The Daily Zeitgeist - American Kakistocracy, Hollywood Warming Up To A.I.? 05.03.2023

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

In episode 1476, Jack and Miles are joined by writer and podcast host, Molly Lambert, to discuss... Both parties hoping that you don't realize they've done absolutely nothing about anything, The WGA Strike proving that Hollywood really wants robots writing movies, and much more! 1. Ronna McDaniel reiterates importance of 2024 debates: 'We need to come together' | Fox News Video 2.The writer's strike wants to prevent an AI-generated Hollywood hellscape | British GQ (gq-magazine.co.uk) LISTEN: Supersonic - NoisiaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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, 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. In California, during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the

United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson, 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI, identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer this season on the new podcast Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. Hello the internet and welcome to Season 285, Episode 3 of Your Daily Psych-Eistay, a production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It's Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023.

My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Hard Feelings, Harder Thighs, my motto that I go by, because i got these plumpers on me um and i'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co-host mr miles gray oh man i'm just here i'm just miles gray uh my legs are plump and i like it mark on them with cherry chapstick all right anyway that's that's from la caroni that's he did a whole song right there. Even though, look, Jack has plump thighs, I also have plump thighs. I just don't want that to get lost in the Discord. Please. Because I'm also

got maybe 5C thick thighs. Thank you. You know what I mean? I couldn't even participate in the skinny jean era because my legs were an anomaly to I guess all the uniform fashion trends that people were doing. It's just weird how they don't make the right jeans.

Karl Lagerfeld wasn't feeling your thighs. No, no. He would have told me I was disgusting and needed to get my shit together and drink more Diet Coke. Yes. Miles, we are thrilled to be joined by a brilliant, talented writer, podcaster who's written for local publications

like the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, GQ. She was the co-host of the legendary podcast Girls in Hoodies, Nightcall, the writer, creator, and host of the legendary podcast Heidi World, The Heidi Flay Story. Please welcome

back to the show, the legend, mate! Molly Lambert! Molly! Dolly, Dolly, Dolly, Dolly, Dolly, them back to the show the legends mate oh shit i know i'm a lambert but molly yes we just talked about the new drake song for how sad and alone that man is he just needs someone to be patient with him someone to be patient with him he's got his thick thighs to keep him warm yeah he needs someone to give him therapy also my ak was a reference to a embroidered jacket molly just told me about he's wearing an embroidered jacket that says hard feelings, harder dick.

Yep. I think it's album promo. Nothing going on there. I think this has to be like a mixtape title or something. Cause he's done it a couple of times. He just wore another one that had little cute puppies on it, cuddling each other. And it said hard feelings, harder deck again,

sir, sir. You're, you're, you're losing the plot. My man, hard feelings, hard again sir sir you're you're you're losing the plot my man hard feelings hard dick soft puppies soft puppies also my man you're 36 years old yeah okay i'm going to be doing that but anyway hey it's their own no hard feelings yes hard feelings i am mad right now yeah it's kind of his whole energy. And I'm so horny.

I'm mad and I have a boner is what I imagine it's like to be a man. Yeah. That basically sums it up. It's like I'm mad and I have a boner because my favorite basketball team lost. Or it's just like the two modes I'm in

are angry or boner. So it depends on when you catch me. That's what you're going to get. Hard feelings, hard to deck. Those like the two modes I'm in are angry or boner. So it depends on when you catch me. That's what you're going to get. Hard feelings, harder dick. Those are the two worlds inside you. But he's suggesting that he has them both at the same time. Well, that's why he's Drake. Yeah, exactly.

He's reached a Christ-level consciousness. Because he's like, I'm a sad little bitch with a titanium boner. I also think it would be interesting, Big Feelings, Bigger Dick, because Big Feelings is what you say to children. And there's something... I feel like there

was a part of the writing process for the album cover Bag Embroidery, Hard Feelings, Harder Dick, where he for the album cover bag embroidery, Hard Feelings, Harder Dick, where he wrote Big Feelings, Bigger Dick. And someone was like, yeah, but you only talk to five-year-olds

about having big feelings. Yeah, and with a lot of the rumors about you, let's not do that. Only five-year-olds. He does have a son. Well, he also wore a Viagra racing jacket after that, which I thought was really funny. I was like, wow, this is a hilarious album rollout, whatever it is.

Because Viagra jacket implies that the hard dick is like... Manufactured. Yeah, medically assisted. Hey, look, and maybe that's a new thing he's doing because he loses so much fucking money gambling online. I can see him being like, hey, Pfizer, you want me to fucking do something with y'all? Please. Look, nothing is cooler than being addicted to gambling and on Viagra.

