The Daily Zeitgeist - FDA Approval NOT Persuasive? Uber’s Greed Will Be Punished? 8.25.21

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

In episode 976, Jack and Miles are joined by Small Beans podcast host Michael Swaim to discuss covid in schools, FDA approval not being enough for the anti-vaxxers, Uber's attempts to dupe us, the million dollar game scam, chicken sandwich rankings, and more!FOOTNOTES: TDZ LIVE SHOW TICKETS 1,893 L.A. students, staff tested positive for coronavirus last week, group reports Cameron Public Schools in eastern Oklahoma forced to close due to COVID-19 Breakthrough COVID Infections Add Even More Chaos To School's Start In 2021 Vaccines are less protective against Delta infection but still reduce risk by two-thirds, CDC study shows Anti-Vaxxers Move the Goalposts After FDA Approves COVID Vaccine Phil Valentine, conservative talk show host, dies after battle with COVID-19 Prop 22 Was Declared Unconstitutional, and It's Just the Beginning That $2 million Super Mario Bros. auction may have been rigged Our fast food chicken sandwich rankings, so far LISTEN: Bakar - The Mission (Official Video) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season 199, Episode 3 of The Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It's Wednesday, August 25th, 2021. That means it's going down tonight. It's going down. Live show. Before we get to the deets, my name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. I got white thighs on the mountain do I ride, and I'm

hosting the Daily Zeitgeist. That is courtesy of Mitch Wheeler at The Mitch Wheeler. Don't get him confused with the other ones. And I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Guess you just got vaxxed today. Damn dog, bet you didn't care if

frogs are gay. Something changed. Now your sperm is just a waste. Man, I'm going to get them to pay me. My cum's valuable now. Cum now combs valuable now okay so that's a little to the tune of anti-vax sperm being the new gold shout out to christy yamaguchi main on the discord absurd aka that was that was beautiful just two days in a row crushing it yamaguchi mine was supposed to be One Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi in case people were having trouble putting that together but hey Miles

tonight 6pm PST 9pm for all those East Coast night owls where are you going to be? because I know where I'm going to be I'm going to be live streaming our live show it's an audio visual extravaganza.

We will riff on ridiculous pictures. Tom Hanks' pee fetish will come up. Yes, our guest, I'm still talking about it. We'll quiz one of you. I'm going to address the biggest 2000 douchebag I could possibly construct using the thrift stores of LA. And we have special guest Chris Crofton. Oh. So, you know, he has an interesting relationship to the year 2000 that we will talk about.

And if you can't be there live, don't worry. Your ticket gets you access to the video on demand. Watch it at your leisure. But you have to get a ticket. So go to momenthouse.com slash the Daily Zeitgeist. It's tonight. It's going to be a blast.

And anything to add, Miles? No, I mean, honestly, momenthouse.com slash the Daily Zeitgeist. Don't worry if you can't make it. Get it on demand. Maybe you're hearing this with just enough time to get your ticket. So get it.

Okay. Maybe you're hearing it the day after. I think you can still get it. Okay. But come through. Check it out. It's going to be something that, I mean, we're not going to put it on the podcast. You just got to come see it, baby.

You got to do it. Well, Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by my very first podcast co-host. first podcast co-host. He is a brilliant filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian, and podcaster, of course, who co-founded Small Beans, which the AV Club called one of the best podcast networks, and where you can hear a bunch of the talented people who we worked with at Cracked hosting shows. He was the head of video at Cracked, starred in, created most of the best videos and podcasts there, and was one of the first really great writers I found when I was working at Cracked. When I was starting that website, he was still just a mere boy, a mere lad. He is the brilliant and talented Michael Swaim! Hello!

Michael Swaim, a.k.a. Tom Hanks' P-Fetish, a.k.a. Mike. Sometimes people will hate dipshit works. Really, whatever. Oh my God, the energy I'm bathing in. Thank you so much for that incredible intro. Fabulous to be here. Thanks for coming on.

Great to have you. I mean, if you remember, people who saw the San Francisco show know that you were here. Oh, yeah. A little bit of similar commentary on that. We dive deep into the year 2000, the final year before everything went to crap. Yeah. That's right.

