The Daily Zeitgeist - ‘Eyes’ Yourself A Very ‘Wide Shut’ Christmas 12.12.25

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

In episode 1979, Jack and guest co-host Blake Wexler are joined by comedian and host of Pod Yourself A Gun and Bad Hasbara, Matt Lieb, to discuss… Time Magazine’s 2025 Person Of The Year Is… The “Architects Of AI”, Tim Pool Is Circling The Drain, Eyes Wide Shut Is The Weirdest Christmas Movie To Watch In 2025 and more! Time Magazine Skewered Over ‘Person of the Year’ Reveal Time Magazine’s 2025 Person Of The Year Is… The “Architects Of AI” Time picked a rough day to announce its ‘Person of the Year’ Behind the Photo: Lunch Atop a Skyscraper The Story Behind ‘Lunch Atop A Skyscraper,’ The Photo That Inspired Great Depression-Era America MAGA Star Refuses to Give Cops Footage of Alleged Shooting Eyes Wide Shut is the ultimate Christmas film ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ DP Larry Smith on the New Criterion Transfer, Filming the Orgy, and Nicole Kidman’s Commitment to More Takes How Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Predicted the Jeffrey Epstein Saga Roger Avary: Warner Bros Changed Kubrick's Original Ending of ‘Eyes Wide Shut' Gen Z are obsessed with Eyes Wide Shut – and it’s got a lot to do with Jeffrey Epstein Establishing the connection between Eyes Wide Shut and Epstein/Weinstein (REDDIT) Larry Celona Jeffrey Epstein timeline: How the Palm Beach County case led to 15 more years of sex abuse Steve Martin Discusses Being Pitched ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ By Stanley Kubrick Kubrick Dreamed of Casting Bill Murray, Woody Allen for ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Before Tom Cruise Cinema: All Eyes On Them Scholars Discover Alternate Ending to Schnitzler's Dream Story Research Was Key When It Came To Creating Eyes Wide Shut's Most Famous Scene Matt Lieb's Piece of Media LISTEN: Follow the Light by Dirty Loops, Cory WongSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What are we supposed to be doing? No joke. You can just say record whenever you want. It's been recording for a minute and a half. All right. We're good. I woke up to recording. Fucking brown noser over here.

Watch your mouth. Did you know brown nosing? I hit it like a minute and a half. That's not how I talk. That's not how I talk. Kind of similar. I kind of nailed it. No, you took some.

he's there. I thought there was two of you. What the hell? Justin. What is this face you're making? I hate the way that sounded so much. Oh, Justin. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Sexually. Justin. I didn't mean it sexually. I just said sexually. That's not supposed to be sexual. It's just the word I think. That's your interpretation, ma'am. Yeah.

Wouldn't be sexual. Mm-mm. If I said, sexually. That's how you know. That's how you know it's not. That's how you know it's not. That's right. Did you know brown-nosing comes from the term like of kissing someone's ass and there's shit on the nose? Isn't that disgusting? I did know that's what that's why the nose is brown. I had to explain that to my seven-year-old. The other day. It's hard. Well, you should have because I called him a shit-nosed brown-nosed.

Stop stuck it up to mom. Yeah. Fucking narc told me. Little asshole. Sit down. Sit down. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him.

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I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of RipCurrent Season 2 are available now.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the Internet, and welcome to season 418, episode 5 of DERDAILES. Hi, aye, guys. It's a production of IHeart Radio. Oh, Justin? Justin. This is a podcast, that's you, that's you. This is a podcast where you take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness through the day's news.

We also have a new weekly history version of the show drop it each Monday morning where we do a deep dive into the history of a different icon. So far we've done Einstein, Urkel, Miss Piggy, with Jamie Loftus, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with John Gavris, Urkel with Jakez, Neal, Einstein with Michael Swain. Look for those episodes on Mondays with Icon in the title. We got another one coming up with a real B-minus guest. Oh, God. It's Friday, December 12th, 2025. Happy Friday, you know? TG.

TG. I have. Oh, what were you going to say? I was going to say the same thing. That's fucking nuts. That is crazy. Thank God. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k. Potatoes O'Brien.

And I'm thrilled to be joined in our second seat by really a comedian writer, actor, corner of the phrase plumbers to describe his Jack Thubbush. Guys, it's Blake Waxler! Hey, it's Blake Waxler, aka Kyle Ayers. Wait, who's Kyle Ayers? He's a comedian. It's a different guy. He's a frequent guest on your show.

Oh, Kyle Ayers. What if you didn't know who he was because he always fills in for you? So you've just never come across. Yeah, cut me not knowing who Kyle Ayers is. It's been a long week. I think he was on like three days ago. He was. That's why, because I figured out, I've recently come into possession of a Discord account, and I figured out how to use it.

And apparently my voice sounds like Kyle Ayers. That's something that's been thrown around on the Discord. Uh-huh. And so your A.K.A. is also Kyle Ayers. Yeah, now that we've arrived. Kyle Ayers is a character created by Blake? Or vice versa. Yeah. It's impossible to say. There's a really great painting that somebody made. The Mona Lisa.

Oh, wait, what were you? A piece of fan art that is, it says TDZ on it, has a wonderful likeness of Miles kind of thinking, then his head is popping open, and I'm coming out of his brain, holding a potato, and it does imply that I am a figment. I am a character that was created by Miles. It's like my favorite work of TDZ fan art, so I have it behind me right now. We have it up in the office, but it does imply I'm a fictional character. And I love that.

No accountability. You know what I mean? That's just a character that Miles does. It's really weird takes. Anyways, Blake, thank you so much for filling in for Miles while he's out, you know, working on his character, working on this character that he created. And please stop poisoning him, which has been going on. All of our guest hosts have admitted to poisoning Miles to keep him.

them out so they could come in and plug their shit, plug their upcoming live shows. Not cool. It's a microdose. It's a microdose of poison. That's right. Microdosing arsenic. Blake, we're thrilled to be joined in our third sepo, one of our favorite guests, a very funny comedian, host of the rewatch podcasts, Pod Yourself a Gun, Pod Yourself the Wire,

and the latest iteration, Mad Yourself a Man, as well as back. Had Hasbara, which happens to be the most moral podcast in existence and of all time. It's Matt Lee. You've got to suck my D. You've got to suck my D. Give me road head. Give me head. Yeah, you got to suck my D.

I'm having fun already. I just wanted to start early, you know? Yeah. Usually I know you guys do, it's like something about your name. this case, I panicked. No need. Yeah, okay, well, good. You could have done, you know, something with Matt Leap in that.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. You got a Matt in Leap, but I didn't suck my leave. I didn't do it fast enough. The other one I had in my head was cock, robot cock, but da-da-do-do-do, you know. Yeah, you know. Don't burn these. You can use that on the last one. Hold on to these.

Don't burn these, dude. You're going to get this stolen. These ideas are going to get stolen. trademark. And we are mailing this episode to ourselves in the mail. So it's been trademark. You cannot steal that idea. You're going to get two. You're going to get his number one hit. Matt, how are you doing? It's wonderful to have you back. Oh, I'm so glad to be back. I'm so glad we made it work. I've been trying to come on the show for a while, but, you know, life. Life gets in the way. Life keeps life in. Am I ready? It comes at you fast. It comes at you fast. Also true. Yeah. It really does.

Matt, how are you enjoying your rewatch of a... It's also a beach. The other thing you should know about life, it's a bit of a beach. You dig it. It's a huge beach. Because you dig it.

