The Daily Zeitgeist - Adult At Kids Movie=Sus? There Is No Riot In LA 06.11.25

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

In episode 1878, Jack and Miles are joined by host of The Simpsons Taught Me Everything, Michael Swaim, to discuss… Siege of LA, Adults Shouldn’t Feel Weird About Going To See Kids Movies and more! Mom Is Told She’s ‘the Weird One’ After Complaining She Saw a Lone Man Watching a Kids’ Movie Poll: Grown man at cinema on his own Kid movies as an adult Is it appropriate for an adult to see a kids movie in theaters by themselves? LISTEN: Yasiin's Lament by Reginald Omas Mamode IVSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if you can put it over your ear, that would be helpful. And just turn it down. Let's need to air that ear out. You know, you might have to have that ear. I get it. You got baby. You know, you got to be on fucking alert. That is something about it.

Yeah. It just makes me feel more situationally away. Yeah. Yeah. I've I have ones that go in my ears, so I'm fully shut off to the world. Shut off in the world. Yeah. Yeah.

Somebody could sneak up on you. Yeah, totally. And I'd see them in the frame so I'm fully shut off to the world. Shut off from the world. Yeah. Somebody could sneak up on you. Yeah, totally. And I'd see them in the frame, I'm like, what is this, a goop? And then I'm like, ah, they're stabbing me.

Look what's on the TV. Stepping into a street, like final destination character, no peripheral. Yeah, exactly. Right. I can't watch the baby, I'm getting hit by a bus. This is an iHeart podcast. Have you ever thought about going voiceover?

I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to,

yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son But I have DNA proof that could get the money back hold up They could lose their family and millions of dollars Yep Find out how it ends by listening to the okay storytime podcast on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Hello the internet and welcome to season

392 episode 3 of Darn Alaley's Eye Gullies. Production of Eye Heart Radio, I mean the writing on this season, fucked up. All new writer's room. It's gotten dark on season 392. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness,

and it is Wednesday, June 11th, 2025. And first of all, we owe an apology to our listeners. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we fucked up. We missed 69 day on Monday. You missed 69, yeah. That's on us. That's fucked up. We officially replaced 420 with 69.

Yeah, we were trying to get 420 replaced by 69 day or at least like added to the mix. And we fucked it up. You know, we didn't practice what we preached in 69. We didn't 69 each other live on like this appointment for 69 episodes. For that, we apologize. Yeah. Just to restate that real quick, you didn't do that on Mike.

On Mike. OK, moving on. We did it standing up in a darkened alley. Standing 69. We are standing 69. Make the numbers. You got to look like the numbers. You got to have a standing lunch date.

At least. I mean, we are going to standing 69 one another. Standing 69. Every Tuesday at 1 PM. Every Tuesday. Oh my god. Standing 69. Here we are.

Look at us. Oh, anyway, June 11th, the National German Chocolate Cake Day and National Corn on the Cob Day. Great. Boom. Okay. So another cock related holiday. Yeah. Corn on the Cob.

I do love to talk about it when you look at what it started out when it was first a plant, it was two little corns on like a little thing and then they used the magic of science and agriculture to design it into a giant cock with corn all over it. Just the biggest cock shaped. Oh, they genetically altered the corn cob to be just a big Paul Bunyan dung? Yeah. Why can't they hybridize this so two potatoes grow at the bottom

and you got to like a Thanksgiving plan. Well, that's, and now you're thinking. And now this is, this is what, this is our, cut that out, Justin. Cut that out, we don't want Monsanto catching wind of this idea. This is gonna make us millions. All right, my name is Jack O'Brien AKA,

and so I read your little script with Bo Buffett. Ho-wah, Pacino on the set. Doing Han Solo shit like shooting Vrito's net. Ho-wah, Pacino on the set. That one courtesy of Halcyon salad on the Discord in reference to the revelation that Al Pacino was one of the actors considered very seriously to play Han Solo. But he was doing it before he was like

a cartoon character whose voice sounded like that. But I still liked Han Solo. Could you imagine if he- Son of a bitch. She did the Tony Montana accent because he was waiting to do it and just Star Wars. He's like, this is fine. Star Wars got it first. Yeah. They're like, it's weird. No one's going know it doesn't even sound like a Cuban guy anyway, like just be like

Say hello to my little friend, Greedo Would have been fun. Yeah would have been fun. Yeah, I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co-host. Mr. Miles Gray Ice ice it's not the Gestapo, see? You have a bad memory, just police to call your own. This shit is the Twilight Zone. Uh, yes, anyway, that's the Island in the Sun weezer thing, because I've had a lot of wheezy weezer on the brain. Uh, and shout out to Snarfula.

Wait, that was a remake of the wheezer one, or a weemake? A weemake lot of wheezy wheezer on the brain. Shout out to Snarfula. Wait, that was a remake of the wheezer one or a we make? A we make of the wheezy. Wheezy, wheezy, a wheezy we make. A wheezy we make. Yeah, it's sung to me by four-year-olds at a TK. A wheezy we make. It's a wheezy we make. Miles, we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat

by my very first, by my very first podcast co-host, brilliant filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian, podcaster who co-founded Small Beans, which the AV club called one of the best podcast networks, head of video at Cracked for many years, starred in, helped create many of the best videos and podcasts there. And he's back at Cracked making really funny videos again.

Please welcome back to the show is Michael Swain. Michael Swain. AKA home, home on the Swain. Interrupting most things you say. I'm sorry, guys. I'm just delighted to be here with hosts, O'Brien and Gray. Oh, thanks for having me. Beautiful. O'Brien. I like O'Brien. O'Brien. O'Brien. O'Brien. Do you have any special love or affinity for Colummini's turn as Chief O'Brien on both Star Trek, The Next Generation and DS9. Have you been asked that many times before?

Have you? First time. First time for everything. Have you been asked about 7F9? I would have assumed Dave Mill would ask you that. Do you though? Do you track? I don't really track.

I mean, I did it. I got to get out of here. Yep. Was Al Pacino in Star Trek? Then no, I'm not interested. No, but Farmer Hoggett, James Cromwell, Rollo Vicenzi from LA Confidential, or whatever his name is.

Yeah. He plays a mole man, Ali and Jack, you'd love it. That's fun. I do, I love Star Trek in theory, and then I just never get around to like going deep on it. Cause you know, it was like used as my, you know, as a philosophy major and my advisor was like taught through Star Trek and would be like, would always be dropping references to Star Trek episodes. And I think I just came to associate it with like school, maybe.

