The Daily Zeitgeist - Consolation PresiTrendsy 11/7: Election Takes, Calm, Election Coverage Pageantry, Silent Firing, 'Gladiator 2', Elwood Edwards

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

In this edition of Consolation PresiTrendsy, Jack and Miles discuss all the L takes on Tuesday's election results, meditation app Calm exploiting our election anxiety, the pageantry of the mainstream media's election coverage, the "silent firing" trend, a historian's reaction to the 'Gladiator 2' trailer, the passing of Elwood Edwards (voice of AOL's "You've Got Mail!") and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman. I'm a black, gay, non-binary author, TV writer, actor, and I'm messy. But not in the way you think. Messy as in I'm human and flawed. I'm on a mission to destroy shame around sex. And the only way to do that is to talk about sex. So that's what we'll do on my brand new podcast, Tell Me Something Messy. Join me on Tell Me Something Messy with brand new episodes every Thursday on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, the internet and welcome to this episode of the Consolation President Presetrendsee. Hey, hey, I nailed it. There it is. I nailed it, Miles. Yeah. to this episode of the Consolation President presidency. Hey. Hey, I nailed it. There it is. I nailed it, Miles. Yeah.

A.K.A. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. We realized too late. That's all we should have done for our Wednesday episode. Yeah.

Just play that song. Just Lumi Dion loop. Yeah. Oh boy. Uh-oh. Hey man, but you nailed it ponches pilot way to go Um, my name is jack that over there is mr. Miles craig ponches pilot is thursday november 7th um

The l takes are coming in fast and furious. Yeah We got uh, the national review is saying that Biden should pardon Trump for some reason. Wait, what's the point of that? To be like, spare yourself from his like, his wrath once he's in office? Oh yeah, maybe. Is that what it is?

Like, hey, save your own ass, just spare, just pardon him now. Is that what it is? I think it's just the general trend that we're seeing with the mainstream media where they're like Trump won he's right about everything right like that must mean every impulse we had about you know social justice any like progressive economic policy we should be ashamed of that and like pretend like we actually like don't we were sorry for that Yeah, there was I think more on morning Joe

Maybe I think it was Joe Scarborough Was trying to Yeah, yeah, it was it was like Scarborough saying it was like a trans yeah and like help in supporting trans people got Donald Trump elected. So as if to be like, that was a misstep. Get the fuck out of here. The problem is that people don't aren't looking in an intersectional way enough, which is how people get lost in the cracks because people only look out for themselves.

Anyway, yeah, there's a there's other ones. So many takes are like America needs to come together now to one bout like that's kind of that. How this shit would work is like with this kind of presidency looming. It's like, let's just lay down. Just lay down now. Show him your belly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I swear to God, he'll just tickle it. I saw a somebody be like, Biden should do the right thing. There's so many people with advice for Biden right now, like he's gonna suddenly start taking good advice. Yeah, what'd you have to say, dude? So one of them is, there's a lot of takes being like, Biden needs to like, to make tons of changes to protect the American presidency,

to protect democracy, like just force through all these changes. And it's like, he didn't do that when he was a pre like I newly elected president. Why would he be able to do that now? Uh, they're also saying, uh, I've seen a take that he should step down and allow Kamala to be the first woman president by default. That's so fucking patronizing. It's so fucking patronizing. So fucking for real. Yeah.

And like I and I get that the as in terms of like a campaign, being able to run that campaign from the time Biden stepped down to election day was no normal feat. That was actually pretty extraordinary given like just purely the coordination of it all. Obviously, there were a lot of problems with messaging and policy and stuff like that. But then to just be like, and you know what here, have a lick of my ice cream cone. Yeah. Um, that that's, actually it's like, I like ice cream too much, Jack. Sorry, Jack.

