The Daily Zeitgeist - Don't Be A Trendace… 6/8: Starbucks, Splenda, Pickle Pizza, Supreme Court, Anatomical Gift Association, Tucker On Twitter

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

In this edition of Don't Be A Trendace…, Jack and Miles discuss Starbucks shifting to nugget ice, Splenda being really bad for you (*), Pickle Pizza in NYC, the Supreme Court siding with… voters?!, the Anatomical Gift Association's misuse of donor bodies, and Tucker Carlson violating his non-compete clause with "Tucker on Twitter"!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest, because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of Don't Be a Trendist to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. I think it's from Johnny Davis. Johnny Davis. From the Discord. Classic film. What's your favorite, like, spoof film? Oh, man.

Probably, I love Men in Tights. What else? Hot Shots Part Deux. Hot Shots. I feel like Hot Shots is due for a resurgence, right? There's just one part where I remember Charlie Sheen, there's a box of bullets and he just throws them at these guys like in a fight scene and like it's like he shot them shot them yeah i was like this is great this is great there's some good bits in that it's also funny that he did steroids to get like jacked like rambo for a spoof film yeah exactly he was so yoked all of a sudden uh then there's dude loaded weapon one

national lampoon's loaded weapon i still need to watch that one with emilio and sam jackson that one's bad man this was actually my favorite kind of film where like these parody spoof films and then like all the naked gun all the naked yeah yeah but those are all great not another teen movie i think is a hidden gem it like came out in the course of like it has the same title as like those ones that are like dance movie or you know epic movie and i think people sometimes associate it with that but it's got some good bits um okay all right anyways i'm jack that's miles these are some things that are trending on this Thursday June 8th

Starbucks is shifting to Nugget Ice is that good? I think we knew that but Salon.com interviewed an ice expert on what this means and I guess just generally Nugget Ice is becoming more popular

because from the consumer side it's soft, it's chewy, it's easy to chomp on. Best part of being in the hospital. Yeah. And then on the company side, you can just dump shitloads of it in there. And dilute your product?

Yeah, dilute the hell out of your product. Somebody's getting a nice bump, a nice bonus for coming up with this idea On the Starbucks side Oh is it because it's so porous too It probably just melts way quicker It melts immediately

This ice expert said a lot of people Absolutely love the soft chewy ice Like you get at Sonic And in the hospital It seems to absorb some of the liquid poured over it So even after you first finish your drink You can wait a couple minutes and get another few sips of your beverage as the ice melts. Yeah. And then in a few more minutes, you basically have a glass of water to drink.

So it's good for hydration. They don't talk about the part that it also makes your... That would be like... I remember when that place Lemonade opened up in LA. Yeah. And everybody's like, the lemonade's's so good i was on to them real quick i was like no ice in that fucking cup because y'all put 80 fucking ice in there i want my whole fucking 20 whatever ounces of lemonade before i walk out here i'm not paying for fucking 60 ice right the detractors argument that he cites is that the ice will water down the coffee too quickly.

And so you might want to ask for concentrated coffee. Can I get that two X concentrated? That thanks. Oh, cause then now, wow, that's actually more genius. Cause they're not gonna be like,

well, we don't have one unless you want to add a shot for more money. Right. Yeah. Because it should have sold water. Cook this over a spoon for me. Right. Yeah. Get it. Get some dialysis tubing I can use to tie off.

But that is my thought. My initial thought is just like, I think the point of ice is to cool the beverage, but not to turn the beverage into a different beverage. Nah, nah, nah, nah. That's why I respect places like coffee water, like those, like you go to the Asian,

like Boba tea spots or like milk tea spot. Like they have, they'll be like how much ice you want. Cause they know already, like, even if you do like on like a mobile order to pick it up or whatever, that you can still be like, I want 20% ice.