I was going to say- It's homework. It's good for that. It's like just entertaining enough to teach with in the sense that I think your reaction is correct. Meaning I'm more into as many lifelong Trekkies are, it's offers and the potential it has and the few things it does differently than every other sci-fi show. But it's like a mid show overall compared to, you know, the great, great shows we've ever seen, like

Deadwood or what have you. Rex is Star Trek The Next Generation, but I still love it. Right, right, right. I'm just swaying, just were you saying Deep Space Nine? It jogged my memory of that one time we showed a person a picture of seven of nine and they didn't know who that was. Very, very, very random, very random, very random. The memory. So I, yeah, so I random no Swain was wearing Swain was wearing a Star Trek fit of this dude came up to him goes Star Wars

He was doing that to fuck with you right no Or he was like a Kyle Mooney level man on the street Cohen type because it's sold completely. Yeah. I was like, nah. Star Wars? Yes. No, no, we got confirmation later,

and I won't name many names in the circle, but multiple people triangulated. Oh, that guy, he came up and did this to me, or in front of me, or said that to me. And everyone was like, that's not fakeable. What happened here is, that's a weird guy. guy. And he meandered through the party and we all had a weird guy. Some interaction. Oh, that sounds great. So what's been up, Michael, other than going to fun parties and being

approached by weirdos? Anything new? I forget. Is this my plug opportunity or is it like a UCB monologue? But you could riff on what's happening. You're going to do an ASCAT monologue. Hell yeah. Okay. Um, it was a weird job you had one time. I was Mike Rose assistant.

Every dirty job thing he did, I did it and would do bullet points, tell him what it was like no did that joke not hit micro dirty jobs I mean I know it just a tv show where you did different unpleasant jobs I don't know it sounded real I'm positing one universe where I did those jobs right he just anyway he's a fraud I mean so clearly all I do is sit and write data jokes but So clearly all I do is sit and write data jokes, but please don't let me forget to plug because I have projects that I really need to and want to plug and that's happening true.

But if people are interested in the story of sometimes guests, Michael Swaim on the Daily Zeitgeist and mostly check in with me here, probably baby is a big thing. Yeah, baby. Baby, yeah. Four months, three weeks old. Sunny Glenn Swain.

And then, if the producer, right, it makes an image too. Yeah, I like that. It does, wow. It was between that and Forrest Glenn, and I think Sunny is better also, for reasons we'll get into when we talk about underrated, overrated.

But last but not least, shout out to, and producer, please cue that live song about the placenta. Uh, my godfather, who's really like a father figure to me and like my most admired person in the world sadly passed away. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Sonny Glenn is named Glenn after Glenn, my godfather. And the timing was such that like, we have a reincarnation situation on our hands.

So we're keeping an eye out for that. Hopefully he'll be that good. My kid's middle name and like my cousin that passed away. Oh, and that was like right around. Like within each other. Just close enough that I was like, it's a body jump. This was four days apart, right? But life comes at you fast.

Yeah, yeah. And who's at you fast. Yeah. Yeah. And who's to say it's, it's like a minute. Like it has to be at the same second. Yeah. Well, when I, we got both ends covered because as the baby was being pushed into existence, David Lynch had just died hours before, so that was also in play. So if he's half Lynch, half flying crooks, then he'll lynch crooks. I guess he'll be an old timey sheriff. Just occurred to me.

Well, we're thrilled to have you back. We're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple of things we're talking about. We are going to talk about the continued siege of LA by the military and the National Guard and just the Trump administration in general. We're going to talk about Donald Trump's birthday military birthday parade that's coming up this weekend.

Yay. It's my birthday. All of that. Plenty more, but first, Michael Swain, we do like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Sure. Well, dispensing plug teaser part one subsection a I'll say for my new podcast project that I'm really excited and care specifically in part to promote

called the Simpsons taught me everything I, I, uh, at the end of every episode do the, if people recall, uh, the episode where Homer accidentally takes subliminal tapes that expand his vocabulary and he's like, the gourmand transmogrifies into the voluptuary. Uh, I'm doing that at the end of every episode, Homer says, increase your wordiness. And there were words that came up. There was some, I forget, you know, joke formation is a nebulous drink deep of the plasma pool process where like ideas will link up and you'll go that doesn't work and you'll drop it. So I forget the conversation, but like it came up gormless, the word gormless. and then also the concept of boofing something, specifically boofing Bud, Budweiser beer,

so that their slogan could be, take the dub, boof a bud. Because that's, dub is bud backwards. So this was the really obscure joke that got me to the point where I searched the term, because you always have to search terms to be like, does that mean something unintentional? Gormless, booper. And gormless, I I found out is just British slang that I think means like a dork or a

like clumsy. Does it? Do you know? Yeah, senseless. I've got lacking sense or initiative. Foolish. It's my birthday. We're at political cartoon levels, as many people are pointed out, but it's like the Roman emperors, like sending the illegal troops to roll through the town is like, also, it's my birthday.

What are you doing, man? We got to hold some of the troops back because it's my birthday. And then Boofer splits like eight different ways. One of them is like a Polynesian derogatory slang for black person. So forgive me. Really? If you need to believe that. But I found that like way down the list.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The most predominant use is slang for a big shaggy dog is a big, a big boofer. But the point is... I just know the way. The butt chugging version. Yeah, I know the butt chugging. The point is we ended up changing the lines of butt chugging so that it did. So for clarity's sake, yeah.

You go like a gormless bee chugger. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And he's nonplussed also. Boofer is a great name for a big dog. But yeah, right. Unless you're an indian.

Inarguably. Or a Polynesian. Unless you're in Polynesia and it's a black dog. Right. In the 60s. It said like in the 60s, it was. Oh, unless you're in Polynesia in the 60s. Yeah. And look, and that's another segment you could do is old timey racial slurs that we've, just so you know, these were racial slurs. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And-

50% of the words. I won't say them because they're racial slurs, but a bunch of them sound so fanciful. Right, right. And you're like, well, and you're like, well, there was a subset of patronizing ones, see they weren't all like, you're subhuman. Some were like, you're so cute. Like a stupid little kid. Right. I see. I see.

Uh, what is I C E and we're back on track. There we go. And we're back with some things underrated. Yeah. On topic, the Mexican flag. Yeah. Like proudly it's us. back with something he thinks underrated. Yeah, on topic, the Mexican flag. Yeah. Proudly, it's us.

I mean, aside from, I have all the sensible opinions on the fluidity of borders and us all being immigrants and all that stuff, means that this is all, as we'll get into in the episode, just a purely fabricated boogie man as a pretense for sending armed troops into areas to increase his direct control over his administration's direct control over those areas. But people are waving the Mexican flag a lot.

And it struck me that our thing is the eagle, but we don't have an eagle and their eagle's awesome. And it's standing on a cactus, which is a tough guy thing to do. And it's crushing a snake, which is our other flag that don't tread on me. It's like, don't tread on you. Don't tread on you. I will snap through your throat with my mighty beak. And it just also occurred to me because this is what my new podcast, Simpsons Taumi, everything is sort of about, is everything links to everything.

And I love things that are nodes for curiosity that lead somewhere. So if you look into the American flag, they're like, well, why is there 13? There's there are 13 colonies. Why is there 50? That's how many units of land they have in their inventory. If you look into the Mexican flag, what does the Mexican flag eagle represent? The sun, the Mexican sun and war god. Wheat, wheat, sealed, coach, leave, forgive me, Wheatsealed Pochley, the Aztec sun of the god, god of the sun and war. And then you click on that and learn all kinds of cool legends and folklore. And then it's like,

what happened to those Aztecs? And it's like, here's a book called A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. You should read. So I'm saying going into the Mexican flag also yields a lot of interesting information. Right. Whereas the American flag, very fittingly, just yields like. Like, hey, you facts, hey, why are you here at the grade school rounding up little children? There's 50 of us.