Oh, that's fun. That's a fun little... Hold on. Let me write that. Let me mail that to ourselves as well. Put that envelope leave yet. Could you write it in Live, Laugh, love? I think Joe Dirt mailed that to himself.

Joe Dirt. That's where I heard. I heard it from the movie Joe Dirt. You guys remember Joe Dirt? I was a David Spade movie, you see. It was during my one. walk-in phase where anything that Christopher Walker was in, I was like, this is hilarious.

Oh, I like that. You had a walk-in phase. Decades that lasted for you. Couldn't move forward, actually. It was a developmental problem, according to my psychoanalyst. Couldn't move for. I could only walk forward. Huh? Because I'm walking. Those are the types of jokes you would do. I would never say

something stupid. Yeah, yeah. I've moved beyond that, Matt. Yeah. After a lot of of work. Cock. Beyond that. Robot cock. It's just a great song. I don't even know what that's in reference to.

Oh, that makes it even better. It was like one of death punk's first hits. I was pretending. I was pretending. Yeah. Okay. Robot rock. Matt, how's the,

how's the Madman rewatch? Matt, how's the cock? And also. Cox's good. Mad Men rewatch is going great. We are, we just wrapped up season three.

And we're going to be starting season four soon. right on time for HBO to come in and be like, hey, guess what? All of Mad Men available on HBO. And finally, now all we have to do is make our podcast somehow discoverable on podcast apps. Because right now, it's called Pod Yourself a Gun, a rewatch podcast. We keep calling it Mad Yourself a Man, although you can't really find it that way. And those who are searching for Mad Men can't find it because it's Mad Yourself a Man. man yeah so it's not one more right mad yourself some men yeah man yeah well you know we need

we need to have like an extra like a i don't know a p r guy help us with that but it's only it's only me vince and brett and none of us are good so we're all bad people yeah yeah so uh but yeah we're very excited for people to start watching mad men and listening to mad yourself a man yeah it's It's tough that you're not talented in the one way that really matters in terms of artistic merit and it's SEO. Yes, it's true. It's the only way. It's truly like how things, like how artists are made today is like I actually figured out how to game the system. You think Michelangelo would have ever gotten to paint the Sistine Chapel if he hadn't been good at reels?

You know, that's a good point. I don't think so. He went by a great marketer. He's a great self-promover. He knew how to do it. Swipe up to see more Sistine Chapel. Yeah. He's all about connections.

That'd be great if you, like, look back at one of these artists, like, notes. And it's all about just, like, grinding and how to, like, get in front of the right people. Michael Angelo's on that grindset mindset. Yeah. His father, Rick Angelo was a famous painter. I know that's not his last name. I like that. It's fine.

It's fine. No, people need to know. Michael Angelo is a good. with designer jeans and shit. Hey, Michael. Well, we're thrilled to have you here. We're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple

of the things we're talking about. It's finally happened. It's finally here. Time Magazine has designated its person of the year. And once again, they've fucked up by, first of all, it's not a person. It's not Hitler again. It's not Hitler again. It's not Hitler again, although Hitler having kind of a little reappraisal in some parts of the culture.

But no, it's the architects of AI and then there's just like a bad Photoshop job of a bunch of like the people like AI executives, not even the architects of AI. Just like people who own companies that are making a ton of money off of AI sitting on the steel beam from that picture. I remember when the construction workers are sitting on the steel. Remember that? Yeah, I remember it. It's like these are our new blue collar workers. You know, jet fuel can't melt those. I've heard that, actually.

So we're going to talk about that article. Look, like the image sucks so bad. And the article is even worse. So we'll talk about that. We'll check it with Tim Poole, famous conservative commentator, who had a beanie surgically attached to us. head because he is threatening once again to quit. I feel like this is the only time that he ever, like, makes it onto our radar is when he's

like, I can't even afford to do this shit anymore, man. This time he's like, it's because, like, I have to pay for security because everyone is trying to kill me because I'm so fucking. I'm so fucking important. I'm so important. So, yeah, we're going to talk about that. And then we're going to talk about the movie that's become the new, stylish. my favorite Christmas movie?

Well, you probably don't think of it as a Christmas movie, but I do a little something called Eyes Wide Shut. This is the hot new Christmas movie. Everybody's talking about it. Everybody's talking about Eyes Wide Shut. And we're going to look at why it's become so popular in this age of the Epstein Files, whether the theories are true that it caused St.

Stanley Kubrick to be murdered by the Illuminati. I'm just saying he died as he finished it. Oh, that's real life. One of the last things that people heard him do, according to somebody on the internet, was yelling at executive saying, you can't change the ending of my movie. What was that original ending?

We'll find out about that. Plenty more. But first, Matt, we do like to ask our guest. What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Oh, yes. Thank you, Blake. I'm glad you guys doubled up on that, so everyone understood it.

The most interesting thing on my recent search history is, what do I want for Christmas? Oh, so I mean, I can tell you something, man. Have you ever tried ChatGBT. The Chat, GBT, BT will tell you what you want for Christmas. Yeah, it'll tell you what Matt Lieb want for Christmas. And it's like, all I want is a bunch of water to go to waste. So I ask ChatGBT over and over what I want.

want for Christmas. Yeah, it was just, I was looking through. It was like, oh, yeah, I recently asked Google what I wanted because I literally, I just don't, I don't know. And I don't mean that to make that sound like, you know, oh, I have everything I've always wanted. It's no, it's just that, like, what I want is too expensive, you know, for most, you know, people to think is a reasonable Christmas present.

Yeah, cocaine has gotten expensive. Yeah, it's way too much. It's way up. Dude, ever since the Venezueless shit, dude. I know. It's way up, dude. It's been hard. And, yeah, and then I was just looking through at what it told me I wanted, and it doesn't know what I want for Christmas.

See, this is what Google will play dumb sometimes. It's so weird. It knows. It knows. It's been paying attention. It's collecting a detailed profile of you. And then, yeah, let's see. What did it tell you?

Well, let's seriously, what do I want? for Christmas. That is, by the way, when I type in what do I want for Christmas is the number one auto-complete. So you're not alone. Okay. So other people also don't know what they want. That's good. That makes me feel better about it. Okay. So it says, this is from Google's AI. It says, techs and gadgets. You want Apple AirPods. Oh, guess what idiot? I already have them, stupid. My God. Fucking idiot. What is wrong with you, Apple, Google? I want a. I want a a smart home from Amazon Echo. No, I don't.

Yeah, you do. No, I don't. You actually don't realize it yet, but yeah, you do. I want an Apple air tag. What are we doing here? Tell me what I really want. For tracking keys or bags or X's. Yeah, exactly.

If I'm going to use it for anything, I'm going to put it on my cat. That's what I would do. Because I want to know where that bitch goes. Where is that cat? Where the fuck is that cat? That's a new second. segment that we're going to do on the back. Where's that cat?

And finally, we like to ask our guest, where is that cat? The answer is always under the couch, scared of the child. For the 11th day in a row. And then one of the things it says, what do I want for Christmas? It says, a classic watch.

I know it knows me better than this. I know it knows me better, and it pisses me off because I still, I still don't know what I want. What do you guys want for Christmas? According to Google AI, it doesn't think I want a classic watch. I'll tell you that much.

It is a Rolex for me, actually. I did Google how much does a Rolex cost the other day? Because I just didn't know. And I'm like, there must be a Rolex that a person could afford. And it's like, the cheapest one's like $9,000 or so it's like you're fucking insane. So I bought eight. Oh, hell yeah, hell yeah. Yeah.