And on Viagra. And 36 with millions of dollars. And 36 years old with a bazillion dollars. And sex with me is super fast. It's just incredibly fast. Come and rescue me. Take me out the club. Like it's just incredibly fast Come and rescue me Take me out the club

Okay okay okay sir I think it's the hard dick first And then the hard feelings Is what I imagine Like hard dick harder feelings That kind of gets you thinking a little bit It's like sex and then you cry Yeah

Because you're lonely Not a great proposition either Look I think just in general this this doesn't feel like the most rapper thing i've seen to wear a jacket but that wasn't cool about but also here's why here's why triana and asap rocky look so happy and in love at the metropolitan gallivant they're happy they had so much fun at the Metropolitan Galavant and he just looks so happy to be with her.

And he's like so much hotter than Drake. You know it makes Drake want to... He ain't Rockham. He ain't Rockham. I will use his legal name. You know what I mean? You ain't Rockham, man. ASAP Rockham. As soon as possible, Rockham. Rihanna looks so happy. She looks happier. At the Metropolitan Galavant him as soon as possible happy at the metropolitan gallivant as soon as

possible rock him with rihanna robin fenty at the metropolitan gallivant all right molly we're gonna get to know you a little bit better in a moment first we're gonna tell our listeners a couple of things we're talking about uh we'll talk about just where we're at state of the two major parties the two options that americans have to vote for uh we'll talk about just where we're at, state of the two major parties, the two options that Americans have to vote for. We'll talk about the writer's strike, all of that, plenty more. But first, Molly, we'd like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? I've been looking at porcupines. Yeah.

Just for the vibes? You're interested in them? What's so good about porcupines they're cool they're cute they're like you know what they're like drake they're like hard feelings harder spine harder needles hard spines soft little nose soft little cute squishy nose yeah that would that is kind of a good metaphor yeah it's like i relate to that they're like hard on the outside like don't touch me i'm spiky but then they're like do touch me i'm a little soft guy do you remember the first time you touched a porcupine quill i don't think i've ever touched a porcupine that's never happened to me or most people i would dare say that's what i want now is to touch one do you remember the first time you hugged a porcupine

and just got stabbed all over your neck and chin just shoved it in your windpipe see what would happen time a kangaroo punched you in the face and you like turns out you kind of like it kind of liked it and then you kind of into it my to be honest had a thing for kangaroos for a little bit no i just remember because it was like one of those i real as a kid i was really into porcupines and in my mind like these things would shoot out and could kill you if they like where you know if you got fucking close to one but i just remember seeing like a leopard and shit you know like a bunch of quills in its face and like uh like you know you know you know sometimes you'd have like those people come to your school they were like an animal person or whatever and like just show you like a dead lizard and like some fucking snake skins and be like oh i remember this one dude had porcupine quills and i thought

it was for whatever reason i thought it was the coolest shit that ever happened and that's all i have to contribute to this conversation it is cool yeah like those animal people when i was a kid and like i just thought they were kind of weird. And then the more you learn about animals, you're like, oh no, they're right to be like, why isn't anybody else just fucking mind-blown by this all the time? There are real-world fucking Pokemon just wandering our planet at all times. This thing shoots fucking darts off its back.

What are you talking about that's the attitude i'm bringing guys right hey so you kids like pokemon huh well here's a pokey monster right here this porcupine you might like that he'll poke you mon are you jamaican sir no no just i'm from montana no that was kind of problematic. Sorry. I didn't mean to say that to you either, young man with the dreadlocks. It's because I was talking to someone whose name was Monica and I was shortening it. Oh, yeah.

That's my friend's mom. Shout out, Mom. What is something you think is overrated, Molly? Wow. You know what's overrated? Movies. What? Wait, you love a movie, but tell me why. What have you discovered now? Where are we at with the movie? They're too long.

And big. You mean just like physically when you're at a movie theater and the screen's there and you're like why are those people so big up there this is more like at home when i need something to watch i have found that i have like lost the attention span required to watch a movie by myself yeah i remember like the heyday of like putting on like cable and like whatever was on like hbo i was like yeah

watching drop zone for the hundredth time from beginning to end let's do it you know and now like i get fucking anxiety like it's to the point like i like i'm missing movies because i'm like fuck man i got fucking two hours right now that's what i mean it stresses me out to be like oh i gotta set two hours of my life aside and watch this the whole time but like but then what do you do instead for two hours because that's that's the irony the irony of what i do is like oh then i'm gonna just watch 90 day fiance for three hours here's what i did last night sometimes i reach an absolute stopping point where i can't deal with narrative anymore we're just like paying attention to something is is makes me angry i don't want to do it right and also

what i'm trying to wind down at night it's like if something's too engaging i'm gonna watch the whole thing yeah right i don't want to know what happens so last night i put on the lo-fi girl on youtube study to chill to study too and i put on the beats to relax and sleep too and then i watched a live stream of time square you did all those those were over you had two beats going no no i just had the beats were open providing the channel was low to the time square live stream? Yeah, then I put on the Times Square live stream, which I like to do on EarthCam. Yeah. They have some live streams of places all over the world. And I just watched the Times Square live stream

where there was nobody in Times Square. I was going to say, what shows up on there? Because I feel like the only time I see it now are in TikTok videos where kids are dancing, but I don't see them on the live stream cameras. Mostly just cops loitering around looking for people to harass and like giant flashing advertisements playing to nobody.