OK, but can we see some identification? There were originally 13. That's what the bars are. That's all we got. Yeah, don't ask us. Shit. Do what we say. It is such a badass drawing. So it's killing a rattle. It's a good drawing. Oh, also imagine if you were like being Betsy Ross is cool, but being the person who drew that, exactly. Who drew that. Yeah. Like the California flag bears, you're like, that's my, I know you see a lot of that too, where people like, it's like the little, the snack flag and it's like, Oh no, a bear. Flag mashup. But yeah, you also see people being like, just do not wave that. It's bad for the optics. That's what Trump wants. And it's like,

please miss us with all that shit. This is a point of pride. Los Angeles used to be Mexico. Let's be completely real about it. I feel like we're back in 2020 again. We're getting all kinds of people like, don't protest like this, protest like this. Don't do that, do this. I'm operating from my version of

the civil rights movement where I knew not of any violence that was perpetrated against anyone there. I just think, I'm pretty from my version of the civil rights movement where I knew not of any violence that was perpetrated against anyone there. And I just think I'm pretty sure it ended with a bus boycotts or something. It was bus boycotts. Everybody was happy. Everybody followed Martin Luther King Jr. into the streets. It was like super popular at the time. I think he had a HP edge where he was the spokesperson. He got tons of sponsorship. Well, John Hodgman was the HP where he was the spokesperson. He got tons of sponsorship. Well, John Hodgman was the HP.

He was the Mac. He was, that's right. He was like the think different revolutionary. I was trying to think of like one of the things that just appropriated, like, I have a dream, like that speech. And that's what I came up with was like HP inside. Sort of mattress. Yeah.

He immediately had a mattress sponsorship. Immediately had a shoe that was made. Who did they just, you could, did you guys cover it? Oh, Orson Welles. They legally signed the document to make it so that he can say anything to you on your GPS and the family's like we don't care Yeah, chop that hair chop his dead words up. Give us the money. Oh like on ways or something Isn't that ways now has like pinky in the brain Orson Welles voice? Okay

I'd rather have licensed identity, but who did the pinky in the brain Orson Welles? Well, that's Maurice Marsh Of course give him more work. That's I'm saying that's who I want. I don't need fucking or so I want but they had a computer learn alive. That's who I want. I don't need fucking or so. I want the people that they had a computer. Learn it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck.

Yeah. I would love directions from pinky in the brain. Yeah. Like arguing with each other until I crash. Yeah. What's he saying? Uh, but obviously the civil rights movement, very unpopular at the time that it was happening, very, uh, white Americans were very scared of it.

And we're like, don't do that. That makes people scared. Which is why, yeah, I think we brought it up. We want you to be, we want people to be nice to you, but you're not going to get it that way by making them spray you with the hopes. Guys, this isn't how you're going to convince the racist. Stop it. Yes.

Oh, just do what the racists say. Don't scare the racist and then you're going to be okay. Don't do a sick thing where you're driving, riding a motorcycle with a fucking huge Mexican flag and looking fucking awesome. Okay. Don't do that because we have a better idea than that. Yeah. And see you guys are omitting the solution. You got to always hammer this home, guys.

Vote and then get out and vote. And that will fix it. Or send some money, send some money to the DNC. OK, send some money to the DNC, even if there's not going to be election. Michael Swain, what is something you think is overrated? I mean, I'll keep it short and sweet, but I feel like I have to point at the big board again and just say money. It's like for the rest of my life, whenever I show up on anything

where I'm asked this sort of question and it's I again, I don't err, it's important. I don't mean value. Separate those concepts. Again, it's important. I don't mean value. Separate those concepts. Money like the billionaire class as we all know is destroying us, but it's also for no reason. They're super unhappy.

So it would be healthier for them to understand some kind of, or you can get Warren Buffett seems kind of weirdly all right in terms of, I can't argue whether it's- Yeah. I don't know that it's ethical to amass a billion dollars period, but I just mean, he seems to sleep at night or have some coherent identity. But many other billionaires, Elon included, seem like totally eating alive and miserable anyway. And it doesn't buy me sympathy because they're killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people to figure their shit out.

But I do wish I'd figure their shit out because maybe that would help. And regardless, uh, I also mean it in the grand sense where I track so much back to money used to be a record of goods and services exchanged or potential values stored inside you. And then they're like, what if gambling was legal in the form of the stock market? And I could go to school and eat every day and learn and use all the resources of humanity. But my job, the whole thing I spend time on earth doing is looking at legal documents and moving money from one place to another and seeing if it's possible to abstractly make money, make money. Isn't that clever?

And isn't that a good thing? It's clever now. Later we all choked to death on our own farts. And that's that. So good job society. Money was a short-term like symbol we were supposed to use for barter exchange. Look, if AI can do all the art and everything, then maybe we're in Star Trek time and we don't need money. How about that?

And then the billionaires are like, no, we still need money. That's my value identifier. And so I just hate it. So they'll never let that happen. Yeah, that is what all like a lot of really smart people I knew in school, they went into making money make money. That's it. Just fucking growing money by putting it in various places. And it's a fun thing.

I remember at the time being like, they should be building fucking infrastructure. Like those people are smart. They should be putting, like making the world better, doing, building things. And I remember feeling childish for thinking that at the time, but I've never really been disabused of that notion. I do think that that is a fucking huge problem with it is just like all the smart people. They're just like, yeah, I'm going to make the money, make the money to make more money. I got to say, it's truly not just like a sour grapes, poor person thing to say, but I've, I know enough struggling people, middle-class people, and people who

got rich through skill and or luck that I have observed and really find it true. Some are happy and some are unhappy almost has no connection to whether, uh, like how much money you amassed. It is just a kind of addiction over like, as Warren Buffett, I think said, he was like, anyone who makes, which is still unthinkable to me, 700 grand a year or more essentially has an identical life to me, they can access anything they want at any time, everything else is just like frosting on the cake or more purchase power or political buying power or what have you. So, you know, I'll just be happy with my 700 K a year and that's me.

I'm home. You be Warren Buffett. Just put it in all of our bank accounts. We'll be good over here. I think he does it. He does. I think he buys himself some cover because he's not very Austin. He's just like so low key. He like lives like I've driven by his house in Omaha. And I was like, oh, that's where he like, I was just like, oh, that's like a house ignore that I'm absorbing the resources. Yeah.

Millions of there's like, and they're like, it's McDonald's for breakfast every day. And it's like, he, he's a fucking billion. We can't guillotine that guy. The little old man who eats McMuffins? Mollman? Yeah, exactly. I was wondering if, yeah, like do you, now that the Simpsons taught you everything, have you switched out beer as the cause of and solution to all life's problems with money?