One of my options is creative art supplies, camera for vlogging, like Canon G7X. Oh, nice. So it gets me. All right. It doesn't get me at all. I just want to know what I want. Yeah. I do feel helpless anytime anyone asks me what I want for Christmas.

I'm like, I don't know. What? Yeah, I'm like, I don't know, more Patreon subscribers. What do I want for Christmas? I want a way for people to discover Mad Yourself a Man because it's called pot yourself with gun and people don't know that. What do I want?

I guess $10 million. Is that too much to ask? We can crowdsource it. $10 million? Well, if I just get $100 from, I can't do the math, but if you do the math, let me know how many people I need to get $100 from

in order to get $10 million. Mathly. Ask Michael Dell. Tell Michael Dell that you're 10,000 children. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it. I think you did the math.

No. It's either $10,000 or $100,000. I can't count zeros right now. No, not now. There's no time. Matt, what is something you think is underrated? Underrated? I would have to say, listen, I don't know this person actually is underrated.

But he was recently in the news as being, bad at acting, and I disagree. Paul Dano. Oh, come on. Paul Dano is underrated by Quentin Tarantino very specifically. And I... That is the

implication of these questions. What is underrated and overrated by Quentin Tarantino? Right. What is Quintrantino want for Christmas? Right. And it's I don't know, a feet picks, probably. Yeah, feet picks. Yeah, Paul Dano. Hey, Quinton, and before you,

finish saying what do you want for a crazy he responds feet picks yeah yeah that's why he hates paul dano his awful feet just hideous little piggy's he wouldn't show i bet you he didn't show them hogs i bet he was just like i'm not going to do it and he's like come on man you know just as weird fucking bullshit yeah no but paul dano is like uh even even with the like outpouring of support for him after quentin tarentino trashed him for no reason i was still there was part of me that I was like, no, but seriously, he is probably, I mean, since the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, he's probably like the best actor in Hollywood. Whoa, so you're a real Dano head.

I'm a big old Dano head, dude. He's so good. Even in his bit role in the Sopranos where he just played AJ's weird friend, crush it. I didn't even know he forgot about that. Yeah, he was AJ's weird friend. I forget they were like, I forget what they were even talking about. But I was just like, yeah, that kid's weird. I got to follow his career.

So, yeah, Paul Dano's my guy. Freaking me out. Yeah. Yeah, Dano's good. Quentin Tarantino has lost his marbles there. I said it. Yeah. I'm going there.

Guys lost his marbles a little bit. Absolutely. What if I defended of like, we've all had a mic shoved in our face and said dumb stuff. Okay. We've all had that happen. So who knows? If he could do it again, I bet he would take it back. I'm sure he would.

Yeah. I'm sure he would. Yeah. I do need Paul Dano. I like him as an actor as well. I need him to come out and give us the backstory, because either way, it's fascinating. If there is, like, something that he said no to that Quinn Tarantino wanted him in, that's great. If he, like, is there something that happened behind the scenes?

Or if it's, like, completely out of the blue, also very interesting. Yeah, also hilarious. If it's just literally, get in there, Dano. Get in there. Get your hands dirty a little bit. Yeah, we really do need to know what the backstory is behind that because it's such a random person to hate, especially someone who is so clearly a good actor, like objectively to, you know.

What's your favorite Dano besides, you know, being the weird friend and the apprentice? I mean, other than there will be blood, the most obvious Dano movie. Honestly, I think love and mercy, his portrayal of young Brian Wilson is like that that to me is might be the best biopic

out there like music biopic and uh it's so funny that like what's what's the name of the guy who played Mike Love? No no no no no the guy who played they got Mike Love to play Brian Wilson dude that would have been hilarious

he's just like I'm doing it no he'd love it he he will love it this is what Brian would have wanted, man. It's like Brian was still alive at that point, too, but he's still talking about him as if he's dead. Yeah, you know, the guy who played Freddie Mercury and Bohemian Rhapsody, you know, was just... Oh, yeah, Rami, Malik. Malik, yeah. Like, the fact that he, you know, won best actor for that, there's so many music biopics that have, like, best actor Oscars for, you know, the lead.

and that is this is the only one that I think is deserved. Paul Dano playing young Brian Wilson. He did it so perfectly. It was my theory on that is that Hollywood can be fooled every time with a set of a set of fake teeth. A hundred percent. Yeah. Tooth acting is real and you put some fake teeth in there like, whoa, he's like a different person. Wow, that's crazy.

The same thing as like my kids putting on like, Dracula teeth on Halloween and like looking in the mirror and being like, oh my God, I look like a real vampire. Oh my God. Cool. Yeah. Tooth acting, man. Yeah. They should just create a separate category for best tooth acting. Yeah. It stops being the hack to win. Right. Best prosthetic that fooled me. Yeah. Fucking. Whoa. Whoa. There's a separate hall of fame for it. Yeah. With baseball and performance enhancing drugs. It's just like, yeah. It works on me too. I'm just, saying that like you we shouldn't punish people who are playing characters who have fine teeth right yeah exactly what could you do about it yeah what uh what's something that you think is

overrated therapy thank you don't need it stop telling people to go to it people don't you know look i understand that everyone is in this like wellness like you know like thing now it's like this era of like oh i go to therapy and i work on my problems you know fine good for you but some of us are out here crushing it by yes by just like just putting you know like taking those problems and just putting them down deep deep inside and letting it you know stew marinate Marinate for a bit, and I'm one of them. Like, I had not needed therapy, you know, for years. I've not needed it.

With baby shit. That is baby shit. And I have a baby now, and now I'm like, oh, good. Now I have someone to talk to. Yeah. My kid is my therapist. And that's healthy. Yeah.

And that's good. I taught her one phrase, how do you feel about that? And I have her say that over and over as I'm talking about my sexual dysfunction. That's right. We're learning about each other. I remember reading a story about how someone tried to bullshit you once, Matt, and they wound up in the fucking hospital. Oh, yeah.

You remember that? Oh, yeah. That happens a lot. I have a pretty amazing bullshit detector. It's sort of a rubber glue type thing. Nice. Where you try to bullshit me, whatever you bullshit bounce up me and sticks to you,

and then you go out of the hospital. Yeah. It does sometimes some people do confuse you with it. the brown noser because your bullshit detector is like you need to get right up on the bullshit yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but you're not brown nosing i don't brown nose that's right exactly yeah in fact that's why i don't like therapy because every time i went when i used to go to therapy and uh after a while i was like first of all why are you so obsessed with me i would say that's my therapist yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh i'd be like uh you should be paying me right and you never

yeah you sound healthy no this is good that so listen Listen, this is good advice, and you should definitely listen to Matt on this. It sounds healthy. People think that all their problems will be solved with therapy. Maybe, maybe. Not, I'm built different. Yeah. My problems are solved by grinding.

You know what I do? I grind, I cry. I rise and grind. I cry and grind. And you just kind of, you just have to like let your feelings, you know, like, go deep down. you have to push them there you push them deep down inside to quote the wire way down in the hole

yeah yeah watch some TV talk about Paul Dano for a bit fucking problems are over find out what you want for Christmas and if you do go to therapy here's a I would never but go ahead no no and this is for the audience not you just for the whole audience

because I don't need it at all and if someone tricks you if someone gets their claws in you and makes you go to therapy there's a fun phrase to use and you say we're at time when I fucking say we're at time. Yeah. I find that's very helpful.

Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's how you teach them to respect you. Yeah. Exactly. You go in there and you punch the clocks. That's right.

