The Daily Zeitgeist - Carmen ElecTrend 1/30: American Airlines Crash, OpenAI, DeepSeek, White Lotus, Quentin Tarantino

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

In this edition of Carmen ElecTrend, Jack and special guest co-host Blake Wexler discuss the American Airlines mid-air collision in Washington DC, OpenAI being furious DeepSeek might have stolen all the data OpenAI stole from us, the trailer for the new season of 'White Lotus', Tarantino declaring movies are dead and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here at LifeKit, NPR's self-help podcast, we love the idea of helping you make meaningful lifestyle changes. Our policy is to never be too punishing on yourself or too grand in your goals, which is why we've got shows on how to make little nudges to your behavior and create habits that stick. Listen to the LifeKit podcast on iHeartRadio. Jon Stewart is back at The Daily Show and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment,

sports, and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors. And with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. People, my people, what's up? This is Quaslove. Man, I cannot believe we're already wrapping up another season of Quaslove Supreme. Man, we've got some amazing guests lined up to

close out the season, but I don't want any of you guys to miss all the incredible conversations we've had so far. I mean, we talked to A. Marie, Johnny Marr, E. Jonathan Schechter, Billy Porter, and so many more. Look, if you haven't heard these episodes yet, hey, now's your chance. You got to check them out. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You get your popcorn. Welcome. My name is Paola Pedroza, a medium and the host of the Ghost Therapy Podcast, where it's not just about connecting with deceased loved ones. It's about learning through them and their new perspective. I think God sent me this gift so I can show it to the world. And

most of all, I help people every single day. Listen to the Ghost Therapy podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet and welcome to this episode of Carmen Electrend. Carmen Electrend. Oh, sorry, do we not do the German voice for Carmen Electrend? Is that how you think Germans would say Carmen Electrend? Yeah, they go. I'm so pissed off.

Carmen Electrend. I'm Jack, that over there, well that's Blake Wexler. I'm Blake Wexler. And he will be talking in his spot on German accent. That's right, Guten Tag. Oh, that was actually good. And he will be talking in his spot on German accent. The entire time. Oh, that was actually good. Like it was. We started talking about Carmen Electra earlier because it's kind of a roundabout

way we got here. We're talking we're talking about people with fake girlfriends from when we were in when we were youngsters in our relative scouting troops or, um, or paramilitary military police organizations. Neither of us were in a paramilitary police organization, but we'll have to have Ryan the editor on one time to tell that story. I was too cute. Too cute. And I had flat feet. Yeah. But anyways, we were talking about that and somebody was like,

yeah, they made up their girlfriend's name like Carmen Electra. And I was like, Carmen Electra is actually too good of a name for a kid to come up. What like that's that is an amazing name. Whoever made that name up is a genius. And we learned it was none other than Prince who met Carmen Electra as so that I'll just read directly from I Don't know the name of the website. I found this on Terri Lee Patrick Wikipedia

Wikipedia Terri Lee Patrick as her name She was Prince's muse and it was the Purple Rain singer who gave her the name Carmen Electra. Talking to Vanity Fair, she said she met him at his home when she was a teenager. Uh oh. After Robin Power, who I have to assume Prince also named, spotted her in a nightclub in LA. What a weird life that would be that somebody spots you at a nightclub as a teenager, presumably snuck in with a fake ID, and somebody named Robin Power is like, hey, could I take you to Prince's house? And then Prince says, hey, this amazing magical combination of syllables is your name.

And you're like, okay. And that is the name you go by from then on. Yeah, this is my friend, Isabelle Thunderstrum. Like also, just so you know, it's everyone has a sick name here. That's incredible. I bet he spent no time on it, too. Like, I think that's just an off the top of the head. Oh, yeah. Like one of his many skills. I would imagine he could just do that so quickly.

Carmen Electra, Carmen Electra. Carmen Electra. I bet he like did it, like didn't even say, I'm going to make up a name for you. You know, I bet he was just like, you're just started calling her Carmen Electra and everyone was like, that's your name now. Just go with it. What else could her name be? It could be Tara, Tara, Lee, Patrick.

Worse, worse job by your parents there. Carmen, Alexa. Yeah. Pretty sure that that should have just been his job in a just world. That's what he would have done for a living is just named all babies. And yeah, and this is why we're fucked. This is why I like music and we are fucked. Yeah. So obviously there was a horrible tragedy, a obviously would be my name.

If obviously obvious. Oh, yes. Welcome. Obviously, we Welcome, obviously. Horrible tragedy when a Blackhawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight that was going in for landing at Ronald Reagan Airport. I think we can just go ahead and blame Donald Trump for the thing, not just because that's 100% what he would have done if he weren't in charge and what he did in fact do to Biden. Just a true profiles and courage.