No. Miles, I think savvy viewers will remember that the solution to all of life's problems is to move under the sea. And eat the little sea animals. It's not going to happen. Not with that attitude. That has reawakened. I always loved the Simpsons, but like many didn't watch it for at least 10

years, and now I'm that guy where I have to stifle incessantly. I always loved The Simpsons, but like many, didn't watch it for at least 10 years. And now I'm that guy where I have to stifle incessantly any stimulus. That Simpsons quote relates to that. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right. To be The Simpsons guy. Don't be college guy. This new franchise not helping with your... Whatever the brain condition is that you have, but it's a joy to be helped. Michael says a lot of things.

Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

In this eight episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait, head to Apple podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator,

and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing

other parts of that relationship that are being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small

ways. Three or four days a week I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on everybody's business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chafkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving

into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, Sports Reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name

of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm JR Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daley, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor

going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. And we're back. We're back. And we're here in LA.

Yep. And I'd say what are we seeing on the ground? Because the headlines miles I'm hearing Trump sent in the National Guard and saved our dear city from burning to the ground. Yeah. We call that bullshit. Actually, sensational manufactured bullshit. LA is okay. Let's just say that up top in the way that, you know, no one is at risk from anything from other Angelenos. It's the fact that we have federal

authorities and the police brutalizing people. That's, that's the danger right now. Because prior to that, we were doing okay, we're fine. We've been through some things, we've had some fires, we have an industry that's kind of dying in real time in front of our eyes, that's causing some problems, but yes, we are okay. I think what the-

Podcasting. Yeah, podcasting. What the news is showing people and intentionally mischaracterizing as riots are actually people defending their communities from illegal kidnappings of law abiding people. And like they want to show burning waymo's because that's the way they want to delegitimize the cause. What you're seeing is civil resistance. And let's not forget, we've been through this

before, right? In 2020, it was about anti-black racism and over-policing. The media focused on crime, but completely left out the part where crime is actually a downstream issue due to inequality and white supremacy. This time we were hearing about criminal aliens and crime. Again, the part the media leaves out is to, you know, the entire thing is that the media and the people who own the media and dictate what we are told or what is covered have been scapegoating immigrants as a way to avoid a real discussion on inequality and exploitation in this country,

a way to avoid the easy question of if these people pay taxes and are contributing, what's the problem? And why is there more money to kill innocent people thousands of miles away and no money for kids to have their illnesses treated? And they always say immigrants. Well, this is where we're at now.

And many pundits and well-meaning liberals are saying things like, don't be violent. They are not. The police are the ones shooting people at point blank range, disappearing protesters and unmarked cars, trampling citizens with horses. These people merely showed up in physical space to demonstrate

that when their loved ones are being torn out of their homes, their cars, their elementary schools, we will not tolerate that bullshit. So you see, this is what the resistance looks like. This is what fighting oligarchy looks like. Do the Democrats remember a few months ago, they're at that podium and weekly yelling things like, we will fight. Well, guess what?

This is what that looks like. You don't just cower in fear because they are more powerful or more violent than you, or because they have more seats in Congress. You dig deep and find your humanity and realize that this is not what life should look like and be like for us in America. We reject it. We resist it. But yeah, I did double-check that picture of the guy riding his motorcycle with the Mexican flag.

It was not Chuck Schumer. No, it was not Chuck Schumer. No, it was not Chuck Schumer. I wanted to double check that to make it wasn't Schumer. It wasn't, or Pelosi, it wasn't that. Wasn't there a point where they held up little ping pong paddles that said, actually, in Congress? Yeah. Yeah, that was a challenge.

Watch it, it was crumbling down. No. Yeah. No. Not true. That's exactly. Baby boom. And we're getting lectured by those people.

They're saying to fight and that's what we're doing. But because these phrases have been co-opted and obscured, we are meant to think that resistance in its highest form is to just yell resist. Okay, sadly, when fascism comes to your town, merely saying resist to militarized goons is not enough. And we're forced to protect each other. We are forced to come out in numbers and show the world

that we are united with our family, friends, and neighbors, regardless of some bureaucratic designation that is known as illegal. We don't see legal or illegal. We see kindness. We see generosity. We see people fucking tending to the pepper spray wounds of the very people that are oppressing them and disappearing them. Their rights are our rights. So it's pretty simple.

Like if we live in a world where we tolerate seeing children ripped from their parents arms at a daycare or graduation, we are saying we will tolerate our children being ripped from our arms. If we tolerate seeing someone who doesn't look like us be dehumanized and humiliated, we are not saying, we have been saying we will tolerate our own dehumanization and humiliation. So we draw a line and we say, no, we have a vision for how we want to live together and take care of each other and make sure we can all live with the kind of stability and happiness we deserve as it is our human right, not some legislative concept that needs to be debated on the floors of Congress.

So, yeah, L.A. is fine. In fact, we're so fine and we love our neighbors so fucking much that in times like these, we will show our collective love for each other in a way that clearly resonates as we've seen with solidarity protests popping up across the country. And in many cases, people just doing the exact same thing what people in LA are doing. They're seeing people in their towns,

their neighbors being violated and they stand up for them. And that's what we're seeing. So let's, you know, what we're doing is we're seeing the federal agents try and force a way of living on us that we just flatly reject. So all this talk of like it is a riot. I think that completely betrays what is actually happening and what for the media is always like, you know, the resistance is here. What is it?

I mean, this is what it looks like. What are you supposed to do when someone pulls up to you and is trying to separate you from your family? There's some form of you that has to resist. So to talk about it in this very, I mean, it's predictable how the media is talking about it, but this does such a disservice to what's happening. And on the other side of it, you see people who have completely fall for that narrative of like, Oh yeah, they're look what they're doing to their town right now, which is not the case.

And I think people that's, but that is the sort of repetition we're seeing over and over to then justify whatever, whatever's coming next. Yeah. Man, it really makes you wonder, especially working at Cracked, where sort of part of the mission statement, then weirdos would come, like Robert Evans would come in and be like, I'm going to do the thing I do here as well. But originally Jack would drill into us, or you know, a lot of the circle around the history,

you don't know the Cracked-y textbook was fully focused on. And you learn about vice versa, or it's weird to live and actually witness institutions you thought of as, well, that's a boring mundane truth lens or whatever. They just report the news. Do outright appeasement propaganda where it's like, oh snap, no, you really can't trust the mainstream media. And I don't mean it like the crazy people who said it when you kind of could. I mean, that now it's like full on cartoonish propaganda. That's weird on multiple issues, you know, especially Gaza and LA at the currently are both glaring.

But at the same time, it's just makes you wonder. Then, like when you get into unearthed history stuff, you'll learn about massacres that have been completely forgotten. Borderline genocides on American soil that have been completely forgotten. Borderline and textbook straight up. It makes you wonder like the LA riots that I know about or again, it just makes me distrust all of history or anything I've ever learned and wonder what will stand in the textbook, you know, 100 years from now about

this. Is it going to be the bullshit narrative? Shit, that sucks. And it makes me wonder, or like I've crammed my head full of propaganda. Like, because I like history and learned it all, and it's mostly not true. Right. Yeah. You got to read people's history. Yeah. My nine-year-old was asking, like, you know, what was going on, and I was like trying to-

Should I pay attention in school or not? I was trying to, like, explain to him, and, you know, I was like, well, so in the past, a president sent in troops to help protect black children going to a school safely. In the past, it's been used for good things. He was like, oh, what about interment camps? Oh yeah, that's all right. The flip effect. You're smart already. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. I do just say the underreporting.

