sense of this world.

But I think, I don't know, I'm to feel like the because time is sort of odd that time's moving faster uh in a weird way um i'm like getting the opposite this week went fast yeah i thought this week was previous weeks it went slow as fuck and this week went fast yeah like i was mistaking tuesday for friday like last week yeah now i'm like yeah i think we're three weeks ahead of where we are right now yeah it's just what's going on well these are four things that are trending right now r.i.p to the xfl yeah the xfl uh suspended operations uh not just like suspended play but suspended operations as a league and laid off basically all their employees everyone yeah i don't know

yeah are they cutting their losses short now because they want to come back in 2021 so like okay if we don't pay anyone because we're not going to make any revenue then there's a shot we can try and dust this thing off in a year they said they have no plans to come back in 2021 oh no yeah i think it's basically this was their second try and it did not i mean cursed is is i hate to steal jamie loftus's line yeah uh sometimes you think that speaks for all of us you think they would have got the message the first go-round with the xfl that you know people weren't really that into it right but or when trump tried to turn the national the uh whatever continental football league into a off-season nfl and that failed yeah that this is just like an idea that seems like kind of a no-brainer to a business person every 10 years and they have to just like

fuck it up and lose a lot of people some money and put a lot of people's health on the line to to do it yeah vince mcmahon really he's into the sports where it will chew up and spit out the athletes that are involved in it yeah yeah true monster yeah um just because he plays a monster on TV does not mean that he's not an actual monster. When does art become life? That's right, man. Thin line, man. True.

Apple and Google. Have you heard about these guys? No. I like a good Apple, but I don't think I have. There's also this company called apple uh and there's also one called google uh and they're working together on a tool to surveil us uh for phone contact tracing for coronavirus right yeah literally they are going to uh get an app that tells you if you've had any recent contact with someone who had the

coronavirus. Won't they need everybody to install that for it to work? It'll probably be an operating system update where it's embedded. That tool is going to be part of it. That is dystopian

as fuck. It's going to be part of it or part of a that is dystopian as fuck they're using like it's going to be using i think bluetooth essentially to like begin to make those connections so if someone like dials in like oh i have it then they can start going what other cell phones are you around uh and then immediately building that web so i mean if if this goes past just merely contact tracing for covid and as part of like a dystopian surveillance state does that mean people are gonna have like burner phones they bring to pretend they were with someone else like what's the shell game you play if you want to throw off a contact tracing technology like that anyway right just thoughts i have mean, that's something in Contagion is Matt Damon learns that his wife,

Gwyneth Paltrow, was cheating on him because of a content, like her ex-boyfriend dies from the disease she had, and she was like patient zero. So he's like, wait a second. So, you know, could happen. I haven't seen that film, but I imagine that scene happening very comedically where he's like, what, her ex died? Ah, damn it.

It's actually like kind of understated. They're just like, yeah, he's just a pathetic cuckold. But his wife is dead. Peace loser. They don't say it, but it just like, they just kind of like move on from it. I mean, I guess that makes sense when you're talking about a global pandemic. Like, you don't need to but it just like yeah they just kind of like move on from yeah i mean i guess that makes over sense when you're talking about a global pandemic like you don't need to get too tie bogged down on this one guy's tragedy yeah it's about the earth's macro tragedy

yeah it's almost interesting they're they're like this is this would be an entire movie in other circumstances and yet here it's just like an afterthought right yeah i don't know that that scares me because i i do think that people who have it or get it or test positive are going to then immediately begin trying to cover it up right i know people who have tested positive who haven't told people uh even though that would have been the responsible thing to do because then they you know there's like a stigma attached to it and i talked before about how there was a uh new york times article about this person who tested positive who went in got tested uh and then two days later nurses arrived at their house in hazmat suits like it was the fucking end of et i'm just like that's

gotta and told them that they and their entire family had to stay quarantined for two weeks now that was before the rest of the world was also doing that but yeah i feel like it's got to be i don't know that this seems like it's leading towards a whole mess yeah well i think that's why they're trying to say using bluetooth over gps is how they'll somewhat avoid the violating people's civil liberties tightrope right they're walking so it's not necessarily saying like indefinitely through gps it's just more of like oh you were near that phone we don't know where but you were near a phone um we're just letting you know that happened so i'm again it's but this is how how like all those films started it's always like a thing this is the

inciting incident for the the rest of the dystopian film to play out in three acts yeah man uh rudy gobert let's talk about sports uh we're sandwiching all the dystopian shit with sports yep rudy gobert was the jazz center who uh the the seven footer probably the best defensive player in the league for the past couple seasons running just a great shot blocker and we have a big guy in the middle who is a great shot blocker it totally affects what other teams are able to do on offense also total fucking clown when it comes to uh not to be offensive to clowns but uh when it comes to the his behavior uh when it came to the novel coronavirus he was the guy who touched all the microphones because he thought it would be funny ended up being patient zero on the nba getting the nba season suspended and his best teammate the

best player on his team he's probably the second or third best when you take defense into account but uh his best player is a young guy named donovan mitchell who's in his third season uh and they are apparently not uh he so donovan was, I think, the third player, second player maybe to test positive for coronavirus. And they're not cool right now. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of interesting, you know, where you see people like be really critical of neighbors. Like I've seen text threads where people are like they've shown me screenshots of like a thread they have with people if they live like in a quad like a four unit

building or something and one of the four units is like acting out they like get together like yo i don't know if you've if you've seen her she's been having people over every night like i don't know if we need to say something because blah blah blah and a lot of people you know are really depending on how seriously they take it i think it probably relates to the stakes that they see in there that are real to them like which is sort of like i could spread an illness and it could inadvertently kill somebody and you're it's weird to see these values play out like in a team where mitchell's just sort of like this fucking asshole dude like is taking thinks this is a fucking joke people are dying now i don't know if mitchell's also thinking of it like