I find it relaxing. It's like relaxingly post-apocalyptic. A little DIY sludge video. Yeah, slow TV. And sometimes I also watch the explore.org cameras of animal cams, live cams. There's like an eagle nest. What soundtrack do you do with that? I also do a little bit of those YouTube generic bossa nova channels. Have you ever done those? Oh, shit.

Do you know what I'm talking about? I talk about the genre of music all the time called bgm background music yeah and like on spotify there are a couple artists who i just like that's how i go to my fucking post-apocalyptic dystopia where i feel like i'm like i'm like desmond in the fucking hatch and lost where i'm like i have fake sunlight and i listen to this one album on a loop to feel like i'm normal yeah that's That's kind of cafe BGM on Spotify. I listen to BGM, the background music guys on YouTube too. There's one who just does all this like bossa nova and jazz that's like not copyrighted.

It's just like, and it's like a little janky. It's like sometimes he's a little off beat or something even. And I find it so relaxing. Like, I don't think it's insulting to music to say like sometimes you need music that you just aren't thinking about yeah it's wallpaper it's wallpaper is what i call it's wallpaper is ambient yeah i only like music that i have to sit in a dark room and stare at the computer screen as it's playing just to have my full focus that makes me think about math. That's the only

music I like. Dale. Dale. Dale, Jackie. What's something you think is underrated? Guess what, guys? I just started watching TikTok. Oh, no. This is the same reason I can't pay attention to movies anymore.

So you got pulled in? Yeah, I've been fighting it because I know I can't handle it it's like it's so powerful right right what's what's like a weird uh tiktok like some weird shit that you've been getting served that you're like fuck man i honestly i don't even have it yet i just have someone else that i make show me tiktoks whoa like oh like someone who quit smoking but just like to be around y'all smoking cigarettes social drug doing like i only do i don't buy it yeah i'm like if someone else has tiktok then like i'll do it with them like i'm not gonna get it like i'm not gonna be doing tiktok at home by myself yeah i don't like do my own tiktok but i understand now it's like so

addictive you can't stop watching them they're so funny everything is funny yeah just like the way it really did make me be like movies can't compete with how much i love this yeah like i love this 15 second bit that's from hack stand-up but people are just acting out like movies have to be as good as a 15 second video that ends with like a train whistle for no reason right and then like a clip of like out of context future like they're wrapping me like it's a cold world okay maybe somebody doing like a speed run of zelda underneath the whole time sludge yeah get it in it feels like the future movies are the past there's one that i laughed so hard at this weekend it was like this it was a clip it says like when uh my wife and i are arguing but i'm trying to cuddle and it's like a couple in

bed and the dude gets in bed and he's trying to spoon his wife from the back and she starts like scooting over because he's mad and he like scoots after her and then they continue that to like they're scooting off the bed they're scooting down the hall they're scooting out the house they're scooting on the fucking streets like just on their sides keep doing I'm like yes keep going keep going and I'm like this is fucking

whatever I don't know why I'm getting so much joy from it all right let's take a quick break yeah we'll come back and we'll talk about the Democratic and Republican parties joy from it all right let's take a quick break yeah we'll come back and we'll talk about uh the democratic and republican parties this summer the nation watched as the republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months these events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts

on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. These are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen 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 daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with dancer, actor, host of Dancing with the Stars, and now novelist, Julianne Hough. I feel really whole.

I feel like the last few years I've really unraveled a lot, which is part of what this book is about. And I really feel so content, which is a word that used to scare the crap out of me. And I love that word now. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Defne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.