Maybe that show, yeah, triggered it all. Who knows? I blame Vertical Horizon. So good. Yeah, we'll even listen to some of the jams from that year. Some of them hold up just whole albums we're just gonna play whole albums and not speak it's kind of oh yeah it'll be a lot like kanye's listening tour where that he did at the mercedes-benz arena where he just kind of stood there and listened to the album and walked around that's mainly what you'll what you'll be paying

for so what you guys need is like a girls talk collab of all the akas as like an album just an uncut journey through akas yeah hardest thing to listen to yeah girls talk hit us up if you're not doing yeah girls talk i like how you did the whole parent treatment on that what is this girl girls talk it? It's girl talk, dad. I like the fishes. That's my favorite band. The jam band, the fishes. I enjoy the Beatles, but they spell it properly for God's sake. That's my band. Michael,

we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of things we're talking about. We're going to check in with schools because school has started in much of these United States. So, you know, kids are bringing COVID home. We'll just look at some stats. We will be shocked and amazed that the FDA approval has not turned out to be enough for anti-vaxxers. I know we really had our... Joe Biden said said here's the moment you've been waiting for. Yeah.

We'll talk about Uber successfully duping voters, but apparently not the courts. We'll look at that million dollar video game story. Sometimes we fall for some bullshit news stories along with the rest of the mainstream media. And the idea that a Super Mario 64 cartridge sold for $1.56 million might have been a little suspect. We will look at the takeout's chicken sandwich rankings, all of that, plenty more. But first, Michael, you know we like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history?

All right. You asked for it. So this is actually my last non-work related search. I will say spoiler alert because this could easily spoil your day. This was searched in total earnestness. How far can gums recede before it's a big problem? That's my most recent. That's what I'm Googling out here in the streets.

I'll tell you the scary fact that pops up is that gums do not heal. So if you ever needed a reason to switch from maybe inhalants to edibles. Or touch their gums with their tongues on this Zoom call. Right? Yeah. You know, rush right, get a water pick. I'm 36 now. Things are different.

Got to Google how far gums can recede and be just assaulted with a host of images that you can never unsee. Airlines receding, gums are receding, water levels are receding. It's just a recession all over. Everything's falling away from us. Yeah, and those won't come back, but they can heal. And here's the bad news. If your gums recede too far, the surgery they do is they either

scrape skin from the roof of your mouth and patch it all around, or they take skin from a cadaver and put it on there. I would go with that. That's like fancy shit. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait wait what is having a dead

person's flesh in your mouth say that means fancy to you because you're like who's going through all that like if you're broke you're like man my gums are fucked you know what i mean like i'm done and then and then you should go somewhere like real you know procedures are like well we can graft on cadaver gums onto you. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's like coach class Dick Cheney. Like, you know how he got to steal somebody's heart? Right. That's what I'm looking for.

Just a healthy man's gums in my mouth. Get in there. Yeah, so it was a real dark rabbit hole. I may have priced some dentures just to see what I have in store, you know, if it goes the wrong way. But I'm here to say, eat your weed, kids. Eat it. Yeah.

Just eat it. Wait, so smoking it causes gum recession? I mean, when you smoke like I smoke. If you smoke like I smoke. Your gums are basically. My gums are all the way back for about 20 years i i've been smoking weed as if every time it leaves my system i forget what it feels like and i gotta check that's my mo a second is it not high yeah does it still feel like that uh yeah it does my gums look weird. It must be the weed. Oh, shit. I got to go get some cat

food. Better get just a quick pipe hit real quick. All right. The pet store is infinitely more interesting. Eases every social interaction of every strength. Except this one, of course. Naturally, I've been sober for 72 hours leading to this because the daily zeitgeist is so important. You come in dry. We make sure everybody has 72 hours of sobriety and at least three hours in a sensory deprivation tank before we hit record. That's the only thing we'll allow.

You guys took a lot of blood. It left me woozy. You give me the three days to recover. I said, don't tell Jack about this. We took the blood, but then we put in blood from our younger employees. Oh, you have a blood boy? Yeah, we have a blood boy. What is something

you think is overrated? I wanted to ask, how many times have people said Marvel on this show in the overrated slot? Often. Are people still into it? I think it's just not like a constant thing.

I think more than overrated, sometimes you're just like, I don't know it. There's another thing. Oh, I see. Having been steeped for work in pop culture my entire life, I just want us to find a new toy. So I'm going to give the slot to Marvel fatigue. Because honestly, I feel such strong Marvel fatigue that I had assumed it had come up on the show many, many times by now. But I guess people are just dumb and wrong. Well, I think the difference is Jack and I are a unique blend of out of touch with the MCU.