You punch the biggest clock in the room. That's right. Yeah. First night. You get their name wrong. I guess we get another. I mispronounce their name. You know,

I did have a therapist who mispronounce my name for a full month. Is that true? Yeah. And I did correct. Your name is not hard to pronounce it. He thought I said Nat. Nat. And he kept calling me Nat.

Like King Cole? Yeah, like King Cole. And I didn't correct him, you know, because eventually I was like, well, I haven't yet paid him the check. So I gave him the check for the month. And I was like, well, surely he'll read my name on the check. I really wanted to avoid that. And then he, and then on the next session, he called me Nat again. And I was like, I'm sorry, we have to stop.

yeah my name is matt yeah and he said why didn't you tell me and i was like i don't know because i'm scared because i have an avoidant personality shouldn't you know that why am i here right see that's why i don't need therapy i have uh there are certain people in my life who just from when i was a kid refused to believe that my name is not zach and they will continuously after you know BLA just they want to

default to Zach you know that kind of works come off as a Zach you do come off as a Zach I never thought about it that way but you are Zach O'Brien fuck we found another one

you're wrong yeah I'm the I'm the wrong your dad's wrong your mom's wrong everybody wrong no my parents are both Zach people they call me Zach

they wanted to call you it's on your birth certificate yeah so who Who's calling you Jack, actually, now that I'm thinking. Is it just you? Yeah, it's me and the intro to this show. Oh, that's about it. Okay.

So it's like a stage name. It's a character, Miles, created. That's a chair name. Let's take a quick break. We'll be back to talk about Times Person of the Year. Don, don, don't, don't. Lama is a spirit. It's not just a spirit.

city. I didn't really have an interest of being on air. I kind of was up there to just try and infiltrate the building. It's where Cronk was born in a club in the West End. Four World Star, it was five, five, nine. Where a tiny bar birthed a generation of rap stars, where preachers go viral, and students at the HBCU turned heartbreak into resurrection. How do you get people to believe in something that's dead? Where dream was brought Hollywood to the south, and hustlers bring their visions to create black wealth. Nobody's rushing into relationships with you.

Where are you from? They want to look you in the eye. Where the future is nostalgia. I talk to the chat, GPT. She's like, you really the first lady to have a gay to girls take in Atlanta, Georgia. Like, that's what separates you from a lot of people. And I'm like, oh, what, you're right. Atlanta doesn't wait for permission.

It builds its own spotlight. I'm Big Rube. Let us guide you through the stories behind Atlanta's most iconic moments. Listen to Atlanta is on the I-Hard Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. You know the shade is always Shadiest right here. Season 6 of the podcast, Reasonably Shady with Giselle Bryan and Robin Dixon is here dropping every Monday. As two of the founding members of the Real Housewives Potomac were giving you all the laughs, drama, and reality news you can handle.

And you know we don't hold back. So come be reasonable or shady with us each and every Monday. I was going through a walk in my neighborhood. Out of the blue, I see this. huge sign next to somebody's house. The sign says, my neighbor is a Karen. Oh, what?

No way. I died laughing. I'm like, I have to know. You are lying. Humongous, y'all. They had some time on their hands. Listen to reasonably shady from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app.

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing.

It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story.

We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked.

Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to Business History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iba Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomes Rajan. And on our podcast, Hungry for History, we mix two of our favorite things, food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells, and they called these OsterCon, to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster shells. No way.

Bring back the OsterCon. And because we've got a very My Casa is Su Casa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stop by. Pretty much every entry into this side of the planet was through the Gulf of Mexico. No, the America. The Gulf of Mexico,

continue to be it forever and ever. It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform, they had labor rights, education rights. Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello. Sorry, that's not how we start this in that second act. Hello, second act. And we're back. I tried to hello the second act. I don't know what's going on. Guys, I'm tired. You can do whatever you want.

It's from all this grinding. Do whatever the fuck I want. I'm Zach O'Brien. I mean, Jack O'Brien. Oh, Jesus Christ. Do you get to pay, are you, do you wait around at midnight ready for Time magazine to announce the person of the year and, yeah, smart, and celebrate with your family? Yeah, every year, like me?

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, big news, Times person of the year is persons. the so-called architects of AI including Sam Altman, Elon Musk, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, and it is a really cool picture

where it's all these people who have been like AIed onto the steel beam from that famous photograph of like the construction workers sitting on a steel beam above Manhattan skyline. Yeah. Which that picture, by the way, was a piece of like propaganda for

billionaires. It was taken during the construction of Rockefeller Center, and it was not a candid shot. It was like a staged publicity photo. Get up there and eat your lunch. Yeah. They were all eating lunch on that thing at gunpoint. She scared out of their fucking minds.

I'm just trying to be up here. These guys are so cool. But yeah, I mean, it was the reason they did it was because people kept like fucking getting hurt, making these tall buildings for not enough pay. Right. And they were like, let's show them, like being chill about it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, they like it. Yeah. They like eating lunch all the way up there. No safety harness. Just chilling. Whereas, like, now this is a picture of people who would never, ever, ever do anything close to

as dangerous as this ever. Yeah. And it's unfortunate because they should. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they should. So it does have that AI stink on it where nobody knows what the people in the picture or video are looking at. They're all just, like, doing different,

they're, like, all talking to no one in particular. Nobody's, like, looking at each other. I don't know if you saw the, the sizzle of that AI actress who's supposedly taking Hollywood by storm. Oh, God. At one point, she's, like, giving a... I think she's, like, supposed to be doing a TED talk. Right.

But she's, like, speaking to a room full of people, and everybody's, like, looking in different directions. Nobody, it's just like, they haven't quite mastered the eyeline match. Yeah. It's the hardest thing to do as an actor is nowhere to look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I always get in trouble whenever I'm on set because I always keep looking at the camera and going,

cheese, and you're not supposed to do that. Apparently, you're not supposed to do that. Eye line's hard. Yeah. So they chose to focus not on, like, AI and the promise of the technology, but just, like, things like, market cat like it's just the people who are profiting off of it yes exactly yeah good it's in that way it is an accurate screenshot of like the mainstream media's accounting of the universe in 2025 in

that like the mainstream media and like people like people who work at time are obsessed with this shit they breathlessly reported every breakthrough and potential future that AI hucksters put out there this year. And the article, like, does acknowledge some potential downsides, but it's not the possibility that this is all kind of hyped up bullshit. And instead, their negative stories are all about how, like, AI might be like a superintelligence that's going to colonize the earth, which it's fun. It's, it might be too cool. Right. Yeah. It's, it's too awesome for you to even understand, idiot. As the leading companies, models improve AI systems may eventually out-compete humans as if an advanced species were on the cusp of colonizing the earth,

it says. It's a sixth sentence. It's so funny to write that out as if everyone's like, I'm excited about that. Like, who's happy about that? Like, the only people who talk like this are when you, like, are interviewing Peter Thiel. And you're just like, should humanity survive? And he's like, well. Pauses for 35 minutes?

Good question. as he wraps a belt around his neck. Oh, I need to think about that for a while. Sorry, I'm secreting right now, so let me. The glands behind my ears. I've been doing secretion, actually. Sorry, I need my jar boy in here to collect the glucose that comes out of my pores. But this, I mean, this has been a big part of Sam Altman's, like, it is a genius part of

Sam Altman's pitch in that he has taken. this thing that is, you know, like, there are good applications of AI, like the decoding of the, like, protein structure and, like, shit that's going to help science and mathematics, but he's, like, turned it into a consumer product that doesn't do what it claims to do. Right. But by getting people to write shit, like, it's going to colonize the Earth. Like, we covered this article. Like, there's a New Yorker profile of him, like, eight years ago, where he, like, claims that he keeps a suicide kit around for when, like, AI takes over and decides to destroy us. He's like, I think about it every day.