I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back we're back we're talking about another election this is number two closer

closer and closer to their second presidential election for this podcast i don't even think about that this is a it's a doozy this one i don't know this one feels more like a lot more boring just because it's the same shit over and over and over again um but they don't want you to know that right well i think right now both parties are seemingly united in their rigidity uh even if it means losing the election at that like just lack of like changing anything um republicans have like just i just want to touch on this thing that ronan mcdaniel the head of the rnc uh talked about over the weekend on fox like we've talked about this republicans have seen loss after loss since the

overturning of Roe, yet they can't get fucking past it. And they're just doubling down. And the same with guns. A majority of Americans, it's clear, a majority of Americans are like, we want fucking assault weapons fucking banned at a minimum. What the fuck are you doing? And Republicans can barely muster

the strength to even utter the word gun. But Ronna McDaniel, she's out here on on fox on sunday and really made this lack of awareness situational awareness clear on her appearance she was able to like describe the situation the republicans were in which is like you know we're losing independence man we got to get the independence back i don't know what the heck's going on we're losing independence and also like red state people are moving to red states and blue states are getting bluer and just electorally like we the only way we can win is getting like independence in like blue and purple states it's like okay yeah that makes sense so you've articulated the situation now how are you going to address that and the host is even asking ronald mcdaniel like you're taking l's on abortions

but it sounds like whenever people are asking like Republican candidates about abortion, they don't know what to say. Like they don't even know where they're at. And it's just really like awkward and doesn't make sense. What do you have to say about that? This is her response as to how the Republicans are going to get around that. Let's see where the Democrats are. What abortion is a bad idea to a Democrat? Nine month, eight month, seven month month they can't even articulate an abortion that's a bad idea gender selection if it's a girl you get to abort it taxpayer-funded abortions for people where it's against their religious conscience that's where joe biden was years ago so the question is we just got to say we're pro-life and then immediately just pivots to democrats want to kill babies like after they're born

more like kill women babies they will control all delete your fetus because that's what they do right now and it's like okay hold on that that doesn't explain the like the situation that y'all are in a policy wise but the whole interview started off with the host talking about there's like this 2022 midterms post-mortem report that the rnc did to be what the fuck Happened in the midterms just now It can't be our fucking just Arcane philosophies and the host Rightfully pointed out that a lot of Republicans who saw their support

Just couldn't understand how this analysis Had no mention of Trump They're like there's not even a mention of that As to what that means for the party and like Ron McDaniel's like it's not the final thing So maybe it'll be in there. Spoiler alert, I doubt it will be. So that's just kind of like an interesting thing

where they're even, as they try and look forward, they're completely handcuffed. Like even their analysis, they have to avoid the reality of what Donald Trump does to down ballot candidates, even when he endorses them, like they were losing. So to pivot to the Democrats,

I mean, at least other Republicans are like jumping into the primary because Democrats democrats not so much at the moment they are looking all set to do the same the thing we've seen pretty much every election i can remember you talk slightly to the left promise shit for working people then whoops i don't know how we couldn't deliver on all that stuff and hey have you heard of republicans ew which is basically the policy every time and joe biden has less support than trump did at this at this point in his administration only 38 percent of democrats are even into the idea of him running again and that's mostly because 2020 was people just holding their noses to get trump out and so the utter lack of enthusiasm for democrats is just

wild to see them be like nah we're going all in on this stale potato chip of a man that's what we got and i hope you guys like it and they're also doing like they've they've settled on dehydration as the method of preservation of him and he is is just like a piece of Joe Biden jerky. Yeah, yeah. Joe jerky. Oh, that's okay. Don't give Trump any ideas. That's a good.

Biden's sleepy Joe Biden. Jerky skin Biden. Jerky boy Biden. Anyway, but the DNC though, they're also doing a lot to protect him. Like they're like, you know, to scare off any primary challengers. They moved the first primary to South Carolina.

Like for the last 50 some years, it was always in iowa which had many people being like yo what the fuck's the reason for that the party's explanation was like well you know i was 90 white and it is not as well suited as like the first place for a prime or for takakis because it's not as diverse as a place like south carolina you know then i think that that's what we're trying to do plus sure they they do have the thing where like the 2020 iowa caucuses were a shit show with all those weird like software issues but a lot of other people are pointing out that south carolina is just a state that is much more favorable to joe biden yeah it's the one that swung the entire election before south carolina

everyone was like this guy's not gonna do anything and then after it was like over the media was like well it's biden's to lose and we're we're done here folks a lot of people are like oh so you're doing that so you can set the tone and crush any early primary hopefuls like out the gate so you hear that rfk jr and the orb lady that's what you're up against right now so like rfk jr running yeah as a democrat yeah he's there democrat yeah as an anti-vax democrat but he's not really talking about that part that much wow he's gonna get all the malibu vote oh yeah speaking of malibu your shirt just evoked that um but like the thing is like you look at all the things that like biden's done it's like what happened to the pandemic aid or like tax cuts and like why did you crush that railroad strike like these are