As the bodies are being pulled out of the Potomac, he called a press conference and immediately started blaming Joe Biden, the past administration and DEI. People of color. Yeah. Yeah. People of color. But in fact, it was he who just froze hiring air traffic controllers. It is a con, you know, we've talked on past episodes how this was inevitable specifically that there is like a shocking rise in near collisions, near

midair collisions or like collisions in airports. Yeah. Yeah. Near misses for the past few years, people experts have been sounding the alarm, but the Biden administration had tried to ramp up the hiring of, in response to people saying, this is a fucking disaster in the making, they had ramped up the hiring of air traffic controllers. And then Trump basically froze all hiring. But people seem scared to, like this is kind of wild. Like a CNN employee tweeted something to the effect of like, you know, blaming Trump for the collision and then took it down and wrote, I fucked up.

Which is just to give you an idea of like, what's it like to be in the mainstream media right now. They seem to be scared as hell of Donald Trump despite the fact that the thing that he posted was a screenshot of a press release entitled Trump's dangerous freeze of air traffic control hiring from eight days ago but she's he's like I better not post that that's too too damning? Damning. Yeah. The president wouldn't want that. So there hasn't been a serious commercial plane crash in 16 years,

but as mentioned, tons of close calls, usually involving aircrafts nearly colliding with one another. We talked before about a New York Times investigation from 2023 that found that there've been just loads of these that many of which had not been made public, but that report made them public and experts were like sounding the alarm. But I guess the number of near accidents had more than doubled compared to data from a decade earlier. And the reason for that was a number of things having to do with nationwide staffing shortage and underfunding and all the problems that this system for organizing a civilization

is causing that we're seeing everywhere. I'm sure there'll be a way that we can blame it on private equity at some point. It's just a matter of time. I can't imagine why, maybe this is something to throw some money at, you know what I mean? Like airplanes colliding in the sky. I think the stakes might be high enough to, you know, up that salary a little bit, maybe actually give these people benefits.

You know, I'm assuming they don't because why, why would anything be, make any sense? But yeah, it's horrifying. Yeah, it feels it feels like their things are going to get as bad as they possibly can like that That's just you know where like with this administration and I feel like with this administration and like the media being in the position that they are where like everybody's just kind of Holding their fire, just kind of going along with everything, they'll be able to get pretty bad.

With the RFK hearings happening as we're recording this, and this being an example of just these systems that need to function, that are complicated and require a bunch of funding. These are all things that like need to happen on a day to day basis to like keep our society functioning and like operating. If those things stop, uh, which it seems like they're going to or already have in this administration, then it's going to be, it's going to be bad. And we're going to start seeing like this and I don't know. Yeah. Hopefully it like causes some sort of resistance that I just can't quite

see where that's coming from right now. Do you remember that really weird plot? Did you watch Breaking Bad? Yes, I did. I would say a flawless show, except for this one bizarre plot line of like the air traffic controller being the dad of like Kristen Ritter and then yeah falling asleep and then that weird like it was I would say not a On a scale of one to ten on like a nearly perfect show as far as it being a bizarre plot line

I'm like on a normal show would be like a seven or an eight but on that show or like a two or three But on that show it's like a eight or an eight, but on that show or like a two or three, but on that show, it's like a eight or a nine because the show is so perfect. But I just remember watching that and I'm like, wait, what the fuck? What just happened? Yeah. Why did that happen? Yeah. Yeah. Bizarre thing. I did. I actually like that plot personally.

But you're such an asshole. I'm such an asshole. I hated the way it ended personally. The whole show. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't finish. I didn such an asshole. I hated the way it ended personally. The whole show? Yeah, yeah. I didn't finish. I didn't watch the, finish the final season. I was bored out of my fucking mind.

Really? No, no, no, of course I watched it. I liked the whole Walt plot, you know, the whole time I just would fast forward through the Walt parts and I liked the purple lady. The purple lady? Yeah, that even means. She was great. Oh, yeah, yeah, she was great. I do actually, I did the purple lady. The purple lady. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I do actually, I did really like her. I was speaking with a tone, but I did actually really like her. I thought it was good up until the second, the last, I have a loose fan theory that I've talked about before on the show, so I won't get into it, but that the whole last episode is him just imagining it because it doesn't like it. Everything just went exactly the way he would want it to. It was like suddenly like Walter White wish fulfillment. Interesting. So just back to kind of where we're at and like what you know, what we saw coming, like what everybody saw coming.