What about interment camps? You shut up about that shit. What's your point? Traitor. I don't know. Never heard of it. Okay. And neither have you. There is no mafia, but just, I do feel really well put miles. Uh, the, the specific under reporting of what the ice raids look like in the context of this, like they are focusing so much on burning way Mo's and not on like these raids, why are they there in X like these raids. Why are they there? I've been explaining. Yeah. Why are people reacting this way? What's their problem?

You notice like- That's the first question that should pop into your mind. What's their problem? And maybe in the fracas, there will, or maybe I've already missed, be ice agent injuries of note, but by and large, the huge preponderance, I mean, not to mention like a drone footage of them just straight up beating people when they think they're not being filmed going viral. But it feels like the big ticket item to catch propaganda wise is a burning car because a, they say looting, but there is no looting.

This is not about achieving. Like no one is taking advantage of this on a widespread scale to get objects or possessions. Uh, and B that leaves them, I feel like with the only shot is like, well, that's a very expensive thing. You don't like so much chaos is implied in a burning car, so much waste and loss of property to society. And it's like, please keep in mind flames are very impactful looking.

Something burning seems very threatening and violent, but a burning car is nothing compared to getting a rubber bullet in the leg or the head or gassed in it. Like fucks and you have PTSD for years to come. Like none of this is on the scale of it. It is nonviolence. It's what's surreal to me is to see people go or like James Woods people. But now everyone is a human being.

That's that's my we're the good guys. But it's funny to me that James Woods will post a picture of the truck on fire and be like, this just has to end. This is unconscionable. And it's like, like, this is 2020 dragging kids away from their elementary school. Like a cowboy from what I was brought, like a big alpha male cowboy wandering through town would be like, excuse me, sir, unhand that little girl. That's always how you saw it. Or like, it's so obvious, you know, Q, where the baddies Jeff or whatever.

It's like, right. Not hard to be on the right side of history with this. Her wrestlers, the coverage is interesting, right? Because 2020, you couldn't escape all of the on film killings that happened with the price. Right. And that they had to sort of be like, and juxtapose the two with what's happening right now, they aren't doing that with really giving you the detail to really

connect people to the outrage. And I think they maybe learn their lesson or something like, yo bro, we did too much explaining on what we did in 2020. I think they are scared. Or the financial incentive again is just, well, for the shareholders sake, I guess Trump won and they won. I guess that's what people want. We better pivot to supporting that and that will move more units.

I thought society, right. It's like all the business to sit in some cases, it feels to me like everything is just like, oh, well, last season we were going woken. There was money in that. I guess we're going fascist now and there's money in that. My boss told me to pivot to that. And it's like, damn, that humanity again, this is why you are start to understand, you know, Orwell quotes like the person who will stand by and think this is fine is just as bad as

the Nazi camp commandant. And it's like, sometimes it feels that way for sure. Just following orders, just following the market. We're just following the market. They already got guys who dragged little girls out in the street saying, well, we're just doing our job. And it's like, that's not good enough. That's not a good job then.

Also, what did they tell you? MS-13, this little girl is what's going on? Well, I think that's why also we, there's huge question marks over where these people came from, who, like what part of federal law enforcement they're part of. There's been such a widespread conservative backlash to so many scare tactic things about like children are being endangered by like whatever. Traffic, uh, you know, zip ties on your car door handle. That's a sign that you and your child

are going through the pizza gate. They go through and they don't come back. Yeah. The traffickers are leaving clues to make sure, to make it a game, I guess, to make sure that the zip tie on your door handle, because they're trafficking so many people, they got to keep track of which cars they're going to traffic. This is a situation where people in masks are going to schools. Who, and, uh, asking to like see children and like the, the principals are having to like turn them away.

People who like won't fucking show their IDs. Like what if those are ICE agents, if those are Homeland Security officers and that is the precedent you're setting, like, I can't think of a more dangerous situation for children. And like, to normalize people going to abduct them and being like, no, this one's part of the government. It's like, well, okay. Yeah. It's really difficult to like watch and think of like all the times, like people who voted for Democrats clamored for things like amnesty for people

who have come into this country for universal healthcare, to codify Roe, to do something about over-policing and like, yeah, we'll get to that. But again, there's always this argument of like, it's just so unpopular. It's so difficult. Let me tell you something. If you codified role, you would not see people in the streets like this. If you gave people universal health care, you would not see people in the streets like this. If you gave people amnesty, you would not see people in the streets like

this. Now you would see some people, but not at this scale. And I think that really lays waste to any fucking argument that they want to put up about things not being politically the will to do something because look on the other side of it, these people just went all in on this shit and look at what's happening. And I think it reveals a level of cowardice to that party that I think is so infuriating to see is like, you're going to let them take swings like this,

and you're not even going to take a swing to just provide amnesty for people that have been in this country. You're not even going to take a swing to give health care to people. No. No. And they're like, well, there's all these other things. It's just miss us with all this shit. And I think that's what's so it been like, it's funny because now you do see some Democrats who are in California, who represent this region specifically, are now fully all in on this. Well, then shoot me like Maxine Waters was like, shoot me then. Gavin Newsom, who has a terrible track record, is suddenly like, just get it over with the rest of me.

I don't care. Like, but let's just do this. Like, let's get this over with. And now you're like, oh, because this is what happens in America. It's not till it's literally at your fucking door do you figure it out that like, oh, because this is what happens in America. It's not till it's literally at your fucking door. Do you figure it out? They're like, oh, this is a problem. It was never a problem when everybody else is telling you you're having him on the pod.

New scum. That's good. I get it. I got to sit. So I can tell the line. I do think it's a fundamental click in and you can on click, right? Like once you understand, oh, he's doing it. He's going all in for the fascist push. Like it's happening. I do think that you have to quickly polarize.

Everything's a spectrum, but you're either the type of person who's like, well, I can't risk my personal life for the stakes I have in the fire. I'll just watch fearfully as things unfold and hope it goes the right way. Versus the people who are like, well, I can't do that or I'll be an asshole. Historically, I have to say, no, don't you can't or I don't. It feels like a moral imperative again that we're at the point where believe, dude, I live a privileged cushy life and I want to just keep playing internet games

and stuff, but even me, I'm like, okay, well, we better get out to the protest, or we better start amplifying. We have to start doing things beyond just amplifying eloquence restatements of the problem, because I just don't want not to put it through that everything through that lens. But like, I guess everyone does. So I will. When my son grows up, assuming he survives to the next phase, I don't want him to look back and be like, Oh, we did like a Nazi thing, like period of time. And my family was one of the let's hide out and wait it out families. You don't want to be that family. You want to be the at least, which the Angelino people seem to be doing the like love thy neighbor, like at least stick up for the people in your direct area of influence.