legitimate questions voters who are like actually engaged are going to be asked and obviously drive enthusiasm down but luckily for democrats the republicans have just as little appetite for anything substantive or transformational unless it's to transform the country into like a fucking ethno state so like republicans can't back away from their hateful shit so their strategy is pray for a fucking disaster that changes the conversation away from our abortion and gun policies and everything and the democrats they can't back away from upholding the status quo and they're like you know they don't want to address things like cost of living so they're doing the same thing we've seen which is hey just have the gop stay the same and we can just lightly gesture in that direction and be like

you want that and yeah here we go yeah they're bad and we're bad too but they're worse we don't use racial slurs in public we just do it in our policies we just yeah Democrats are doing the thing that like you see in sports a lot where after a game people will assume that the opponent is going to do the exact same thing again

and they're like well this one's over we just have Joe Biden going against Trump again so the exact same thing will happen I have a sports take yes I have a sports take. Yes. I have a sports take. I want to come on boosties for my like two sports takes.

I'm here for playoff basketball only. All right. And I come from the perspective of someone who's never watches basketball and it's just... I love that. Going off the dome. But I just learned about who Gianiannis is yeah um yeah and i watched that game

and then he made that statement afterwards where he was like about failure is this season of failure that was like so interesting to me because he's greek right so his statement was like so interesting to me because he's Greek, right? So his statement was like, yeah, you know, like lots of people are the greatest players and they don't win every single game. So like, does that make them a failure? Like, is Michael Jordan a failure because he didn't like if he doesn't win a game, is he not still the greatest player of all time he said this thing that was like so measured and rational right about winning and losing and like being the greatest you know doing the thing you care about the most and being incredible at it and like if you lose one time does that mean you're now a failure like right and then philosophical people are so mad uh because that's not the american way i was like nobody in america is gonna accept this because it's like too it's too like it's too rational it's too rational

and how does this factor into the democrats or republicans again because it's like it doesn't at all because we went from this thing and then you're like giannis i'm there for that conversation it is the kind of thing it's a yeah it's free a loopy conversation i think it's just like when you hear someone say something rational yeah it makes you realize how brainwarmed everybody is in America about everything. Because the thing that would make sense to do would be to be like, yeah, we're going to lower the cost of living. We're going to fix inflation. We're going to offer you something that's going to make you want to vote for us besides just,

we're not going to take away abortion like these are your only choices or like status quo or status quo minus abortion more rights right right right yeah i think i was just like hearing somebody european like say something normal about like yeah there should be like the way when you hear a european person be like yeah we have a social floor like you can go to the doctor it doesn't cost anything things that are like normal like what because you're broke it sounds like a system set up for losers sounds like a system for losers i think just like the losers and winners thing it's like obviously that's how trump won was he was like i'm a winner they're fucking losers get with the winning team

and it just feels like that's what biden's doing a little bit now it's just like what else you got like we're the winners you have no choice he can't even go into like the fdr's playbook and be like yo man just give him something bro you can fucking be out give him something he's like no no we're not doing all that no way like you would think in a world where anything made sense you would think they would see the rise of like leftism and the fact that everybody who's gotten fucked by like post reagan asceticism is is mad and wants things wants health care can't afford shit. Even people who might agree with the Republicans would love it, actually, if groceries

cost less. Why wouldn't you appeal to the one thing that the Democrats are supposedly good at? It just shows how absolutely out of, you know, just all the powers concentrated at the top. And a bunch of people who have, like, the

poorest person they've seen is just whoever they see out of their window walking at the top. Yeah. Like in a bunch of people who have like the poorest person they've seen is just whoever they see out of their window walking on the street. Republicans and the Democrats have class solidarity for rich people. So it's like, they are both committed to just like arm wrestling to the death on a rocket ship. That's on fire. Like nobody's even trying to like put out the fire on the no no no no

no yeah or like it's who's gonna win the monkey knife fight the i think the problem is like democrats aren't good at the one thing they're supposedly good at anymore like they can't give us anything because corporations have all the power in their case like republicans but that's like a choice they made yeah but for sure yeah but like the way the current system is set up they have made a hard choice to like not do anything that's going to change it's just like the way in which like a rational person would see the success of like the bernie stuff and be like we need to absorb whatever the lowest stakes part of this we can possibly offer people yeah it's weird because like corporations are really good at co-opting that kind of shit yeah and be like hey watch this

we'll take your shit and bring it into ours and now you don't even know the fucking difference but like it just like makes you feel insane yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, where's the savvy? But hey, whatever. This is where we're at. Disney thinks you should have off work for Earth Day. So, you know, we get it. Should we talk about the writer's strike? Is that on the docket? Yeah, that's

up next. Yeah. Up next. Speaking of Giannius. Speaking of Giannius. Alright, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about the Raiders strike. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of

that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday.