The Biden administration tried to get funding to hire more air traffic controllers. There was this FAA reauthorization act of 2024, which passed both the house and the Senate requiring the FAA to set maximum hiring targets to increase air traffic controller staffing. But the bill also contained a measure specifically allowing for more traffic at Ronald Reagan airport, which is one of only two airports in the US owned by the government and opponents of that measure pointed out that this would mean dangerously overloading the airport's operational capacity to

benefit one airline. And so I don't think it was American airlines. I think it was Delta, uh, but like a Delta funded pack basically got that thing inserted into the legislation so that it was allowing for that airport to be overloaded with flights so that they could make more money and so that politicians could, you know, that they were on board with it probably both because of the Delta pack, but also because it allowed them to fly home more easily, like more flights out of Washington. Interesting. Yeah.

It's remarkable that Trump immediately went up and started pointing the finger as the tragedy was unfolding, but like both parties, they pushed through that bill with the overloaded Reagan thing in there. But yeah, the helpful part of the bill was essentially eradicated by Trump's illegal hiring freeze, where he was immediately stopped all federal funding on things. And on top of that, as soon as he took office, he fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard before their terms were up and eliminated all the members of a key aviation security advisory group so, you know just all the Big swing and dick fire everybody you don't get funding unless you agree to

Spy on my ass right to literally kiss my ass agree to spy on my ass, to literally kiss my ass and spy on people for being too diversity that it turns out shockingly came back to bite us all in the ass. So still very early, but just a horrifying situation all around. And really, yeah, it's just like a race between how bad he can be at his job and like how much power he can grab before it becomes evident to everybody that like he's a failed leader who like is going to kill a lot of people. It seems like the situation that we're in. And how quickly he, because he called the press conference to do it where it almost reminds me of

like a child, you know, like you walk into the room and the kid just goes, nothing. And it's like, wait, hold on. What did you do? What did you do? What'd you do? What'd you do? And in this case, yeah, he fired all the people who were in charge and took funding away from preventing disasters like this. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back. Here at LifeKit, NPR self-help podcast, we love the idea of helping you make meaningful

lifestyle changes. Our policy is to never be too punishing on yourself or too grand in your goals, which is why we've got shows on how to make little nudges to your behavior and create habits that stick. Listen to the life kit podcast on I heart radio. John Stewart is back at the daily show and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports, and more.

Joined by the sharp voices of the shows, correspondents, and contributors. And with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever wonder what it's like to be on the phone with an NFL general manager as you finalize the biggest contract in NFL history? I'm AJ Stevens, vice president of client strategy at Athletes First, where

we've negotiated $1.4 billion in current NFL quarterback contracts, introducing the Athletes First Family podcast, the quarterback series. Along with my co-host Brian Murphy, Athletes First CEO, we're pulling back the curtain on how these historic deals come together. You'll hear directly from the agents who shaped the NFL's financial landscape, The ones who negotiated Justin Herbert's extension and Deshaun Watson's fully guaranteed contract that sent shockwaves through the league. This isn't just about the numbers though, it's about the untold stories behind these massive negotiations and the relationships the NFL superstars like Dak Prescott, Tua

Tunga-Vallilola, and Jordan Love have with their agents at Athletes First. For the first time ever, the agents who orchestrate these deals are sharing the details of the negotiations and everything that led up to their clients signing on the dotted line. Listen to the Athletes First Family podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. My name is Paola Pedrosa, a medium and the host of the Ghost Therapy Podcast, where it's not just about connecting with deceased loved ones.

It's about learning through them and their new perspective. Join me on the Ghost Therapy Podcast. Whoa, my lights in my living room just flickered. I'm a little nervous. I'm excited. I'm excited, nervous. You know, I'm a very spiritual person, so I'm like, I'm ready little nervous. I'm excited. I'm excited nervous. You know, I'm a very spiritual person. So I'm like, I'm ready and open.

That was amazing. I feel so grateful right now. I got to speak to my great grandmother and she gave me a lot of really good advice that I'm going to have to really think about. Wow. Okay. That's crazy. Yes, that is accurate. Listen to the Ghost Therapy Podcast as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Well, AI, the world of AI, in what goes around comes around news. Open AI is complaining about being plagiarized by the Chinese AI model DeepSeek. They're saying that DeepSeek used open AI's data unfairly and without compensation.