Oh, hey, you should jump the gun on that. I do like the idea of it being multiple options in the kit. Like, we have gun with single bullet. Yeah. We have a vial of poison. Yeah, exactly. I think it was a, I think it was suicide pills. He said that he kept them close, like pills to kill him and his family.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Who did that? Like, Nazi. But yeah, it covers the truth. When you have, like, big claims like that, it covers the truth that it's essentially a buggy search engine that does a neat magic trick of talking to you like it's a human.

Right. That's literally the big magic of it was how much work and energy and money and water went into something that passes the touring test, which is like, who gives an actual shit? This thing still can't tell me what I want for Christmas, so fuck you. You know, at least Google AI can't. Oh, fuck it. Actually, what it will do is, it will come up with something cool that you want for Christmas,

but it will be completely made up. It won't be a real thing. Oh, I can't wait to get this. It doesn't exist. It knows what you want. It can, like, use, you know, the shit to, like, figure out some, something that you might like or, like, flatter you into thinking that you want it. Right.

But then it doesn't have. to actually use reality, which is weird for a search engine. Yeah. But the actual article, you know, instead of being like, there are like all these scientific breakthroughs that could be possible with this if they choose to focus it on things that would actually help humanity. Instead, it's all just Wall Street bullshit. Yes.

And just like kissing the ass of these executives. I just want to read a little bit from the opening paragraphs here. The tone was set at Trump's inauguration. Tech mogul streamed into Washington. Some sat behind the president during his inaugural address, a signal of the power they would wield. Over the next 11 months, they would use their enormous cash reserves,

cultural power, and momentum to push their products into homes across the world. That's right. Like lining up to join the kleptocracy is a flex on their part. Right. Doesn't they feel like more pathetic than anything? Yeah, they're lining up to kiss the ring of the world's fucking dumbest hamburger man.

And they're just like, wow, look at us. Look at us so close to power. As if they don't already have power via the hundreds of millions of dollars, not billions of dollars they have. But this is what they're tied. Here's a list of like these guys fucking dominated this year. At Meta, Mark Zuckerberg placed a chatbot into flagship products. like Instagram and WhatsApp, rated rivals to amass talent, and doled out compensation packages that paid machine learning engineers more than professional ballplayers.

Altman completed his transformation of open AI, shedding profit caps for investors and paving the way for future investments in the $500 billion colossus. Fun, we all, we're glad that information is there. This article is for us. I was so excited when he shedded those profit caps. profit caps. This is literally an article written for people who are in the C-suite of a tech

company. Like, Anthropic, the Frontier Lab that styles itself as the most safety conscious, reportedly made plans to go public at $300 billion. Yay! Then a quick parenthetical here, and this has nothing to do with anything. I don't know why we're even putting this in here.

Salesforce, where a time owner, Mark Banyoff, serves as CEO as an investor in Anthropic. Oh. But anyways, Musk built data. centers in record time. Google inserted Gemini AI answers at the top of the search engine.

Fuck yeah. And Grok called me the N-word. Right. Thank you, Grock. Thank you, Grock. Grock keeps calling me a kite. Thanks, Grock. Yeah. Fucking, like, all

of this shitty-ass technology that does nothing but give people who are already business owners, already CEOs like a boner imagining the mass layoffs they're going to do. That's it. That's it. That's all it does.

And treating them as like conquering heroes for creating this technology these chat bots. These highly effective things that don't make me punch holes in my fucking wall. Because I'm trying to return something and I can't. None of them work. No problem

has ever been solved. Yes. They don't work. It's so annoying because it's like, look, forget the decimation of like small town water supplies and the amount of like electricity that they use so much so that it's raising everyone's electricity bill forget that every day by taking one of those massage guns to my temple yeah yeah yeah it's called a hard reset yeah that's actually i got to try that it's way better in therapy but no forget all of that all of that is evil and bad, but also the technology sucks total ass.

It's not even good. If it was good, then, you know, it would still be bad, but at least I'd be like, well, you know, it is awfully nice to know what I want for Christmas. You know, but instead, like, I was randomly, I was like, I was watching Downton Abbey, great show. And I was like, what was the name of that episode where, you know, I wanted to find the episode where Lord Grantham just vomits blood in the middle

of the table and I was like so I googled it and then Google as AI and AI told me it was the red wedding from Game of Thrones God and I was like how are we how are we trusting this technology to

handle my returns on a fucking like package I don't want you know how we yeah it's they're replacing this technology like people who work at medical offices are getting replaced. Yeah, this is being used everywhere in the medical industry right now. It's insane. It doesn't even know what episode Lord Grantham vomited blood.

Yeah. You have to check Downton Self an Abbey for that one. It's a good listen. Someday, baby. Someday. They were revealed that they played around with making an AI generated cover, which to not beat what they actually came up with is fucking. crazy, but then they even released some of the results, and they're fucking terrifying.

Like, they're, they're either, they're either, like, the letters AI in a block, like, just like, they're like, what about, like, if you had blocks that had AI on it? Yeah, and they're scaffolding, and it looks like dog shit, but yeah. Yeah. No, that, that was one of the ones that they came up with themselves. There's one that's like an evil robot that says AI on the forehead, and then there's one that's Pretty one or the other one? No, it's scary.

It's scary one. And then they have a white guy, like just a real bland looking white guy, but his eyes are completely white. Yeah, what is that? Like he's like warging. Like he's warging. Yeah. Game of drums, baby. So, yeah, that is proof of concept.

Oh, and you don't think that this shit is crazy? Well, look at this. It can't even. design the cover of its own magazine that's self-filating. Sucks ass. It did come out on a

quote, lousy day for the industry as Oracle shares are plummeting more than 12% in pre-market trading because reported massive AI-related expenses and a worse than expected outlook, as we've talked about, with Ed Zittron from Better Offline, has

pointed out that like there may be a fatal flaw in AI business model, like, they don't have a way to make, like, they had this model that were pitching to everybody that was like, we're going to start doing this. We're going to train the AI. And once it's trained, like, every query, every time you query it, like, it'll get smarter and more efficient and the, you know, it'll get less energy intensive and less expensive. And then they've trained it. And they're like, so it didn't get any less expensive. We don't know any way to possibly make it less expensive because, like, these computers are

incredibly power like we're we're creating human brains over here to like make a fucking you know goofy right goofy daisy ducks slash pit slash fit and so put these on garfield yeah there's like major problems with the any for any forecasted profitability and yeah like people were ready to call this a bubble like two weeks ago they ahead of nVID is like earnings report, but that earnings report was strong, which they were like, that proves AI works instead of being like, that proves people are really hyped on this AI thing that we think might all be hyped, you know? God, it's just like people are buying the chips.

Yeah, yeah. And it's so, you know, this like using valuation as a metric, this whole, it's, you know, it's like when people point, it's like when politicians point to the fucking stock market. and they go like everyone's doing great yeah it's just like tulip mania can't be a bubble because look how expensive these tulips are yeah exactly look how many damn tulips people are buying yeah it's it's yeah this is real this is a real thing

everyone wants this tulip yeah gonna go up and up and up well into the future and the most annoying thing about it too is like this like you know all of these overlords like you ever looked at fucking sam altman oh yeah all the time guys yeah oversized lollipop ass like fucking they all they all have the the like they're all spiritually the berries and cream guy from the skittles commercials you know like there's just little i don't know that right little little lord fauntleroy ass like made of paper plates

and balsa wood these delicate little boys and all and and and It's, it's, I don't know, if someone's going to create the technology that, like, you know, destroys the environment and puts everyone out of business, I at least want them to be a muscle man. You know what I mean? Be a muscle man. There's still time. Once they make these AI videos with various WWE people replacing them in all their press conferences, I'd be fine.