Yeah. And also a lot of people, I think I see a lot of people getting stressed online about like, I want to be out there and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help. It's scary. The same thing. Yeah. Not everyone's contribution to a movement like this is to be in the streets.

There are people that are able to be in the streets. There are people that are able to, and I commend them. And for those who can't, there's no reason to feel bad about that. But if you do feel any will to act, there's resources, whether you want to support a group financially, maybe with a skill you have, maybe you're a graphic designer. You can say, Hey, can I design some leaflets for you for free? Can I use my platform I have? I maybe I'm just a Twitch stream, or maybe I have a niche

arts and crafts page that I make. But at the very least, thousands of people are interested in what I talk about, use that use a platform, whatever you can, there are ways to contribute, it always doesn't look the same. But make sure that you at least can contribute some energy in some direction to that. And I think that's, you know, that's a huge hump that people have to get over. And, and, and I get it, because this kind of direct action is not very, it's not a thing that Americans engage in

constantly or normally. But again, there are so many opportunities around there. And to your point, Michael, like, everything is so much about this narrative that everyone's like, it's a riot. And I'm sure all of us have gotten texts from people like, are you okay? Are you okay? Yeah. Is it okay?

I have an article that I'm just sending to people being like, this is what it actually is, like somebody who's on the ground with the protesters being like the harshest standoff was like a bunch of clergy members standing up with clergy. Yeah. Interfaith clergy. Yeah. Interfaith clergy just like trying to like it's all like a Tejano band. All escalation. Tejano band pulls up. Yeah.

All escalation is one sided, all toward the authorities. All we're doing is saying, no, we don't agree. How many of us don't agree? Look how many of us don't agree. Look how many. Oh, you'll shoot us? OK, we'll stand here while you shoot us. Please don't take this little girl away for no reason.

100%. One that just popped in my head as you guys were talking. One is the hoping that it'll get better. I was listening to Masha Gessen, who's a New York writer, be interviewed about, they went through the Putin, like the whole, you know, slide into authoritarianism under Putin. And they were saying just like the thing that you're taken by is like how quickly people get used to a thing. And then how two years on, you're always like, man, we had so much, we had the ability to do so much two years ago. Like it just keeps getting worse. It's the, our ability to imagine how it can get worse.

Like think about it in 2016 when everyone was like, well, this is like crazy. Right? Yeah. And then think about how much worse it is now. And it's just, it will keep getting worse. Like there's no, like they hoping that it will get better. I'm not saying that like you need to go out and throw your body in front of the fucking tank at Trump's birthday parade.

I'm just saying that any idea that like without anything happening, it will just get better on its own is not, that's not how authoritarianism works. This is how authoritarianism works. It's a steady slide and a power grab that gets worse and worse. And we lose more and more rights. And the math is easy though, too. You only need like three and a half percent of a population to be actively resisting to really thwart authoritarianism.

Destabilize shit. Yeah. Destabilize authoritarianism. Also, I totally understand the cognitive dissonance of the people reaching out. Because everyone had to go through where you're like, wait, but all the news says, right, it's on fire. You're like, it's not on fire. You're like, but they all say it.

You're telling me I can't rely on any information. No, no, no, no. I'm just marveling at when I went through that moment and looking back in history, I'm like, but I've always known that or I'm a student of history and sociology and studied fascist mechanics because I'm interested in that stuff. And I'm like, there's still that part of you that's like, but not to me, or they're doing it to me now in the modern context. I thought that was what dumb history people got the wool pulled over their eyes. Right.

Yeah. This is the reason it's called woke. Fascist mechanics like Nazi Rick over at the Just Tires? Yeah. And I also think just like you brought up Gaza and that has also all the points that Miles was making about when they're doing it to one person, they're doing it to anyone. Like what just seeing that reporter get shot in the ass with a like plastic, a rubber munition, but like just seeing the, you know, whatever it was, ICE agent or LAPD like turn their gun on them, like specifically like aim it at them as they're like live reporting. Like this is, that's what,

at them as they're like live reporting. Like this is, that's what, you know, Gaza has always been as like you, any, anywhere someone is treated like that, was treated like vermin to be like ethnically cleansed and it's being backed by your government. Like that's, that's going to come back. That's, that's not, it doesn't stop there. Right. And we usually try to just denigrate people of different skin color with like some like a term like terrorist, which has become so rampantly propaganda from the my you know, over the course of my life. And then if they

happen to be the same skin color, then was we see now we go like, well, trader then then they're a trader. Right. And it's like then, okay, so you can attack anyone at any time for any reason. And we're through the looking glass people. We are. As Millhouse might say on some of these times. It's just so weird. Cause like, you know, Steven Miller is behind all of this and they've been planning this. And like, you know, they're, they're picking LA as an example, because we're the biggest city with the biggest, you know, the population of people that are here that are undocumented.

And they but at the same time, dude, you're going after the biggest fucking city and your first go here. This is this. I don't know if you understand, like really what happens here. This is this is we fucking care about each other. Americans just care about each other, generally speaking. Well, I'm going to do it in a city this vast and like trying to, it's just like, I don't know how they think this is going to end, but it's not going to end in a

way that I don't think anyone wants. I think that's why it's really dangerous for this, for the media, especially to keep both sides like, well, Trump says it's actually being over one. Other people say maybe it's bad to do. Yeah. Los Angeles has fallen and these, and then, but city officials say there's no need for it. It's like, why are you even reporting it like this? Report the truth.

The truth is there is nothing happening here that we can't handle. What we can't really handle, rather, we can't abide by these people. The only invasion that is happening is from ICE agents completely disrupting our peaceful way of living here. That's it. And I think another part of the tragedy of humanity that seems so like bittersweet to a lot of people who just are able to see these layers unfold is it it really feels like They also It really feels like they also, so Vonnegut said the trouble with dumb bastards is they're

something like they're too dumb to know how dumb they are. Is this like- They don't know there's any such thing as dumb bastards. That's right. Thank you. It's cruelty for the sake of cruelty just to empower short- Yeah, white supremacy for the sake of white supremacy. Or short-term financially.

You're like, because that will allow me to stay in power one more election and get money here. And it's like truly, though, at the cost of crippling your entire nation and you're all your countrymen. And they're like, right. I've reconciled with that. That's fine with me. And so it's just bizarre to me that this whole churning tornado of hatred, like sometimes people used to say, like Stalin still got the trains to run on time.

And I, that sounds like propaganda to me. I have no idea if it bears out. But Trump can't even say that. It's like, yeah, you saw the legs. Got the planes to crash on time. You destroyed everything and sawed the legs off the table and sold the legs and took the money and left. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, they have no connection to the world. Like white supremacists. They just have no connection to the world. They're already in the survival bunker.

But what they don't understand is the survival bunker is not good enough yet. We're not there yet, technologically. Like, and also like, and when we're building it for you, we'll sabotage it. Like you're a human being born into this world. Be where you need to be. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back, we'll talk about adults going to children's movies.

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I'd still like to go under my classic newscaster. You drop in that. The question being asked online. Yeah, that's a once in episode. Is it okay for adults to go see kids movies and theaters alone? The issue was recently brought up by a mother on mumsnet.com forum. So she went online. She, I mean, whatever.