And that's not fair. Okay? That's wrong. This is a headline from 404 Media. OpenAI furious DeepSeek might have stolen all the data OpenAI stole from us. Obviously hilarious considering that OpenAI is essentially powered by plagiarism. It's made by out of plagiarism to help the seamless plagiarizing of things

A plagiarism engine. Yeah one report from last year found that 60% of open AI's GPT 3.5 outputs contained some form of plagiarism 60% was how couldn't it right? How could it not? It's just remixing existing content. No, it's learning. Yeah. You hate to see it, folks. You really do love being in a country where I'm like openly rooting against the everybody in power, because they're so bad and going to just make things worse and worse. Yeah. How is deep seek the good guy? I don't want to root for deep seek. Don't make me root for deep seek. Yeah, it's pretty frustrating. Pretty bad situation. Are you a white Lotus person? You're a white Lotus fan, Blake. I am. I love it. And I'm psyched for Goggins,

baby. I'm a huge Gog head. Yeah. So they just, I'm like big gog head myself. Like the gog, Goggins and vice principals is like one of my favorite characters of all time. A very underrated show. Oh, that show is very funny. Yeah. It's great. For people who don't know it's Goggins, the Danny McBride in just one of the most unhinged like righteous gemstones, but it's about vice principals, but in a school. Yeah. McBride in just one of the most unhinged shows like Righteous Gemstones. But it's about vice principals.

But in a school. Yeah. In a school. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, we got two big trailer HBO trailer drops in the past couple of days. One of them is White Lotus season three, which looks about like what I would expect from a White Lotus set in Thailand. My one note of caution. I don't know if that doesn't make sense, but the one thing that I wasn't saying, Walton Goggins seems to be playing someone who's like just like kind of exhausted. And I feel like I like him when he's got a little verve to him, you know,

he's got a little Uncle Baby Billy. He's got a little, you know, he's got a little uncle, baby Billy. He's got a little, you know, whatever his character's name was and vice principals. If you can take away that guy's charisma, you got to do it. You got to do it. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. He's playing like a rich white guy who's like tired. And I'm just like, I don't know.

Like those guys are the fucking worst. Like I'm so tired of. That would be my one problem with like past seasons is like there they are. They do have a bunch of really boring insufferable people at the middle of it. Some of them it's pretty, I don't know. You're like, Oh, I do know that person. And that is an incisive dissection of that type of person.

Yeah, it is funny where I'm like, oh, if he was able to make a neo-Nazi in a justified likable, you know, he might be able to do it with a rich guy on vacation too. Yeah, I think, I still left faith. And they're both pretty bad. Yeah. And some are the same. Mm-hmm. Sorry, I needed my fruit.

You need your... Listen, never get between Jack and his fruit. No, don't get between me and my mango. Did you ever get that advice as a kid? My wife and I were laughing about this the other day. We're like, our moms gave us like very similar advice about being safe around dogs. Where one makes sense, like never touch a dog

when it's eating its food. food is one where it's like, okay, I can see that. But then there was another one where my mom was very seriously like never ever touch a dog's tail. And I like don't know what the thinking was behind that. So I think until my late twenties, I would just like, you can't even if you're petting a dog and it's friendly, you touch that tail, that thing will flip, that thing will get rabid immediately. And it's like, no, I if you're petting a dog and it's friendly, you touch that tail, that thing will flip.

That thing will get rabid immediately. And it's like, no, I guess you can just touch a dog's tail. It doesn't really matter. It's like a little rabies switch. You didn't know? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, the tail's a rabies switch. It's a lever. We didn't have dogs growing up because my little sister had a phobia of dogs.

And so we just never had them. And my parents, I didn't know they existed. I got out into the adult world and I was like, what the fuck is that? That is so charming. Good God, I love this thing. What is on that string? Yeah.

What is on that belt you're carrying around? What is on that extremely large belt? Fake string. Yeah, the only dog advice I had gotten entering adulthood was to let sleeping dogs lie. Yeah. Yeah. Which was usually given to me by priests for some reason.

I don't know what I remember saying that. And this was after you were diagnosed with having the dog in you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have been told that I have that dog in me. Yeah. Unfortunately, the dog is very sick and docile. It's just the dog I have and he always rolls over and shows its stomach to other dogs. That's the dog I got in me. Yeah, yeah. That was my last dog was a really cute guy. The eyes facing in like just all different directions, just a complete mess, wheezing all the time, but the land speed records he would set, Finny was his name, in rolling over

and showing his belly to anything and anyone and any dog was really kind of remarkable. He was just like, hey, you're going to want to see this. I love that. Finny boy. RIP to a real one. And finally, we got Quentin Tarantino, who gave a talk at Sundance. I guess this is around the time that his he had announced that his final movie was going to be called The Critic. It was going to be about a film critic who he liked writing film criticism in the late

70s. And then he was like, nah, fuck that. And now he just like gave a Sundance interview where he claimed that movies haven't been a thing since 2019. Basically saying like the pandemic allowed distributors to shorten the windows between theatrical release and home video releases. But he's taken that to be like, and therefore none of these movies count. They're not real. They're long specials. That's right. Specials is what they are. They're not movies. They're specials. Which I just agree with. I think we need to fight for movies personally. Like I feel like streaming content for the most part

is fairly disposable and movies are like better and they're still an appreciable difference between the two. For me at least, like movies stick with me and streaming content just like never really sticks to me other than like a handful of shows, like The Wire and some seasons of Breaking Bad but in the real world.