It'll work. Yeah. Just be muscle. We're strong comedians. Yeah. Big, strong comedian, I think, is the best of all the world. Who's the strongest one? Joe Rogan.

I mean, you know who it is. Joe Rogan. Yeah. The king. The king. Tiny karate, man. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like we forget to that like a year ago, and we're still hurtling towards a recession, but like a year ago, it was like, you know what? It has to be profitability now. It's not just, you know, us seeing the valuation, you need to be able to be a profitable company. Right. And then these daisy duck with tits, like AI things have completely reversed. They're like, no, no, no, it's all. But we all need to be profitable fucking ever. What is this business model to your point?

Yeah. There's no point did you say something like, here's how we're going to make money off this in the next hundred years. And in fact, it may be impossible to make money off of. Yeah, it might just cost too much to build these things and have them operate. Great. Who cares? Anyways, good job, Time Magazine, as always.

The big controversy other than like this sucking shit is, people being like actually you know what could have sucked more shit people on the right are like they should have done Charlie Kirk which you know

so you kind of made between the two options I've heard thrown out time I feel like that probably those are the two options those are the only two options no one else in the war those are our two favorite things

AI and Charlie Kirk because together they make some pretty good fucking memes They do. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. May 24th, 1990. A pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car.

I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried? to kill Judy Barry and why. She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California.

They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture. It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast Family Secrets.

We were in the car, like a Rolling Stone came on, and he said, there's a line in there about your mother. And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have. I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but I couldn't hold on to what had happened. These are just a few of the moving and important stories I'll be holding space for on my upcoming 13th season of Family Secrets. Whether you've been on this journey with me from season one

or just joining the Family Secrets family, we're so happy to have you with us. I'll dive deep into the incredible power of secrets, the ones that shape our identities, test our relationships, and ultimately reveal who we truly are. Listen to Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup and births of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become

and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie,

I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm.fm. slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health. and gynecology at the Adria Health Institute in New York City. On this show, I'll be talking to top researchers and top clinicians asking them your burning questions and bringing that information about women's health and midlife directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause. It can be such a struggle for our quality of life, but even if it's natural, why should

we suffer through it? The types of symptoms that people talk about is forgetting everything. I never used to forget things. They're concerned that, one, they have dementia, and the other one is, do I have ADHD? There is unprecedented promise with regard to cannabis and cannabinoids, to sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood, and also to have better day-to-day life. Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening now. And we're back. We're back.

And we wanted to check him with Tim Poole because Tim's a friend, okay? We might not agree on everything, but, you know, again, Beanie surgically attached to his head. Very famous podcast. Everyone knows him. Everyone loves him. Everybody knows him. Everybody's like, his podcast is so popular, except we can't prove that anyone listens to it. Well, clearly someone must listen to it.

Yeah, at the Kremlin. Yeah, because he's so good. And someone at the Kremlin has given him a, what, $100,000 a week? Was that his? I think that was, I think that's what he was getting. Yeah, good for him. So he has, it was revealed, I think this year, that he was being funded by the Kremlin, by Russia. He has just come out and said he may have to put the tools,

down boys because of all the costs associated with his safety there was a point last year or like you know around the time that the Kremlin shit came out where he was like this this podcasting shit is just too expensive dude it's like

I have to pay this guy I have to pay that guy I got it's fucking crazy and I can report from the inside yeah I think everyone here can report the costs of podcast podcast.

Yeah, it's pretty low area for entry. Especially your podcast. I mean, you don't have anybody making you love. I mean, we have, you know, super producer,

Justin, you got Brian the editor making us look good. Nobody's making you look good. Yeah. So you're just out there. But he's not you, Blake.

He's a guest. No, I'm sticking up for a match. Oh, oh, no, not me. Justin,

no edits on it. No, I'm talking about Tim Pool, man. Tim Pool's got nobody making him look good. Sure. And I look good naturally, so I knew he wasn't talking about me.

Yeah. No, that's what I thought. Okay, sorry, keep on. Yeah, edit that in. Double it. Make that the whole show. Double it. Play that on a loop.

But he has said that he's in addition to the very high cost of making a podcast where, you know, I guess there's no hair might make a budget because he has a fucking beanie on always everywhere. But, you know, he does have to turn those cameras on. It's cold in pressure. Press some buttons. He said he's had to hire round the clock security because people want to kill him. And the costs are now exceeding revenue.

So again, he was already claiming before that the costs are too much. Now he's claiming that the costs are too much because everyone trying to kill him. And he did report that people were shooting his house. Now the police got wind of that. They were like, wait, what? There was a fucking shooting at your house, man.

like that's that's really a big deal to us house slaughter yeah you're you're a you're a white guy this is big news to us property is people we understand we're gonna cut yeah yeah exactly and so they looked into it and according to the police reports of shots fired at this residence cannot be substantiated at this time according to berkeley county sheriff's office Berkeley. Is he in Berkeley, California this whole time? It's Berkeley, Siberia. Oh. Yeah, I actually have no idea where this is. They also added that pool has refused to release security footage recording,

recorded the night of the alleged shooting. Why? You don't want to see that, man. It's actually, it's too scary. I don't want to, I want to scare you. One of his 50 German shepherds he hired for security got hit. Right. Oh, my God.

I love it. Like, the best way to, like, do a pledge drive if you're a right-wing, like, grifter podcaster is, you know, this is equivalent to turning on NPR and hearing, you know, the wait, wait, don't tell me guy to, like, pitch in and get a tote bag. With all of them, though, it's like, they're trying to kill me for telling the truth. NPR should try that. They really should. Peter Siegel being like, they're trying to murder us. Oh, yeah. He, uh, it, it is possible that because the DOJ exposed that he was basically a Russian sock puppet in this past year.

They were bankrolling his entire podcast operation and maybe because that exposure caused the Kremlin money hose to turn off. That that is why he has an unrealistic expectation of like what it costs to run a podcast. Right. Yeah, clearly. Or, you know, he's just scared and he had to hire. I hired the entire SEAL Team 6 to protect my home. All six of them. To protect my fucking podcast operation. Yeah, I mean, the funniest thing is Timothy Poole expecting us to believe that he's on anyone's radar.

You know what I mean? Like, come on. No one's trying to kill you. Nobody cares. This is not, you know, there's just, there's no way it's real because nobody knows who you are. Like he lost relevance a long time ago. He's a low count now. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Russia, maybe that is why he's scared. If he was getting a paycheck directly from the Kremlin, I guess that would be bad. Yeah, that's actually a good point. Maybe he is scared of the Russians. That's right. That'd be sick. So scared that he won't show you the footage of them shooting his house. All right.

And finally, there's a new trendy answer to what's your favorite Christmas movie, and it is Eyes Wide Shut. Are you guys eyes wide shut heads? Certainly not ahead, but I heard. Eyes Wide Shutins. I did hear vaguely had someone explain this, and I already forgot the explanation. I guess because it happens during Christmas? Happens during Christmas. There's a lot of atmospheric lighting.

I have a thing that I bring up so much on this show that Miles literally rolls his eyes and starts making the jack-off hand motion every time I do, but that the holiday season, based on when the most common birthdays are of the year, the holiday seasons are Humanities Mating Season. So it's a hornier part of the year than people give it credit for.