Thank you though for asking. Cause I know I want my money's worth. The slowest melting ice is the like sphere right like you get it like the super high-end bar is like the perfect sphere yeah yeah and i think right now that's like one i was i've been looking for the longest time like my refrigerator is so old that it has like an eight track player in it that i want it's like most expensive refrigerator in 1978 oh yeah man there's a disco ball on the top of shit it's fucking wild and has like a little pop-out tray so you could

snort cocaine off of it while you're making your children's dinner yeah cigarette lighter that comes out so you can light up as you're like cooking it's just like on the door because you're busy you can just like lean your face on the refrigerator door and light a cigarette but for real i've been looking i was like my whole thing is like i want to wait till there's a fucking refrigerator that makes nugget ice because like i would like that but i feel like no company is doing that because they're cowards uh and like the only thing that you can get like there are refrigerators though that make that fancy sphere ice and i'm like i'm not drinking like whiskey on the rocks or something all day i'm like i want some fun shit to chew on yeah i would like put sphere ice in like a thing of diet coke for sure i would gladly do that

that's a good look yeah i mean the the ice shaker is you know the the thing that like bartenders use where they like shake it over their shoulders like that's a underrated implement even if you're not drinking booze like that thing will cool your drink immediately, no matter what. Yeah, it's nice. Highly recommend even if you're not. You just shake your diet Coke. Oh, this diet Coke's a little warm.

You know, usually it's probably better for a flat beverage. Okay. All right. Here's one we're not sure what to think about, but it's out there. People are talking about it. There's a new study that finds that Splenda

is genotoxic. So it's toxic to people named Geno? Yeah. Exactly. Only people named Geno. Thank God. It breaks apart your DNA, which is bad. Okay. That's not good, right? Mutations to your

mutagenicity? Call me old fashioned, but I don't like stuff that is genotoxic and breaks apart my dna right yeah because damaged dna can reform into cancer so there's also the calorie control council uh which you know is probably i think is a front group for the companies that manufacture like splenda and artificial sweeteners they're like nah yeah they're the lobbying body that represents low and reduced calorie the entire low and reduced calorie food and beverage industry that's their whole exist their their reason to live their that's on debt yeah so i don't, like all the ins and outs of this one. Like even the, there's a study that NutraSweet,

uh, or like equal, you know, the stuff that, um, that, that particular got me hooked on. Yeah.

The thing that was in all the fake sugar products in the nineties and stuff like that got a reputation for being carcinogenic. But then there was like, you know, because the news cycle was a lot slower back then like years later there was a backlash where scientists were like actually the amount of like equal packets you would have to consume to get the levels that they were giving to the lab rats you would have to be like using a pickup truck to transport the equal to your house like

yeah every day yeah i just like the idea of it just a dump truck just like unloading it onto your face yeah and then you look like a tony montana of nutra sweet uh but yeah i mean it's interesting that they are of course they're gonna say this is that's not true because they have their own you know like any lobbying group they come after academics and things that say things like that. But this is why I think we're a bit dubious here, because when you search this about like, you know, Splenda being genotoxic, it's only conservative or like, you know, places like the New York Post, Metro and the UK Newsweek. Like these kind of like not not I would say not the most serious journalistic outlets right publishing the story and like but other like news networks aren't which you feel like they would normally that's

what i'm saying like is the calorie control council basically getting in their homies ears over at fox and all these other places like this network of conservative sort of news and being like hey man can you put the thing out about how that uh low calorie shit will kill you and make you a mutant all right thank you thank you you mean like i feel like the sugar industry might be getting in i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah my bad yeah or actually good well no they did get word from the yeah exactly i'm sorry the sugar industry exactly who's like oh god what an l for you if you take that yeah i mean that's like i i guess i never like when i was younger i didn't think of the council of dairy farmers i wasn't like they're a big organization that like has a media arm that

like controls and like creates propaganda and stuff um these got milk ads are just they just like came about naturally yeah they were because i question beg the question you got me yeah i mean like when you read about how the dairy industry has been able to like control messaging around milk and cheese and like all those things and be like they're healthy folks and like how that contradicts science so sugar is a massive industry right yeah a lot of slavery a lot of slavery a lot of people being harmed uh increasingly over in like the past five decades so it just feels like we'll we'll need to kind of put a pin in this one and see like what what the fallout is but big anything that sounds bad big shugs i got my eye on you uh because i mean it's the reason we fucking annexed hawaii