So we don't experience the fatigue because we already I would I already experienced fatigue when like a ninth Thor film came out. Yeah. I don't i can't and also like my pace where it got good bro my pace at watching films too is like super slow like i'm a turtle when it comes to watching new movies so like i don't also have the same like media intake you know pace that a lot of other people do so that's my appetite for marvel stops at movies and even then i am treating avengers endgame like it's a russian novel i i'm halfway through it and haven't like yeah i just like stopped because i couldn't it was just too dense for you too dense exactly i just didn't

didn't have the time so my my like Plus is halfway through on Marvel Endgame. Oh, so you're... But I think I have an idea of what happens. You're training at like Infinity Stone's Jest, essentially? Yes, exactly. Nice. Hey. Yeah, it's twofold because I'm not just sick of the formula, but I am sick of the formula. But it's also like working in the industry, it's a weird black hole that sucks up

every like young independent director who has a very unique voice and just turns them into like, hey, we'll give you a Marvel thing or we'll give you a Jurassic World. And I'm sick of it. It's overrated. Can you handle it?

Can you handle it? Yeah. The school to Marvel pipeline needs to be dismantled. Right. Or the Sundance Indie Darling. The USC to Marvel pipeline. Right. be dismantled. Right. Or the Sundance Indie Darling. The USC to Marvel Pipeline. Right. The Chapman Film School.

Yeah. Marvel Pipeline. So for you, it's more just like you've gotten your fill, and now you're just like, I would like something different now. For you, you just feel like it's worn thin, but you do have the appetite for something. It's just something different. I have a limitless. That's why the only reason I think it's okay for me to knock, but you do have the appetite for something. It's just something different. I have an, a limitless.

That's why the only reason I think it's okay for me to knock it is I'm their person. Like I have a limitless appetite for wacky, colorful, imaginative. We're going to go into space and punch this purple guy. Like I'm on board. Yes.

But every, uh, everyone just feels like it's made from the pieces of the previous one in the way where, I mean, you can get into how these movies are made. They do previs on like the major effects shots years before they bring the writers on. So the writers are like stringing together.

They're like, well, we know a giant thing has to fall out of the sky and we know she has to parachute in Act Three. And then they'll write Black Widow around it. And I just it's not interesting. Oh, well, it's only a good system for getting one kind of movie. And I think we're seeing that. So you've watched them all because that has been. I do watch them all for work. Yes, well. It's only a good system for getting one kind of movie. And I think we're seeing that. So you've watched them all? Because that has been... I do watch them all for work.

Yes, indeed. Okay. And what... Did you watch Suicide Squad? The Suicide Squad? The new one? The new one, yeah. The Suicide Squad.

I don't mean to be pedantic. Yeah, this is where I'm... Man, so I'm going to get a lot of flack for... If we're really going deep on overrated. All the movies everyone likes right now are overrated. The Suicide Squad sucked. The Green Knight sucked. Oh, wow. Oh, really? I thought this was highly anticipated.

Every movie everyone likes is bad. And you're all, you all just have, your taste is blunted from the pandemic is my opinion. Movies are underperforming. TV is overperforming right now. Just go watch a series. Because now,

like, what is it? What is that one? Nine Total Strangers or nine, the Nicole Kidman Hulu thing? I don't even know it,

but it's great. Oh, yeah. Everyone, every show I hear about, they're like, Mayor of Easttown. I'm like, I never heard of it.

Sounds phenomenal. Right. Yeah. It's like, Nine Perfect Strangers is, like they said, was doing better numbers than The Handmaid's Tale for Hulu. Oh, boy.

Wow. People were like, this just terrible timing because White Lotus came out and it's like a similar-ish vibe in that people are in paradise and weird things are happening. But it could also just be one of those things where it's like white lotus got people in the mood to just continue to binge on this shit so you know a less talent in a tropical environment being trippy did do you so you are into tv what's

a tv show you're into patriots the last tv show i love but that's like 12 years old now, so I got to stop saying that. Yeah, I'm rewatching Sopranos, you know, the classics. I feel like I've officially left pop culture's key demographic and I went out with shit like Deadwood, The Wire, Patriot was on the tail end.