And this would be one movie that actually, you know, puts the X in X-Mess. Sure, I know what you're saying. Do you guys know what I mean by that? I know what you mean? Do you know what I mean by? I know, Blake, let's confused. I think, oh, Blake just got a real horny smile on us. So I, that's, no, it's interesting because December is when I fuck in a mask because it's so cold. My eyes get so cold.

I have to warm my eyes with the mask. So this does, this does check out. Yeah, it's one of those eye masks, one of those, like, sleep masks. Yeah, it is. Well, I don't want to see. Yeah, I don't want to see. I'm like, what is this, a drawer? I'm fucking a drawer.

I can't see anything. I guess a gimp mask would be a good one. Because gimp masks don't have eyes, right? But they're so fucking expensive. Unless they earn them. Yeah. Yeah, you got to earn those. You got to give eyes away.

Yeah. Everyone got to. It's a meritocracy. But yeah, it does happen at Christmas. There's a Christmas party that they're at. that, like, kind of kicks the whole thing off when he runs into his old friend and saves the woman from the OD and meets the person who, I mean, he knows this doctor guy, but the doctor guy who's played by, what's that director's name? Stanley Kubrick. Roman Polack.

Uh, no. Woody Allen. Uh, damn. Sidney Pollack. The director Bill Custney Pollack. The guy who's played by Sidney Pollock is, people think is like an Epstein figure. And that's the first time we see him. It's his Christmas party.

He comes in to save a woman from an OD, and Sidney Pollock's character is pulling up his pants as the woman has already OD'd. Man, I really need to see this movie again. It's... I don't remember that. Like, I'm trying to think of what I remember from that movie. I remember a lot of walking outside.

Yes, he does do a lot of wandering around like he's in a dream. Yeah. Which the novel it's based on, I think, is, like, called something to that effect. And the whole thing feels like it's happening, walking outside like it's in a dream the book. Yeah. It does have the book at the end of it for some reason. Just to clarify. I think more books need to have the book on it.

Yeah. It's hard to tell. Yeah. But people think a lot of people are saying that it's especially relevant this year because of the Epstein case. and specifically that Kubrick Have you guys seen the room the documentary about all the conspiracy theories in the shine, like all the theories around

what the shining means? No, tell me about it. It's good. We're not doing plugs here. There's some that's like it's about colonialism. There's one that's about how Kubrick helped fake the moon landing. Oh, yeah, I remember that.

But there's like great evidence for all of them. There's just, like, so much shit in a Kubrick movie that you can, like, support anything. I love it. But this one is explicitly about, like, a dark, rich sex cult, you know? Right. This Hollywood Reporter article on this says, what Kubrick captures is a world where someone like Jeffrey Epstein becomes almost inevitable, a dark nexus of money, secrecy, impunity, and male sexual desire warped by institutional power. it's so funny because the movie is so much more boring than that yeah it it is like it has it has like wild shit happening in it and the vibe is like very

much like what why is this so sleepy yeah like why am i sleepy watching an orgy it is kind of crazy i also have a like a general um distaste for movies that are like we're a sexy fucking orgy movie and i'm like i've seen porn i want to watch Dix go in and they don't show that. In a crowded theater, you yell at. Yeah, I yell it. Yeah, my whole family's here. Like, I want to see Dix go in during this Christmas movie.

This is bullshit. So, yeah, I remember being, like, very bored by it. But maybe it's better than I, maybe I saw it at a weirder time in my life. Yeah. Now that I'm not going to therapy anymore, I should probably check it out again. It's going to fuck you up. Yeah. It's going to tear through you.

But, yeah, I mean, there's always widespread conspiracy theories about Kubrick movies, but about this one, people are really saying, like, this was explicitly about Epstein, and he was killed as a result. Because it was made in 99, Epstein's operation started in the mid-90s. There's a 2024 clip of the co-writer of Pulp Fiction, Roger Avery, on Joe Rogan's podcast. So he's a cool guy. where he implies that Kubrick's death was suspicious

and explains that the original ending was supposed to make it clear that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were going to hand their daughter over to the Pito cult, as he calls it. There is weird shit in that last scene. Like, the movie ends with them walking around a toy store, like being like, so what do we learn here?

How do we save our marriage? It's a pun ending. And it ends with Nicole Kidman being like, I guess we have to fuck in the toy store. store but there are like people have pointed out there's like weird like people in the background walking around like making furtive like looks at them and like their kid and people have like speculated that like the cult has not like in fact let him get away and then something's

going to happen with his kid like at the end of the movie but yeah apparently this has become an obsession with gen z they're they're on board i mean good for that You know, I like when they get excited about a movie, you know? Yeah, me too. I'm here for it. That's fun. That's a fun thing to get excited about. They might be a little too excited.

They've linked the theory, or one of the theories links the kidnapping of Madeline McCann and the supposed kidnapping of the daughter that actually doesn't happen in the movie, but it's just a thing that the co-writer of Pulp Fiction said was supposed to happen in the movie. The one problem with that is that Madeline McCann wasn't even born until 1999. So he would have had to, like, really have, like, some pretty incredible planning. Yeah, that is, yeah. And I don't, I don't think I even know this story. Yeah.

Oh, wait. The Madeline McCann story? Yeah. I don't know, I can't just say that reference. No, it's a weird thing. It's not the Wainberg situation. Who is, who is Madeline McCann? I have no idea.

All right, I just thought you guys would know. Yeah, I'm not. But it's just them being like this future crime, it's connected. And, like, the victim was not born when the movie came, like, wrapped. Yeah. Small detail. One detail that, like, these online conspiracy theories for me are always like, okay, that's bullshit. This seems like bullshit.

And then there's, like, one detail where you're like, wait a second. So Reddit theorists have pointed out that Larry Salona, the journalist who broke the story of Epstein, death and Maxwell's arrest is actually name-checked and eyes wide shut. His name is the byline of an article about the death of the woman that Tom Cruise thinks saved him at the orgy,

which, like, it's a ex-beauty queen in hotel drug overdose. The byline is Larry Salona, and people are like, no, the only reason they did that is because Salona was the production's media consultant.

But that seems like connective tissue to me. Like, this person who eventually broke the Epstein story was the media consultant on this movie. So like he could speak to like this world of, you know, obviously like that's part of like what he reports on. So he could speak to this world of like crazy shit that was happening. That does seem like a pretty good connection to me. That's like this movie was at least somewhat informed by the real.

powerful people sex trafficking that was happening at the time, you know? Yeah, it could be. It could be. You'd figure it would be, the movie would be more interesting. I got to see it again. I got to see it again. Because I know I've tried twice. I was unimpressed.

Therapy has really made people tolerate that movie as boring. And now that you're not therapeutized. Yeah, therapy is actually just a form of hypnosis that makes you think as what? shut is good. That's an opium. That's the conspiracy nobody wants to talk about. But yeah, I mean,

the idea for the movie comes from a 1920s book that is like based on ancient, like secret society. So it's not like she, it's not like this guy caught you. Exactly. So like this guy

gave Kubrick the idea for the movie. It was like a movie about a weird shadowy sex cult. And then maybe this guy was like, Like, oh, you know, this reminds me of this guy, this New York financier, Jeff, Jeff Epstein. I don't know if you're familiar with him. I've ever heard of him. Yeah.