you know what i mean like yeah all sugar like always can lead to some weird fucked up places when you look at the history but yeah yeah do you i i also like don't fuck with like splenda like the the newer like sugar alternative products like i had a yogurt the other day and I was like, oh, this definitely has artificial sweetener in it and found it in the third to last ingredient. But something about it disagrees with me. I'm not sure what it is. I don't know. Does it function

technically as a neurotoxin? Because it's convincing your brain of something that's not actually happening? I think I'm just really highly sensitive to genotoxins. Yeah, that's true. That happening i think i'm just really highly sensitive to genotoxins yeah that's true yeah that's what everybody's always said about that's why yeah you test all the president's meals that's right all right let's take a quick break and we'll be right back i've been thinking about you i want you back in my life. It's too late for that. 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. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

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. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling.

It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring.

This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network.

You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Spring, Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J. and more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you got to listen. Like if you're watching us, you have to tell us like if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window.

Just just you know what? Listen to the amber and lacy lacy and amber show on will ferrell's big money players network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back and to complete our food block i guess uh is what oh shit yeah pizza hut is introducing uh in new york only limited time only a pickle pizza that is making people unhappy but actually looks pretty fucking good to me. Who's saying they don't like it? Okay, so it's the pickle pizza, spicy dill pickles, Nashville hot chicken, and ranch. Yes. Okay.

I mean, it's like buffalo chicken pizza. My only complaint with buffalo chicken pizza is the red onions sometimes get stringy and fucked up. But for the most part a combination of cheese buffalo chicken and ranch or blue or ranch like that goes very hard in my in my book um adding pickles like replacing the uh stringy red onions with pickles sounds good to me assuming and this is something that i feel like they need to specify in their marketing material. Assuming the pickles are added after the bake.

Right. I don't want you putting, I've never, I've never had baked pickles before. I can't imagine like that is a food that particularly well, just like hot ass and like also like dehydrated gummy pickles yeah i've had i've had a pizza with frickles on it like fried pickles fried pickles sure yeah yeah and that would create a membrane that would make it okay yeah yeah i think in my book otherwise it's yeah i mean i'm

i'm fine with this you know yeah i think i think it's funny, though, too. Like, all the comments that we're reading about, again, they're launching it in New York City. New York City? Hey, man, I've been there before, man. It smells like weed everywhere, first of all. So that's why I'll never go back, because it's an out-of-control blue city. But, like, y'all are militant about pizza over there because that's like your shit so i think coming in with some weird shit is not the right environment to introduce a pizza like this that feels like a transgression to like the new york pizza scene

right you know what i mean like i feel like if this shit dropped in california or like a place where everybody's high or yeah i don't even know I can even see Chicago people being like No what the fuck is this man we got our own Shit like I think a place like LA or the west coast you'd have A little more people like yo Dude the fucking pizza pickle Pickle pizza is pretty bomb

I feel like you might have just Made a mistake with where you launched it but whatever This is our equivalent of like Doing like Lobbying is we just come in and we're like you should have launched this in la actually uh you should have been better for your product yeah all right getting into some harder news yeah gummy pickly news uh the supreme court is doing a weird job of like vacillating between total fascist bullshit and then kind of doing good things every once in a while. And yeah, just got a kind of good thing. They decided that because there's the most fucked up violent redistrict.