Yeah. The real world. Did you say? Yeah. Yeah, of course. And I burnt through that this week. The whole all 48 caught up on the real world. Yeah, I'm ready for the next the next one.

I actually never I don't think I've ever watched it. But I yet when it comes to streaming, it does stick with you because you don't have more of it, I guess. Like, because it's as if like, okay, I met these people that I really liked. I'm talking about like movies and then, oh shit, like I don't get to see them ever again. And then with series, especially if the whole like multiple seasons are out, it's like, I get to keep hanging out with these people over and over and over again.

And then by the time they leave, it's like, all right, well, I was ready for them to leave halfway through. Yeah. Yeah. It's particularly funny take given that 2019 just so happens to be the last year that he released a movie. Hmm. So, which one was that? Is the Hollywood one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Life and times Hollywood, Hollywood forever. Hollywood forever. Hollywood nights, hot stays and Hollywood one. Yeah. Yeah. Life and times Hollywood, Hollywood forever. Hollywood forever. Hollywood nights, hot stays and Hollywood nights. If he brings back, you should bring back movies. Tarantino, a guy who bought a fucking movie theater.

Am I right? No more movies. He now says that he's working on a play instead of making the final film. He's been talking about for years. So maybe we're going gonna cut out at nine That's all I got man, I don't fucking know Bad day at bad times in this country, but at least Quentin Tarantino's writing a play Quentin Tarantino's writing a play. So that's something we can all think. I see a play written by him. Like his dialogue is entertaining. With live rounds. Whatever he's going to do. Keep things interesting. Yeah.

All right. Well, those are some of the things that are trending on this Thursday, January 30th. We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Blake, where can people find you, follow you, see you, all that good stuff. People can find me and follow me at Blake Wexler on all social media. Stand up. I have some live dates coming up. Yeah. 13th. You can see me live. It's like a play.

It's like, you know, yeah, it's like a play. Me too. Like a Tarantino play. There will be live rounds. It's like a play. It's like, you know, yeah, it's like a play. It's like a Tarantino play. There will be live rounds. It's exactly as always. And rounds of applause. Oh, that's what I meant. Yeah. Oh, yes. No, of course. Yeah. I just like saying synonyms for things. March 13th, Fort Collins, Colorado at the Comedy Fort. March 15th, the Ice House, which is in Los Angeles.

And then April 5th through the 6th, I'll be in Minneapolis at Sisyphus. And all those tickets are available in my social media bios and at blakewexler.com. There you go. All right. Well, thank you so much for all the all the guest hosting work you've put in. We appreciate it. It's always fun. And yeah, obviously thinking about Miles and his family. Yeah. Yeah. Should be back soon.

That is going to do it for us this afternoon. We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get the vaccine. Get your flu shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get the vaccine, get your flu shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow. Bye. Here at LifeKit, NPR self-help podcast, we love the idea of helping you make meaningful

lifestyle changes. Our policy is to never be too punishing on yourself or too grand in your goals, which is why we've got shows on how to make little nudges to your behavior and create habits that stick. Listen to the Life Kit podcast on iHeartRadio. Catch Jon Stewart back in action on The Daily Show and In Your Ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's

happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in-depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. People, my people, what's up? This is Questlove. Man, I cannot believe we're already wrapping up another season of Questlove Supreme. Man, we've got some amazing guests lined up to close out the season, but I don't want

any of you guys to miss all the incredible conversations we've had so far. I mean, we talked to A. Marie, Johnny Marr, Eve, Jonathan Shecter, Billy Porter, and so many more. Look, if you haven't heard these episodes yet, hey, now's your chance. You gotta check them out. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you ask two different people the same set of questions? Even if the questions are the same, our experiences can lead us to drastically different answers.

I'm Minnie Driver, and I set out to explore this idea in my podcast, and now, Minnie Questions is returning for another season. We've asked an entirely new set of guests our seven questions, including Jane Lynch, Delaney Rowe, and Cord Jefferson. Listen to Minnie Questions on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seven questions, limitless answers.