Listen 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 daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with dancer, actor, host of Dancing with the Stars, and now novelist, Julianne Hough. I feel really whole. I feel like the last few years, I've really unraveled a lot, which is part of what this book is about. And I really feel so content, which is a word that used to scare the crap out of me.

And I love that word now. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Defne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered There are crooks everywhere you look now The situation is desperate My name is Manuel Delia I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back and um the wga strike is official writers are set to pick it uh yesterday um so i think they did pick it um and they did yeah you had to sign up make sure you're in your slot the unions have said that the production companies have created a gig economy inside a union workforce. When you see the

details of what is happening, what used to be paid to writers and what is on offer now, it's just... I guess the most pressing issue is compensation. The number of scripted shows have skyrocketed, but

writers' pay has completely stagnated. they started doing this thing uh the mini writers room where they just like have fewer people working on a show so they can pay fewer people they like have them working for less time um you as the consumer even if you're not a member of the wga you're going to see this in like the lower quality of the content that's being produced um but it's yeah and so like when you look at the details of the negotiation the union's like so we want to like have at least a basement on like the number of writers and the number of time like the amount of time that constitutes a writer's room and the corporate you know powers that be came

back with like how about we don't even respond to that because how about fuck you yeah it's kind of the response and it is it's kind of just the the way things are shifting it's they're just slashing and burning like the old ways of doing things which rendered good content but now yeah but now we're also putting writers under pressure to be like okay you have three days to do this whole thing yeah this has just been like the story of our lives it's like they got rid of everything that made having a job a thing you wanted to do like so they made everybody an independent contractor even at jobs where you once would have had like a salaried job right i've had and they and it happened first in journalism and now it's happening in hollywood but basically it's just like the tech company

isation of everything it's like when tech companies come in and take everything over what they mean by like move fast and break things it's like fucking break labor laws yeah right breaking your spirits they're using like in this case they used the switch from like cable television to streaming as like the excuse to completely like rewire everything like reword the contract and it's like such an arbitrary difference it's just like what people watch it on my logical brain when i was like a young writer starting out like as magazines and other ecosystems were like collapsing and i thought foolishly like okay well it'll go to the internet and at some point they'll start compensating people fairly on the internet but the whole time it's just been

like no internet less and less and less other thing that's less valuable so we pay you less right and like rates just haven't gone up for writers across the board in like 20 years which is like insane but it reflects other trends in the country of just like rates aren't going up jobs don't have the things that once made it for any reason like useful to have a steady job you know it's like yeah yeah how about less perks less benefits more work right well it's like they they offer it as like you get to make choices it's like this thing i feel like it was also like marketed to us as like you get to like you get to have five jobs you get to like right yeah work on all these cool things right you're not tied down to this one job for 20 years

so you get to work 70 jobs all the time forever with no promise of like any kind of contract pickup you know right um especially something like writing where you can make people feel like they're lucky to be doing it at all for money because any kind of creative pursuit uh this is what my next podcast is about uh about the most worker protections and and content making and all that stuff in the most important american media industry yeah which is which is pornography yes yeah i'm sure i'm sure that was assumed by our listeners yeah they know well it's just interesting because i've been working on it and it is really about workers' rights

and content, merchantry, and art making for money. Right. And the way in which it went from being a thing where you could have a steady job to being a thing where you are a mercenary. Yeah.

Even mercenaries deserve protections especially you know thank you yeah eric eric prince was just talking about that recently on uh sebastian gorka's podcast um but i i like one of the other things too right because we talk about technology and things is like the wga the writers guild they're also very concerned about AI. That stuff is crazy because that, to me, shows you how dumb they are. That they're like, we can replace you with robots. Because all the AI stuff, it's never up to the level that it's being advertised as. No. A friend of mine who has ChatGPT, they were showing me, I was like,

they're like, dude, I got it to like five movie ideas based on this candy or whatever like and like they're like and we put the prompt in and it's funny how it just it gives you like the most like they're serviceable ideas but they're clearly just aggregated from other ideas elsewhere and you're like no this is actually original like one thing was just like the avengers but like but they skinned it over with like these candy things and another one was like basically tommy boy but with like candy maybe that's like the problem is writers are like yeah but like ai is going to give you like shitty content and they're like yeah that's what we want we don't care if it's fucking good we want a robot to write the avengers that's obviously where this has been going all along. Yeah.