Uh, as someone who's purporting to write as a mom, uh, is on this forum and says that they went to a wheel on stitch and, Stitch and there was just some guy there by himself munching on snacks in a fucking movie theater dog. What? And she didn't call the cops? Like a bucket of buttered crudettes or racingettes because it's a very different impression. He was eating a damn crab boil.

Sitting there just munching away on snacks. She resisted the urge to taser him right then and there, and instead wrote about it. From the theater, by the way, was posting from her seat in the theater as the movie is happening. I wanted to put it to you guys because I honestly, as a fake journalist, I honestly don't know how I feel about this.

What do you guys think? Is it okay for adults to go to movies by themselves? I mean, they did conduct a poll under that post and it's found that 95 percent of people who responded to this post said, she was being unreasonable for thinking, what is this man doing having snacks in this theater? I get like, sort of like the, your first side look, whoa, oh no, like where's my kid?

But it's a movie and you're there to see a movie. I don't, I mean like, yeah, go ahead. Twist, Miles, it was Kronos devouring his own children. And now you look like the. Asshole. Snakes is a wide ranging. No, no, no. I will say, I feel like as someone who's never gone to the movie theater alone.

And is 40 years of age. And I, I think about all the time how it's weird that I've never done that. And there's nothing stopping me and I should, and I'm a lone wolf type guy. And I'd probably enjoy it, but total habit to never, it never occurs to me to go to a movie without someone to go with. I did it for the first time, like three years ago. And I think there's a lot of us. It like doesn't occur to people. How was it?

Was it weird? Like, this is amazing. I'm going to munch snacks. That lady looks upset. I saw the creator. I saw this amazing. I'm going to look at her. That lady looks upset. I saw the creator and I don't know, in a weird way, I think the movie hit me differently because I wasn't sitting next to anyone I knew.

I just straight up just took it all in without. Yeah. Sometimes Jack and I, we just saw a screening and sometimes I like to be like, yo, talk some shit, something funny about what's happening. Great, great joke in the middle of the night. I can't talk about right now, but it was the funniest shit. Like, I was absolutely dying.

They're like, yeah, I really enjoyed it. And like I'm the exact same way. Like I've only known going to the movies as a thing I did with my friends or like family or whatever. So it's very, uh, it was very enjoyable. I've definitely eat more alone than I have go to the movies alone. So I find eating alone depressing actually not like for myself, but when I see other people eating alone, it's depressing to me. Oh, like nothing about movies, going to the movie by oneself.

Like I love going to the movies. Except the fact that it was a live action Disney movie. I do. That's the only thing I take issue with. Not the live action. I take, I take, yeah, I take issue with their decision to go see that movie. They just re-released Princess Mononoke in theaters. Go see that.

Go see that. Cause there's a whole, isn't there like a whole Ghibli fest? Like every week? Yeah, they're rotating through some Ghibli movies. I think Puto is coming out next week. I know Lilo and Stitch is definitely a foundational film for a lot of people. And so the fact that they're, I'm not gonna judge.

I have had the experience where I went to see the Lego movie when that came out by myself as a 33 year old somewhere thereabouts and was like surrounded by families. And it was like also at that point where like we were starting to talk about having kids and whether I was responsible enough to have kids or not. And I was like, huh, that hit me a little weird, but I don't think it should be a problem. I think everybody should be able to do this.

Well, like, isn't this all just operating on this like weird suspicion that an adult and the presence of children is automatically a predator? You know what I mean? Like, cause all of it's like, isn't it weird? It's like, I don't know this movie. The idea would be that he's there because there's kids there. Well, right, because I feel like people like, isn't that odd?

Like, as some people do, like there are other people who point it out. They're like, oh, I don't know. Like, why was this guy in here when there's a bunch of children in here and he's by himself? And it's like, I don't know. This movie came out 23 years ago when they could have been fucking 12. And now that I mean, it's like like that's part of the, he's part of the demo. Disney's explicitly going after people who'd like to Lilo and Stitch and are fans of CG or whatever, want to see how it looks, you know, now, right.

Cause like you see other posts too online or people like, is it okay if I go? I don't want to look like a creeper. Yeah. You know, and it's like, obviously they they're I'm not saying that there are these places like a screening with a bunch of kids and is absolutely devoid of people who might have fucking weird intentions. But like I think merely the idea that you're like, no, this movie can only have children in here is like, OK, I don't know.

There's different movies I'd be a little more askance at, like if it was this My Little Pony CG Princess party movie and that guy was then you got bronies 71. I don't know I would and Not eating snacks the snack actually make it like it's fine way more likely That he's not a weirdo or creep because there's reasons to do that Yeah, if he just just sits down down front, turns his back to the screen and doesn't then I'm a little bit weird. If a guy comes in wearing the black mask from Black Phone and asks my kid if they want to watch a movie with them, he's just an ice age. Then we have a question. Yeah, he's just doing his job. JM was writing in this piece. So too, like, I didn't

know there are movie theater showings where they have changing tables in there. They're fully made for you to bring. Yeah. I didn't know that. Early morning showings. The really early morning showings of movies are made for families, and sometimes they'll leave the lights up a little bit.

So you can maneuver, sure. Yeah. It's just like the kids roam of roam free and the parents are just like on their phones or talking to each other. It's more of a fun thing to have your kid. It's like an alternate to taking them to the park every single day. Exactly. Yeah. Like as somebody who goes to the movies kind of somewhat off like, and also has

a kid that was so foreign to me. I grew up going to the movies with my family once to twice a week every week. And my kid will get the same treatment. Movies are life. The best. Like anything though, you're like, fuck it. I mean, you want to see sinners? He can't see screens till, you know, yet for some time now still.

But when we get there, I have no special resistance to obviously looking at, like, I don't think don't watch TV. It'll rot your brain. I think it's a freaking awesome. I've devoted my whole life to you have to have critical reading and thinking skills and discern what is good and interesting and what is bullshit. But yeah, you guys help that. Who? Who?

The show. I was trying to say something about the show. Cut it out. Cut it out. I didn't mean it anyway. They can cut it out. We don't take well, they're compliments. Cut that.

I didn't mean it. Michael, it's always such a pleasure having you on the show. Always fun. Where can people find you, follow you, enjoy your work? Yeah, I moved to my liberal bubble cook life simulator called Blue Sky. So I'm on Blue sky instead of X now, which I only call X now that I've left it, like an X that you've shared.