This is my ice cream. Hey, nice try Mac. Psych. He just like pulls it away and it just falls down the front of his shirt. Then he starts crying. Anyways it's I don't know very discouraging that the mainstream take away from this is going to be it's the left's fault but we kind of knew that even heading into the. Yeah it's not fully come out yet because there's also a lot of people like when you look at third party votes to and like certain swing states, like even if you added the votes that were people voted third party or something that wouldn't have been enough to

beat Trump also. Yeah. So I think I think like the mainstream media is probably they're just they need a little more data before they really they really do a full throated finger pointing match As to what happened rather than saying like yeah, just not delivering for working people isn't going to help and trust me I think and the people who voted for Trump It's going to be a rude awakening when he also does not deliver for working people, right? But Jesus. Yeah. Anyway, yeah I mean if we still had like normal elections, it would continue to go back and forth like

this forever. Just whoever was not running the neoliberal. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, hey, at least somebody had a good election night. And I'm talking, of course, about meditation apps. So Calm, the meditation app that is like the one that's not Headspace, I feel like those are the two meditation apps, decided to advertise during the election like it was the Super Bowl.

They advertised on CNN, ABC, Comedy Central, and their ads were kind of ingenious. Just 30 seconds of silence. Anytime there's an ad that is silent, I will stop everything and be like, what the fuck is that person doing? My idiot box went quiet. It must be broken. Everybody should I drop my kid? Did you slap the side? Yeah, slap the side now.

Anyways, this is the first time Calm has attempted to mine our national political trauma. They also sponsored the CNN key race alerts in 2020 and more recently sent their users push alerts during the Trump Biden debate, which is, I feel like, okay, relax. Like on the one hand, like this might be the best advertisement for meditation since David Lynch, like not the ad itself, but the fact that they were clear minded enough to be like, man, a lot of this is going to be bad for a lot of people. Yeah. They're mine.

This debate is going to break people's brains. And then ahead of the election night, they knew that again, unless part of me is like, are they using our heart rate? Like, you know, all those apps like have access to so much of our data. Oh, like your health stuff. Yeah. Is there just like the CEO of their company sitting in a room like the bad guy and watchmen with just like monitors of every American's health metrics and just like we've got things are spiking. Lots of black mirror shit. Yeah. Yeah, I mean

Yeah, I mean there are other ones too like I think the other ones they had were like nature sounds and they are it's it is funny how disorienting it is because just used to like the cacophony of like Right, he saw or like and he's like what the fuck That when you hear like birds chirping you're like, am I okay? Did I yeah? Yeah Did I just die? Is this a guy did I just die? Why am I so happy? Hi, am I

It apparently paid off big time the calm app jumped more than 100 spots in the app store We're always looking at the app store. Yeah charts here. See what apps are hot But yeah, I don't know. Uh, I tend to, uh, think of my smartphone as my nonstop anxiety pipeline. So it's, it's cool that they have locked down the like, what if it wasn't a right side of things? Sure. What if you didn't have to do that? Yeah. That's why I like the, you know, the beginning of lockdowns.

I just love that like 3d audio nature headphone shit I would used to wear and just bliss out. Yeah. What if, what if not here, let us send you a push notification to remind you, Hey, relax. Okay. Thanks. The other things that were happening on the idiot boxes of America on election night, first of all, far fewer people watching the election on TV this time around. A sharp drop, I think just generally,

even though the mainstream media takes in the aftermath of the election are pretty infuriating, the overall way that this election went, I think is the best indication we have yet that nobody is paying attention to the mainstream media takes. So we don't have to get too upset by them. But on various outlets, it just felt like a game show, right?

Like it just- I remember, it was so funny. I'd pissed off her majesty when we were watching. Cause there was a shot on like MSNBC where they had this augmented reality thing where like, it seemed like they were just, they set up a stage outside, like the back of the white house. And I was like, Whoa, look at that camera. I went, Whoa, what was that camera shot?

And she said, are you fucking what? And I was like, yeah, no, you're wow. Yeah. I was like, they got me. It's it was very, very overly slick production for something when you're just waiting for the sweeping crane shot type thing. It was like it just pushed away from Kornacki and it looked like there were steps down and then that was like onto like the West lawn of the White House or whatever they call that big one.