And Ultron wins in this one. And there's something about just like de-platforming writers as a group that is obviously fascist. You know? Yeah. The thing that's kind of spooky, right, is like in the negotiations, the WJ is

like, in regards to AI, they're like we can't have it be normalized that you can use ai to be credited with any writing and all we're asking is that you don't do that or you're doing some chat gpt script shit and then having a like a human writer punch it up i mean that's so scary the idea of like a robot punching up scripts honestly does like frighten me to my very core in a way that like i never i've never thought about it until now you know right yeah and i like how like so the response of like the theaters or the the studios and stuff to like the ai question is uh we will have annual

meetings to discuss advancements in technology we're not gonna say yes to anything you said we'll have meetings about it which i, when they say we make no promises. Right. Yeah. The whole thing is we make no promises. The whole thing, like you said, Molly, this is what's happening across all capitalist systems, especially in the United States. Things are being rewired.

Everything is just more and more being normalized where now they don't even have to engage with the requests. They're just like, we'll in response to your concerns that AI will write scripts that you then get like $20 to punch up. Uh,

we will have meetings to discuss that with you. It's also like the bigger, the name of the corporation, the more they will tell you to go fuck yourself, you know? And so like, I know people who were working for disney on like a show that was some of the issues that led to this i feel like

and some of it is like they're having people write things on spec essentially it's like they don't have to green light the show until after they've written an entire season of it like it truly the hoops that our people are jumping through is it just makes no sense it's like if you cared at all about the efficiency like obviously hollywood is like not an efficiently run system one of the details that i've read in like how studios fuck people over is there was a show like a successful network show that had a a bump built into the writers' contracts from going from the first 26-episode season to the second 26-episode season.

And so to avoid doing that, the studio just changed the length of the season in the contract to 52 episodes. It just had them work on a longer season one just most bad faith no like shitty kinds the kinds of workarounds they do yeah for these things and i've been in situations where i had what felt like it should be a very like tenured media job and would once have been like a tenured media job and the kind of thing you could like depend on for a few years at least and instead they gave it to like three of us and made us all

independent contractors and gave us just no guarantees that we would ever be working it was just like no problem you know no promises of how much work this is. When there's a column, you'll know. It's gig work, but gigs, that makes it sound funny, like you're doing a fun concert or something. Yeah, and then you can go to your Ren Faire and smoke weed, you know, that's fun, right? Go to your Ren Faire and you smoke weed. I think also, it's like,

like, these things are intertwined. This is also what my next podcast is about, but it's like, often when the bottom falls out of an industry or the profit making is like not what it once was that's when they let people of color and women in you know right because they're like oh well nobody fucking cares now like this isn't it isn't like writing on cheers where you would buy a house, you know,

a house from it. It's like, it's gig work. So it's like, as it becomes more diverse and like traditional gatekeeping is changing. It's like, it also does feel like they're, they're trying to crush that too.

Yeah. But it's also like when people are like, oh, once I would have... The problem with all these executives is they just want it to be the past. It's like they're not interested in dealing with what's happening now. Because these are also the same issues

as the 2008 strike, which was that things were going to the internet. People weren't being compensated fairly for work on the internet they weren't getting residuals they were using it as an excuse to like pay people less and it just never got fixed even in the first strike it never really got fixed they just did a million reality shows that was when they did a big push on reality because reality had no labor protections no and like really doesn't reality is like the most exploitative yeah and like we were saying on the trending episode the other day is like from the studio standpoint like with the amount of

downsizing and shit that they've had to do and scaling back like a strike is actually not bad for them because they're like well it's less's less money. We have to spend right now. Everybody. We're just going to get rid of all these people and bring in scabs. And I truly think what's going to happen is they're going to make a bunch of, they're going to sign a million, like fucking tick tock stars is what I think will happen. Right. I think they're going to be like,

fuck this. We're just going to, yeah. Like, yeah. Cause they don't respect writers. They don't respect writing. That's what's crazy

about show business is the people who are in charge like don't respect art and don't care about art yeah somebody said like quibby it was very like quibby vibes it's like a bunch of people saying something that like any sane person is like yeah you can't do this shit without writers and they're like oh watch us yeah wait till they come back and hbo max is like guess what succession is coming back for a fifth season and it's being helmed by charlie d'amelio and logan paul that's what i mean it's like i think they're intent to like strip all these brands for parts because that's oh yeah like yeah i think yeah and that is ultimately like like it's tv writers are like a metaphor for everybody

else where it's just like this is a very once lucrative prestigious job and it is not what it used to be yeah it's I mean I think that's that's the thing that's become very fortuitous for like these greedy studios is like when you're dealing with people that are like already driven by a passion for something they're probably more likely to want to go along with whatever you're offering because for them they're passionate about and like yeah man they're fucking we'll do it because where else are you gonna write on tv except but it's like the same thing is probably true for like amazon warehouses where people are so desperate they have to say yes to anything it's like for sure it's all about just like making people desperate it's just different levels of making people desperate so that they have to say