But, I mean, none of this is like, like, he was also thinking about casting, like, first of all, he first started planning eyes wide shut, like, after he made 2001. So it was like, he'd been working on it since the 60s or early 70s. And, like, he was at one point thinking about casting Woody Allen in the movie, which would have really that would have worked that really would have fucked us all yeah it would have ruined everything yeah i don't think it would have gone so well no but anyways interesting thing for you to know about the new thing so when somebody's like my favorite christmas movie no eyes wide shut you can now have a informed semi-informed dumb conversation about how it's all based on real

conspiracy you know see i maybe i there's part of me that goes like oh you're In that conversation, what's your favorite Christmas movie? And a guy goes, oh, die hard. And you go, oh, I got one better for you. Eyes wide shut. Really? Why? And then the longest explanation about Jeffrey Epstein and, like, the byline was by the guy.

You know, eventually. I'm good at a party, man. I'm good at a party. We can't come to this party ever again. This sucks. No, you did a great job, but I can't imagine anyone trying to make the case without eventually being committed. You know what I mean?

I'd be like, oh, you ever been to a psych ward? Yeah, I like eyes wide shut. They almost had Woody Allen in it and then it would have been better. Yeah.

That's all they say. It's like, you want to drink, buddy? You want to hang out a little more? I've already had a lot of them. Yeah, I can tell with that.

What's six more? Matt leave. Such a pleasure as always having you on the podcast. It's so good being here. I love you guys. I love being here. I love seeing you Jack.

I hate therapy. I love seeing Miles. Blake, I love seeing you too. I love seeing you too. That's so nice. I like to see you guys say you love each other. I love everybody. And I love all the

Now kiss. All the listeners out here. Now let's kiss. Yeah. No, I'm happy to be here. Where can people find you, follow you, hear you all that good stuff? If you would like to listen to my Madman podcast,

go to any podcast app. Type in Pod yourself a gun, and then you will find a very long, feed, scroll up to the top of that feed, and the first things you'll see is mad yourself a man. We've done the first three seasons, so please listen to those and get excited for season four. Also, listen to Bad Hasbar, the world's most moral podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. And is there a work of media you've been enjoying?

Well, there's a tweet, and it's a tweet with a video. I don't know, this has been going around for a long time. But do you, have you seen... Is the grape stomping lady? No, it's not the grape. No, that lady is great. All the lady rolls. No, it's, uh, it is like a, it's from TikTok.

It's this guy who looks like a really handsome rocker guy. And he sings a song where he does the intro where he goes like, um, so this is a song about how a lady, you know, everyone's first impression of her is that she's really innocent, but she actually has a really dirty mind. And he plays the song, She got that innocent face in a dirty little mind. And that's all you hear of it. Do you guys know that one?

I love this. Okay, so this is two memes deep in. There's another meme of that where he does that entire intro. And then as soon as you... Wait, what did we ask you? What are you doing? What are you responding to? Oh, sorry, guys.

I had a stroke. Sorry, sorry. It's okay. I have to explain. Two memes in order to get to this one. All right, go, go. And then there's a version of the, she's got, you know, I should just send it to you. Nope, you got to explain it because you can't send it to the listeners.

So again, it's the same guy. So this is a song about a girl where everyone's impression of her is she's really innocent, but when you talk to her, you find out she kind of got her dirty mind. And right as you think he's going to sing the line, she got an innocent face and a dirty little mind, John Coltrane starts playing. And it says, you just got Coltrane. Send this to someone to train them. Some people are training each other.

Yeah, it's like, it's Rickroll. Yeah, it's Rick rolling. It's the Smyranoff Ice thing, you know, it's, but it's, it's, it's training them. You send bros training bros. You trick them. This is from an account called Jazz Dispensary. They got a lot of funny jazz memes. That's amazing.

Jazz memes are the new thing. That's the new thing. That's what I've been enjoying. And, you know, yeah. Great. Blake, where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying? I wish I had the recall ability to say exactly what that just.

Like word for word. And it's killing me that I don't. You know, there's a guy. So there's a guy. Yeah, so there's this guy. So she has a dirty mind. I will be, come see me live. I'm doing stand-up.

Come see me January 6th. in New York at Littlefield in Brooklyn. If tickets don't start moving to that, I will have a very public panic attack. So January 16th, Littlefield in Brooklyn, and then March 5th, I'm going to be at Helium Comedy Club in Atlanta. And a work of media I've been enjoying. I came across this old Norm McDonald clip the other day where he was talking about walking through New York and how you hear the craziest things, which is obviously like, the norm genius of taking the most like well-trodden subject and then

like normifying it where he was like yeah I was walking these two guys and one of them was just like man when the hell did you play goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens just made me laugh so hard so that's a clip don't know what account it came from but it doesn't matter so yeah doesn't matter we don't

we don't give a shit about authorship on this yeah fuck that Norm said it no no no no no no no oh sorry I forgot to plug on Saturday, this Saturday, which is tomorrow, I'm going to be at the Ice House in Pasadena with my wife, Francesco Fiorentini. We're going to

do stand-up, so please come up to that. That's such a good comedy club, too. I love that. I love that club. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien on blue sky at Jack O'B, the number one I've been enjoying. There's a great anecdote out there. I think it's

Will Arnette on a show talking to Conan O'Brien about how they grieved Conan how Conan like the conversation they had when Conan's parents died within a week of each other and it's just it's the best it's really fucking funny go go find that I'm not going to describe it to you and then I have you should so they go and it's just Will Arnett being like so there's this girl with a pretty face got an innocent face and a dirty little one John Coltrane's You get trained.

And I also like to tweet from Misty Mole, which describes my parenting philosophy, which says, your own thick ice, young lady, frozen all the way to the bottom, in fact. Not going to lie, you could get away with pretty much anything here. You can find us on Twitter and Blue Sky

at Daily Zykeyes. We're at the Daily Zykeyes on Instagram. You can go to the description of this episode wherever you're listening to it, and there at the bottom, you will find the footnotes. Footnotts! This is where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, we also link off to a song

that we think you might enjoy with Miles. Still out, we do like to ask Super Producer Justin Connor to come in and tell us what is a thong? What is a thong that you're wearing?

What is the thong? How did you, it was the thong song. I want everyone to listen to the thong song. You do love Cisco. Yeah, yeah. What's a song

people might enjoy, Justin? If you're a fan of people who play live instruments, then you should check out this song called Follow the Light by Dirt Dirty Loops and Corey Wong.

The horn section goes crazy. Base players out there who really appreciate the rapid fire, 16th notes, and the singer has a great falsetto. There's also an unbelievable key change in the last 10 seconds that will just blow the mind

of any music lover. So that again, it's called Follow the Light by Dirty Loops and Corey Wong, and you can find that in the footnotes. Footnotes. The Daily Zite guys is a production of IHeart Radio

for more podcasts. For My Heart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Babbel podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this week. We'll have the greatest hits, greatest moments from this week's episodes dropping tomorrow, the weekly Zykeyes.

And then Monday morning, coming back, Icons episode number five last of the year, the most famous icon that we've covered yet. And we will talk to you all then. Have a great weekend, everyone. Bye. Bye.

Bye. The Daily Zykeyes is executive produced by Catherine Law. Co-produced by. by Bay Wang. Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb. Edited and engineered by Justin Connor. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him.

Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother, Larry, a mystery Gabe, didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, game must untangle the dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health.

I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you. 100% of women go through menopause, even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it? Listen to Decoding Women's Help with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My bestselling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, and now I'm bringing it to you for the first. time as an audiobook narrated by Eurus Truly. The big short story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for

an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. We were in the car, like a Rolling Stone came on, and he said, there's a line in there about your mother. And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have.

I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but I couldn't hold on to what had happened. These are just a few of the moving and important stories on my 13th season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.