What the fuck? Yeah. It was it was it was fucking weird. They had a cornacky cam that followed. And I'm quoting here. Map Daddy. Steve Cornacky. I prefer Daddy Map. Yeah. Well, I'm the make it a make it a make it a make it a map, Daddy. But cool crisscross reference yeah sorry i'm farty 700 years old yep it followed him the entire time

on youtube you could just tune in to watch him like freaking out quietly on the sidelines like out off camera they were just there was somebody just following him the entire time like some sort of fucking psychological experiment yeah it wasn't it just again no need for just following him the entire time, like some sort of fucking psychological experiment. Yeah, it wasn't. It just again, no need for that. No need for that.

But it becomes it just becomes like a eyeball Palooza election night. It's so weird that we keep electing a morally bankrupt reality show star when we treat our elections like a shitty game show. Yeah. Acid Trip game shows. CNN released an app version of their quote, iconic magic wall, which is that just the map? Like that you can like hit, like do they think they invented the touch screen?

Look, Jack, it's iconic magic wall and we made it an app that way we can get users to agree to our weird privacy terms and conditions so we can just start siphoning data off. Whatever. It's iconic, man. It's iconic. Wow. You too can pretend to be John King. Fuck. Fuck. Yeah. Play normalize the creeping threat of fascism from your own living room. Amazon prime had an election night event that our writer JM went and sought out. I was not aware this was happening. It was hosted by

Brian Williams, who we all know from his poetic soliloquy about the beauty of our weapons as like missiles were being launched into the Middle East. Yep. Yep. And the entire set was just one big screen so that it could be shot in Brian Williams' like basement, I guess. I don't know. I don't know what was going on. He was probably on a set based on how big the amount of movement I think that was happening on that big set. Yeah, it was a big old screen and it just

like the background looked like a weird AI slop hodgepodge of like American iconography. Right. On the left there was like the red or like the Arizona Devil's Tower I think is what that is like the you know desert mountain. Is that by the Grand Canyon or just some Arizona shit? I think that's just some Arizona shit. All right. Shout out to that Arizona shit. Yeah. Yeah from sea to shining sea And and everything yeah, he was also like the his desk was in the middle of a road it was really like half-assed like it looked like a college TV station production cuz so much shit on television

Especially like news and like sports broadcasts are just big green screen walls So like you can be anywhere and yeah, if you don't have that really sorted out just like I don't know What do we have for a backplate there? Yeah, just put them on that rural road which it did look like a slot because like the road, like the I can't tell if the camera is like really low because there's all these American flags along the side of the highway. There's also a car approaching in the background. So it looks like he's about to be squashed like a bug. But the small American flags look huge

because of, I guess the camera angle, or maybe it is just a slot. Are they just huge as flags, dude? And then over in the UK, Channel 4 hosted a panel that included Brian Cox. He was in succession. Boris Johnson, their former prime minister, and Stormy Daniels. Damn. All right. That's all right. That's a decent spread channel. There we go.

Yeah, cool. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe there's a danger of treating elections like the Super Bowl. But yeah, it's too early to tell. Yeah. I mean, yeah, turning it into again, it's like the horse race of it all. And then really, really having that whole aesthetic over it.

It's like, is this serious? Like, what does it mean when the number hits 270? All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman. I'm a black, gay, non-binary author, TV writer, actor, and I'm messy. But not in the way you think. Messy as in I'm human and flawed.

I'm on a mission to destroy shame around sex. And the only way to do that is to talk about sex. So that's what we'll do on my brand new podcast, Tell Me Something Messy. Okay, let's put in this messy round of smash or pass. Okay, here it is, smash or pass, spit play. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about bodily fluids being on me unless it's...

Oh! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Because we're doing the pullout message. We're living on the edge. Oh my God!