yes to whatever because they truly just like are scraping by and i think also this is where democrats are really fucking failing right now i do think it's like during the pandemic they did the thing they never had done before where they just like gave us all money to be freelancers right and it like improved everybody's quality of life so much yeah everybody i know is like that everything was bad but remember how great it was to not be fucking stressed out about paying rent every month because like the government acknowledges you might need a little help they should offer to help people even if it's in bad faith and they're not going to do it the fact that they're not even trying is so depressing let me get a bad faith offer man

come on yeah that's the crazy thing about the wga that's the crazy thing about the wga too they're like look we really want to negotiate just like i've been in a lot of situations like this at this point where it's like yeah you're like we love you we love what you do yeah why would they treat me like a person and i think that's the thing about capitalism too is it's like no matter how valuable you become in capitalism even if you become like a super high paid showrunner or whatever, you're still a fucking commodity to them. And that means they can throw you away. Yeah, it's certainly true in this version of capitalism, this hyper capitalism, that's just

all about creating value for shareholders and does not give a fuck about the people who are actually creating the value that then gets transferred into monetary value for shareholders. Corporations are people. Yeah. And people are corporations, man. Oh, shit. I mean, I am working on my branding. Well, I think it's like you have to.

You have no choice but to be a mercenary. And it's for better and worse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've all had to commodify ourselves in some way. And that's good. It's efficient. And that's what we want to leave you with. But look, just because you don't win every time,

does that make you a failure? Yes. Molly, such a pleasure having you. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good good stuff you can find me i've been off twitter i think i'm off twitter for good but you can find me on instagram at molly underscore lambert and you can find me pretty soon back on iheart radio with a new podcast about the pornography industry more More details coming soon.

And yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? Yeah, I probably said this last time. I'm just watching Taxi on Pluto still. Pluto TV. Yo, I caught your stories and I was like,

you know what? Molly's posting that she's watching Taxi. I'm like, you're staying consistent with it. It's really, it's just, it lulls me into the right zone. And then when I turn it on again in the morning, it's playing like Lethal Weapon 2. It makes me feel like I left the TV

on all night. It's positive. Amazing. Miles, where can people find you? Is there work media you've been enjoying? Oh man, you can find me at Miles of Gray, where there's at symbols. Find Jack and I on our basketball podcast. Miles and Jack, I'm at Boosties. And then also find me on 420 Day Fiance with Sophia Alexandra.

Just don't worry about me. Just go outside. You know what I mean? That's my tip for everybody today. I have not looked enough at social media to offer something. This is kind of becoming a trend, unfortunately. Or fortunately for you. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. Fortunately. Fortunately.

Let's see. I've just really been enjoying the tweets about James Harden's pants that he wore to game one against Boston. Christy Yamaguchi,aine. I don't know. Did anybody see these? They are the biggest pants that I've ever seen. Biggest pants that you've seen thus far. That I've seen thus far. Christy Yamaguchi-Maine said James Harden's about to crush every newcomer that steps to him in Dance Dance Revolution at the Mall Arcade,

which that is kind of the look he was going for. And Jason Hensethian pitched an idea that i think he needs to do he said each game a bigger pair of pants like he just keeps the till he got that chip like when people got to play off beard and shit yeah just like can't walk bigger he just can't he has to be like crawling on his hands because he's because his pants are way too big. Yeah, puts them on a pallet jack.

Just walking him in on it. I need those Met Gala long-ass train pants. There you go. From James Harden. Anyways, you can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website,

dailyzeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, what's the song we think people might enjoy? I think you're going to enjoy... Okay, I was listening...

Back in the day when I was really into dubstep, there was this one, Noisia, this artist back in the day when i was really into dubstep there was like this one noisia like this artist noisia who i was really into and i hadn't heard any work from this artist in a while then i just kind of started looking around and apparently had a new album come out last year and i listened to it and it's just interesting to hear like what dubstep producers are kind of going into now rather than just like shack's favorite genre it's becoming yeah yeah they're doing a lot more like two-step drum and bass and things like that too but this track is from noisia with skrillex okay they're getting together it's called supersonic okay and this is just like i

don't know it's definitely headphone music and if you're not into electronic music you might you might not be digging this but if you are this shit will it'll blow your hair off uh so anyway check this out it's called supersonic by noisia all right well the daily zeitgeist is a production of iheart radio for more podcasts from iheart radio visit the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows that's gonna do it for us this morning back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and we will talk to y'all then. Bye. Bye. Bye. 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. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. You know,

lately I've been overwhelmed by the whole wellness industry. So much information out there about flaxseed, pelvic floor, serums, and anti-aging. So I launched a newsletter. It's called Body and Soul to share expert approved advice for your physical and mental health. And guess what? It's free. Just sign up at katiecouric.com slash body and soul. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C.com slash body and soul. I promise it will make you happier and healthier.