this motherfucker got the season canceled because it would have happened either way regardless of a fucking joke people are dying now i don't know if mitchell's also thinking of it like this motherfucker got the season canceled because it would have happened either way regardless of rudy gobert's antics but like it's it's interesting to see this other subculture be born out of this shut down life society we're living in policing yeah exactly and and i'm curious to know like where that is on the spectrum like in terms of what his feelings are towards Rudy. But in the rest of the article, a lot of people are very narrowly hanging on to this headline. The coach seems to feel like they're going to get past it or whatever, and the franchise is trying to do whatever they can to patch that up. But I mean, I don't know. That could just be a coach being really optimistic. We don't know how this virus has affected either part,

like any of the parties involved, but it will be, it'll be interesting. I mean, I think any team coming back from this quarantine is going to take a second to start vibing again because you've completely, there's so much momentum you lose as a team when you don't have that chemistry basically bubbling throughout a season. And you're essentially just starting from zero, like you have to overcome inertia again. Yeah.

And if you already had a chemistry problems, like I can't, I can't imagine that this is gonna necessarily help them if, especially if like some people are getting other people sick. So you mentioned their coach who is a Quinn Snyder, who is one of these people who is just perpetually wet. Like his hair always seems wet. Oh wow. Okay. Like Trey Gowdy kind of these people who is just perpetually wet. Like his hair always seems wet.

Oh, wow. Okay, like Trey Gowdy, kind of like the hair is always like, what's going on? Yeah. He's got to shower? Well, no, Trey Gowdy sometimes seems dry. Like his hair always seems wet. I just wonder how you make that decision to be like, I'm a wet person now.

I just always, my hair is always gonna look it just takes that one woman in college to tell you that that looked good for you to never give that up that's all i forget who tweeted i i think it might have been chelsea peretti but it was like something like that how if you compliment a shirt a guy wears and then like you can watch them wear it like five times in the next two weeks because it's just like we don't know man we're like you know we're doing our best what look good this good i don't know this hot chick came up to me like you know it was way out of my thing she comes up to me she's flirting with me oh what'd you say she goes you look like an extra from a time to kill you're also glistening and sweaty and wet i don't know dude i think she's

trying to boon yeah totally tates all right and then finally save the post office is trending the post office is in trouble i mean i've been hearing for years now that the post office loses a lot of money each year but because trump is you know uh big business president big biz prez uh he is saying the bailouts and the uh stimulus stuff uh the two trill that he uh and congress got past specifically excluded the the post office which this is at a time when the post office is hurting just like all other institutions right and also at a time when we're relying on the post office more than you know a lot of other institutions more than we have ever in the past yeah uh so the chicago sun times has a editorial where they're like what the fuck are you guys doing why would you why are you

targeting the and it's you know one of the most efficient you know non-privatized things we have in this country like we have cheap shipping because of this like the amount of people they employ like uh they employ a ton of women people of color veterans uh just fucking our our any communication from the irs you get your checks through that shit i don't understand i guess i mean i do understand because we're living in a fucking just bizarro profit driven world but like seriously this is it's like the one fucking thing that you that you should always just never question whether or not you're gonna fund it fully yeah yeah so i mean five having to pay five dollars to send a letter might be in our near future especially if we keep this president and this republican sort of

ethos running the country i think that's where we're headed right uh but call your local politicians uh and tell them to not kill the post office well what the post office that shit goes back like to like that was one of the first things about america where people were like man this country's got its shit together they invented the post office yeah yeah again even when you look at the um the amount of like elderly folks too who need their medications like mailed to them yeah you know who are already dealing with limited budgets like what the fuck is supposed to start coming out of pocket to pay like i mean you'd imagine at some point the republicans are gonna have to you know tell trump oh yeah

you're gonna have to like walk that one back actually it turns out like too many people know about what's going on here but who knows i mean at this point everything's been so brazen uh but yeah yeah well shit all right uh shout out to the postal workers out there uh they also just like having a really shitty pr run for the past like 40 years because you know i'm sure having their budgets just slashed over and over so now like post office the only thing you hear about the post office and pop culture is like going postal when somebody's like a mass shooter like in the late 80s early bad service at the dmv right um but yeah shout out to the postal workers who are fucking out there working their ass off um to to keep this country running yeah it was just weird there's just like another fact i was

reading about it is that the during the bush administration the the Republicans in power, like in Congress, basically made the post office, like they were required to fully fund all their healthcare benefits and pensions for the next 75 years. So they were spending the money that they had for people who have not even been born yet or would possibly be working for the post office. And so that is what's created this solvency issue too is that like this was something completely created out of legislation from the bush administration in 2006 so that's why they're like losing money is because they've like overfunded the pension well no they were just saying they were requiring them to fully fund everything they're like okay so you want those better you got to like those have to be funded and then you can whatever you want to do with your budgets just so you know that's a requirement though you need to fully fund all that stuff

right so yeah uh again yes please save the post office i don't think that's where we're at now yeah that's where we're at all right miles uh that's gonna do it for this week man it's been pleasure hanging out with you this week oh likewise uh have a great weekend you guys pleasure talking at you uh pleasure hearing from you on social media uh stay safe wash your hands and we'll be back on monday with a banger. Talk to you guys then. Bye. Later. In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest.

Because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Check out our recent episode with Grammy Award-winning rapper Eve on motherhood and the music industry.

No, it's a great, amazing, beautiful thing. There's moms in all industries, very high-stress industries, that have kids all across this world. Why can't it be music as well? Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence 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.

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.