Oh my god. I was not expecting that. Baby, like I always say, if you know how to work that body, that sexualness, and that heart, you're unstoppable. Embrace your power. That's really what we're going to do on this show. Join me on Tell Me Something Messy with brand new episodes

every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And we're back. We're back. There's a new trend in People's jobs ending it and now it's time for the bosses to snap back It's so wild that we went from but prior to this your employees are fucking around They're fucking where's NT ism and quiet quitting and now on a dime Fast company is like silent firing is the new quiet quitting. It's like, well, what the fuck is that?

And that's essentially what any person has probably experienced at a job when they just make your workload so unbearable that you just choose to leave. And then they can automate the job. It sounds like kind of like what they're thinking. That's what they're thinking, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like just make it untenable. You don't have to fire them. You just make their situation untenable. They leave and now you can swap that in for some kind of large language model. So quiet quitting was when described by the employees who engage in it, just doing your job quietly.

Like I know like generally they were like, by the employees who engage in it just doing your job quietly like you yeah I know like generally they were like you know it's when you stop showing up for work and like you just don't tell your boss but like really what it seemed like it was just like not putting in a hundred and ten percent just minimal effort yeah minimal effort just do what you got to do to not get fired yeah exactly I'm not gonna fucking dress up for your theme day No, I got the job done. Can I go home? Their equivalent is like well to complain that game We will work you so cruelly that you will get like be physically unable to

So that we don't have to pay you any sort of severance when we fire. Yeah. Cause you quit. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Sorry. That's as you want. Yeah. And although also this is not a new invention. This is what bosses have been doing for a long time, but the idea that they're like putting it in the same category as quiet quitting is a very predictable. It's like, yeah, they're like like like being able to say like hey, man

You can do it morally if there's quiet quitting. There's silent firing managerial class now go do your thing. Yeah There's a story about gladiator 2 Gladiator 2 is a film that's coming sooner than I realized It's only coming out in a couple weeks, November 22nd. I Was not here for the episode where you guys watched the trailer Just watch our trailer. What do you think man? Excited that it feels like they've gone Like maximalist, you know, oh, yeah maximus's story. They've gone

maximalist it looks story they've gone maximalist it looks bonkers like it looks like they were just like let's just like put every wild idea what if we flooded the coliseum and put sharks in it and then do naval battles yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I was trying to think of like the equivalent movie that like Rambo one which was called first blood not Rambo one but like it was this like gritty thing that was supposed to be like about PTSD and I think he kills like one person and then the second one is like a superhero movie where he's like this unkillable person who

defeats the entire Vietnamese army that is still like yeah, so it's like it's kind of he's crazy writing some wrongs Jack Yeah Okay, we get to win this time. Yeah Do we get to get another bite of the apple it's like that combined with gremlins to Gremlins to where they just like introduce they're like what fuck it dude Like the first gremlins movie is like and then we'll have this one

gremlin stripe who's like a little different than the other ones and as well they're like all right this this time we're gonna have like three Wu Tang clans worth of gremlins that all have like unique personalities that will fuck your world up you won't be able to keep track of them, but each shot will introduce a new type of gremlin. That kind of feels like what we've gone, just complete over the top maximalism. The one thing is like, I for some reason, I heard Denzel was in it, I heard Pedro Pascal was in it,

and I had just pre-cast the movie as like Pedro Pascal is gonna be in the Maximus role. Oh, no. My sweet child. I fucked up. Okay? Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Mascal instead is in the Pedro Pascal role. But people who've gone to early screening seem to be enjoying him. It just feels like one of those movies where they're like double the action, double the characters. Right. That's not always the right thing. More stars. Yeah. But I don't know, when some of the characters that they're introducing are sharks?

Uh huh. Yes please. Yeah. Yes please. Of course. I just like that now, and the Hollywood Reporter, there's a thing that said Gladiator 2 is quote total Hollywood bullshit top historian snaps. Yeah, I don't know about this.