I mean, fucking everywhere. But in Alabama, especially in a state that's 27 percent black, they gerrymandered the fuck out of that voting map. So there's only one majority black district. And so people sued, got all the way to the Supreme Court, and the court was like, oh yeah, man, y'all, that's fucked up. Y'all gonna have to create

at least one more majority black district. This is infringing on their rights. Five-four ruling with Brett Kavanaugh joining the libs. Wow. So I'm like, damn, what the fuck? What's wrong with y'all over there one minute you're like if you go on strike to better your own situation we are siding with the companies and their loss of profit in this one so they can sue you to fucking high hell yeah uh for damages but then

they're like but also yeah we care about the downtrodden uh in this representative democracy because like we've seen what y'all did with the voting rights act before like i'm sorry is it uchi wali or is it one mike right as jay-z once said where are you supreme court do you know what you're doing or again i think this is just part of their like panicked optics say yeah routine and i think they recognize that neither party is giving anyone anything to vote for that will change any of this any of the things that actually matter when it comes to you know the aforementioned workers rights and stuff like that so yeah um they're like yeah you can vote yeah yeah no sure that's that's great yeah go ahead try go ahead dude check out those maps uh but yeah because i think

before they also they they didn't know i think there was another decision that went against voters in alabama before so it's very unpredictable it's very unpredictable where where they're what side of the bed they're gonna wait highly unpredictable yeah um all right the anatomical gift association is a a story that Super Producer Brian brought across our desks that is fucked up. Scary. So they're an organization that, you know, takes cadavers for scientific research, you know, for people to work on for medical reasons, scientific research, etc. So one of the people who worked there, this black man, he was saying that the fucking conditions in this place were horrifying. He said, if you stood in one place for too long, like your feet start to stick to the ground and like the bodies were not stored properly.

They're melting and shit. So once he sort of made this complaint and reported his concerns, he said, quote, Wheatley said he came into the office with three severed heads in a container on his desk with like sage burning. He found that. That was waiting for him. Yeah, it was waiting for him. He said that the heads from these AGA donors were placed next to his desk after he reported concerns about the mishandling and poor conditions of donated bodies to his supervisors. But AGA Executive Vice President William O'Connor denied any maltreatment accusations, saying that handling body parts is in Wheatley's job description. Wow.

Holy shit. Wow. That's okay. Well, I thought that's what you liked so much. Isn't that what your complaint said? You like doing this? Because you care about him so much. You shouldn't mind if there's three severed heads on your desk.

We even put sage there to give it good vibes, man. What the fuck man so yeah fuck this play that is like just a fucked up story uh someone again you try and point something out of your workplace and then they're literally doing the godfather shit to you yeah also anatomical gift association is just like that it sounds like a euphemism for sex toys oh yeah give yourself an anatomical gift that's what i'm that's i feel like they would have called It sounds like a euphemism for sex toys. Oh, yeah. Give yourself an anatomical gift. That's what I feel like they would have called a dildo in the Bible.

Right. You know what I mean? But I guess not. They called it a male idol, as we learned in a recent episode. And finally, Tucker is back in the news because Fox sent him a legal notice that he is violating his non-compete clause by doing his uh little vlog bullshit on twitter yeah i mean yeah fucking non-compete clause obviously but uh because you know that's that's obviously anti-worker but it also like but also fuck tucker

across yeah it's nice we were talking about how low brow, how low budget his set looked. And that's like the reaction a lot of people had and pointed to like all the money that he has to go into it. But it's it's just wild when you see him like without his set and stuff. It just looks like Matt Walsh or like one of these other fucking like kind of not in the main like sort of broadcast media version of someone's rendition of just doing white supremacy on the internet yeah and like the writing it feels like he's missing his writers because he just came in and was like hey it's Tucker

um so here's a thing here's a thing that just happened I'm surprised he didn't go hey it's Tucker Carlson yeah what else it had the vibes of like one of those right wing podcasts that are like three and a half hours long but it was only 10 minutes. That's all

he could get out of it was 10 minutes. Anyways. Again, another one of those shitty battles where you're like Fox News and Tucker. What side do you want? I don't know. Double KO maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Those are some of the things that are trending on this Thursday afternoon. Those are some of the things that are trending on this Thursday

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. Get all the shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye.

In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest. Because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Swordquest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Swordquest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.