So it's just Michael Swaim, one word, Michael Swaim at blue sky. People who are huge fans of me and say that I am like among their top 10 comedians for a decade or whatever, will still spell my name with an N at the end as in Nancy so I rarely do this but you because it occurs to me Swaim Swaim is with an M like Mary or Michael Michael Swaim dot blue sky dot social and then of course you can also find the presence of my new show which I'd like to finally fully plug called the Simpsons Taught Me Everything,

on Instagram at STMEpod. And is it an appropriate time to actually plug the plug itself? Yeah, please. Screw it, I'm doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you know the show, Connections, or don't tell Robert I said this,

but like, Behind the Bastards, but I did it. It's sort of that model. Um, and it, it mirrors the way that a Simpsons episode will start somewhere and just do sort of stream of consciousness and jerk you around. But if you like cracks, you'll understand what I'm saying. When I say basically on the show, I start with a single Simpsons joke, like a super famous bit,

like the monorail song was our pilot, zoom in on what is that a reference to the music man? What is the music man that got us all the way to like the rise of car culture, the invention of credit, the golden age of the traveling salesman, mass cons and scams from throughout history, incidents as a mass hysteria, Hoovervilles and like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which is- Holy shit. Which was funny in the sense that if you get down to the brass tacks even, this shit that's happening with Trump and everything,

even the tariff thing is identical to what they did right before the Great Depression. They're like, we'll slap huge tariffs on the whole world. That will fix it. And that is blamed for causing the Great Depression, they're like, we'll slap huge tariffs on the whole world. That will fix it. And that is blamed for causing the Great Depression. So we just never learned. But anyway, the question was great, though, right? Yeah, that was a good one.

I'm going to stop paying attention after the first word. Yeah. That's terrible. Reading comprehension. And like, you know, in crack style with jokes and Simpsons related trivia games peddling throughout, which Behind the Bastards does not have, I and great guests, like members of the crack, you know, members of the crack to golden era, but also great folks like Danielle Radford, Cody Ziegler, Ben on Brian Breschwood of Modern Rogue, all kinds of folks come on

and I teach them and you about basically anything, science, history, sociology, uh, Jack would again say it cracks. And I, I think of all the crack children, I'm still doing the most crack these stuff, which is, uh, just make you the most interesting person at your next cocktail party. We just like learn really interesting stuff all day. Yeah. You got to do one on the joke of I have three kids and no money.

And what is three money? Right? Yeah. What is the history? What is three money? Our next one is it starts with the time Willie said, ah, tis more dizzy and then the bell free at Clara Cagoon wagons. And I explained what Clara Cagoon wagons says cause it's a real thing. And then the whole history of everything Willie has ever said in a crash course on Scottish history and independence. So it's that kind of stuff.

Video game. Yeah. And you can find it on YouTube at the cracked YouTube channel. It's for cracked. I don't know if I said that or, or by subscribing to the cracked podcast on Spotify and you hear my voice that I'm like, that's what I'm seeing. I would have gone the other way. This is as Jack knows SEO is like a strategy gamble.

Right? So the current people whose decision it is, we're like, we would rather just run it in the old feed because the legacy subs still exists there of people who are subbed to the crack. That's probably the right idea. That's cool. See, I, I, I think they may well be right strategically, but the like anal artist to me is definitely like, no, we should have sacrificed those and gambled on the confidence of starting fresh with a fresh feed. That's just called that. That's

just called this because it's confusing. But anyway, you can change the name of the feed. You can let them later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for now, look for the Cracked Podcast, which has not posted in five years. And you will see that the thing that's posting there now is my show. There you go. Amazing. Is there, so that's the work of media that you're enjoying, that we're all enjoying. Oh, well, I did bring something to promote by someone else. So I wasn't just, yeah. Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? Sure. Yes. So I'll just quickly say how excited I am for cracks, ex-fam and still dear friend,

Maggie Mayfish, who also continues the work in the sense that Maggie does incredible, long form and highly successful YouTube pop culture analysis videos, but lately has been achieving all of my actors dreams They Maggie made a movie with John Delancey cue from Star Trek. That's out on Nebula It's all through Nebula and then just dropped a teaser for their new show Amy's dead-end dream house So if you're a fan of Maggie Mae Fish, go check out Amy's Dead in Dreamhouse, a new show featuring Paul F. Tompkins, my absolute idol.

Which even if Maggie wasn't involved, it would have gotten my interest. But it's like a Pee-wee's Playhouse with Maggie as the star analyzing film. It's going to be good. It sounds really good. Yeah. Miles, where can people find you? Is there a work in media you've been enjoying? Everywhere. At Miles of Grey. We're covering the NBA finals What's left of it on miles and Jack got mad? This is tuned in because there's only a couple episodes left ever of this show. That's gonna be it. Oh Yeah

Basketball is not done. Basketball is not, but the show is done. Couple more weeks. There will be a true crime podcast revealing all the behind the scenes antics about that soon enough. You will see. Stay tuned. Also find me talking about 90 Day Fiancé on 420 Day Fiancé.

Yeah, there's some things I like here on Blue Sky at George Wallace, MrGeorgeWallace.bsky.so so said, so sick of these gang members working difficult jobs and paying tens of billions of dollars in federal, state and local taxes for decades. You just know they're biding their time. Then wham, they'll start doing gang shit when they're senior citizens and whatnot. Exactly. Um, and another one, Yeah, and whatnot. Another one is Christopher Mathias at let's go.

Mathias.beastguy.social just said, thinking of this tweet for no particular reason. It's one from at eyeball slicer that said, a liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that's going on right now. I just wish they did it exactly the way I wanted it. What are the stakes for you? Just my comfort.

Yeah. It's just nasty. I see. Okay. Let's see. I've been enjoying following the guy Dave Portnoy who started Barstool Sports, has apparently never taken a picture not on his tippy toes. And so there's just a lot of people documenting that. He was like, of all the lies told about me, this is the most egregious.

People are literally photoshopping me standing on my tippy toes now. And then somebody just posts a video of him taking a picture with somebody at a cheese steak store, and then the video just pans down as it's being taken, and he's on his tippy toes immediately by Mary Kane. Oh, that's, oh. Has someone done him perfectly on point

as a ballet dancer yet? Because other- He can't, his form is bad. Oh, he's a Tottenham fan? Yeah. There's a picture of him with Ari Kane on his tiptoes Look at this one. He is he looks like he's trying to do Michael Jackson on his toes like that Yeah, or the David Blaine trick someone into thinking you're levitating by just going up on. Oh, yeah It's for the people in the back

These photos are for the people in the back. These photos are for the audience in the back. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien on Blue Sky at Jack Obi, the number one. You can find us on Twitter on Blue Sky at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. You can go to the description of this episode wherever you're listening to it and find the footnotes.

Footnotes. Which is where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode. We also link off to a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, is there a song that you think that people might enjoy? Yes. I love the most deaf album, Black on Both Sides, especially the track Umi Says. This artist, Reginald Omas-Mamode IV, who is like half his,

I think his mother's from Mauritius and his father's from the UK Covered it but this track it's sort of like a rework It's called Yaseen's lament because now most stuff goes by Yaseen Bay And it's just like it's a really vibey version of whom he says and I just think right now Hearing that refrain of you know I want my people to be free to be free to be free just kind of really resonates In a really nice way in this track does a really good job of that. This is Yacine's Lament by Reginald Omas-Mamode, the fourth.

All right. We will link off to that in the footnote. The Daily Zyte Guys is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this morning. We're back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and we will talk to you all then. Bye. Bye.

The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Long. Co-produced by Bae Wang. Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb. Edited and engineered by Justin Connor. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024.

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