I don't like that notion. Also, like, where's this? Where's this energy for like every other fucking historical film? Right. Like and I get it that it's you were talking about fucking Navy battleship battles and sharks in the water. Like, yeah, we get it. We're not here for the fuck. I didn't go there to be like, what do you mean?

This isn't Ken Burns's Gladiator 2? Right. They, I mean, so what they've done, they've taken a thing that blew my mind when I first learned about it. Right. They held naval battles in the arena. They would flood the arena and hold naval battles in it.

And I always assumed, well, the first Gladiator arena and hold naval battles in it and I always assumed well the first gladiator didn't have that detail in it because it seems too over-the-top to be believed right they were like okay well if we're gonna do that like we might as well throw some fucking killer sharks in the water why not fuck it if there's water we we gotta, well obviously you gotta heighten it. Like everything has to present some kind of like threat. Like, cause if you're knocked off the boat, like you don't wanna be knocked, you'll fucking die bro.

The shark will fucking eat your, what was it? Bite your whole shit? What was your, what was the thing? Bite your whole shit, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it'll bite your whole shit. Like Jack, like it was foretold and then Jack O'Brien prophecies. But I wonder though too, if, did they write this just because like just thinking about the Roman Empire is like such a meme

Thing that they're like we got someone who's a historian on all things Roman Empire And they say hold on to your butts bros that it's not accurate. I don't know. I Don't know man. I'm I'm excited to watch this movie and it's not just because I'm trying to get that bucket too Yeah, the bucket looks awesome. They've done everything right Yeah, the early reviews from humans not necessarily critics. I haven't talked to Read all the critical reviews, but a lot of people seem to be receiving it quite warmly Yeah, if your expectations are where they need to be, which is you're going to see just a fucking extravaganza box office, you know, tent pole kind of film, they pulled out all the stops, then yeah,

I'm not expecting to see like great story. I mean, Denzel doesn't even, his character isn't even, he's not even doing a character in his performance. No, it's very good. And I'm fine with that. That's fine. I know what I'm getting into. Denzel's going to be like, ah, so you gladiator. It's like, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like just a classic Denzel Washington

as Denzel Washington character. Yeah, that's him at his best. Finally, we're going to bid a fond farewell to the voice of AOL's iconic, You've Got Mail. You've Got Mail. Yeah, that guy passed away at 74. 74. Was Elwood Edwards. Fucking great name. Alright, Elwood Edwards.

Elwood Edwards. The wild shit, he only made $200 for that gig. Is that real? Yeah. Fucking capitalism. Welcome. So cool. Is that real? Yeah. Fucking capitalism. So cool. You've got mail. Files done.

Goodbye. Goodbye. And to you, we bid you L. Wood Edwards, goodbye. Yeah. Oh, man. The number of morning zoo shows that are making that joke. I feel like they'd be more respectful to be honest. Yeah. We're going through some shit. So yeah, sorry.

Yeah. We're working some shit out in real time. They don't give a fuck at the morning zoo. Yeah. I do wonder like, is he the most heard voice of the past like 40 years? Like what could it be? No, I guess Siri, Alexa. Yeah, it's gotta be one of those at this point. But for people of a certain age,

I think we all grew up with that. Or even just the sound of the chat when someone would enter on an instant messenger. Door open. Yeah. Yep, that shit too. Those are goaded sound effects for my mind. That door is actually working in porn now.

I'm kinda fucked up. You can see it in the background of a bunch of. Yeah. All right, those are some of the things that are trending on this Thursday, November 7th. We are back tomorrow with a whole ass 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 you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman. I'm a black, gay, non-binary author, TV writer, actor, and I'm messy, but not in the way you think. Messy as in I'm messy. But not in the way you think.

Messy as in I'm human and flawed. I'm on a mission to destroy shame around sex. And the only way to do that is to talk about sex. So that's what we'll do on my brand new podcast, Tell Me Something Messy. Join me on Tell Me Something Messy with brand new episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.