Nothing's really wowed me. There's another one I'll tell you is way overrated. Queen's Gambit sucked. Nothing's really wowed me. There's another one I'll tell you is way overrated. Queen's Gambit sucked. I think all these things suck. Or it's me and I'm wrong and I'm just becoming the guy who's like, culture stopped for me in

2015 and that's it. No good albums after that. Yeah, there's still a ton of stuff I'm excited for. Like Last Night in Soho, the new Edgar Wright. I mean, I expect to blow me away. And I'll say in the world of video games i'm much more excited there's a bunch of stuff happening over on that side yeah yeah i mean tiger king was definitely one of those things that when you look back on it didn't really make sense how obsessed everyone was about it and i think queen's gambit just anything that's king or Queen related in title that was like a hack

they figured out and somehow we were all just super into it. Right. Atlanta comes to mind as like an all-time great show

that's not too old. Yeah. What's something you think is underrated? Underrated? Well, speaking of Detailies Zeitgeist! Yeah.

There it is. I'm going to say German speakers speaking English because I'm producing to say German speakers speaking English because I'm producing this big video game convention right now called Gamescom

that comes out of Cologne, Germany. And so all the contacts I work with are fine German folks. And man, there is just something so effortlessly

sensual about anything they say. Like, what do you think is the hype around this game? Is it much anticipated what do you think is the hype around this game? Is it much anticipated?

Have you seen lots of hype on your social medias? And I'm like, the hype is in my heart because I love the sounds I'm hearing right now. And I know none of them will listen to this podcast so I can make fun of their accents. But man, I got to recommend it. If you have the opportunity to be an English speaker in a room of 25 German people who are speaking English at you, it's like a phone party of sound. So you just like that nice, even delivery? I think the bubbly, the bounciness of the German accent, I think German's an underrated, like the actual sound of the language. People are always going Italian, French. I think German sounds really nice.

Yeah, because I think people just give it credit, like credit it with being like kind of stark and, you know, sprockets like. This is sprockets. This is the part of sprockets that I dance. But yeah, there are some really expressive, mostly there are expressive German speakers. Yeah. Well, if they're speaking their native tongue, there tend to be a lot of glottal stops and a lot of consonants,

but you just got to get them speaking English, baby. Hey, hey, hey, knock that off. Speak some English, honey. Yeah, I'll tell you. That's what's underrated. Forcing all Germans to speak English. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you, Captain America. that off speak some english honey yeah i'll tell you that's what's underrated forcing all germans to speak english yeah i hear you i hear you captain america making those german p-o-w-s speak old yankee talk to you that's how you dunk on them i think yeah it's funny because you talk

about like the bounciness like i have a few german speakers that i know who i speak with and there is like this lightness to like the inflict the inflections that like come out of seemingly or out of note like you're oh okay i like what you did there but there's also just like they're so even though too like there's not a lot of like it's not just that it's just like you get little and little valleys and hills and things like this and you're just just like, hmm, this is poetic. You might have to cut this whole section out because I don't want people to realize that my Dear Daily Zeitgeist at the top of this is not accurate to the real German people. So we might have to cut all of this. Well, you give it sort of an Austrian twist.

I think you can hear the dialect work that you've been doing. Yeah, I've put a lot of effort. It's more of a Viennese scream. Is there any chance you're speaking with like particularly horny German people? Well, if the group, honestly, if the group, well, they can all get it. First of all, these executives can all get it. But no, I would say if the 25 folks that I'm talking to are a representative sample of the culture of Germany, they're less emotionally demonstrative than,

like, we'll be in a Zoom conference and someone will deploy an objectively not good joke, but everyone on the American side will laugh like it's a dad joke, like, ah, social lubricant, you made a joke. And the Germans will just not have it. You know, they'll just sit straight forward, eyes locked, being like, that was a joke. All right. I understand.

And laugh because it wasn't funny. Right. Okay, next topic. I'm efficient. Shout out to Germans. All right. Let's take a quick break and we will be right back. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months.

These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the Biscuits. I was a lady rebel.

Like, what does that even mean? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the Biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. A lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it.

Segregation academies. When civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeart Radio app, and of course, Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste that comes out

every Thursday, and it's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water. Think a candied bacon Bloody Mary, tacos with cabbage slaw, curry cauliflower with almonds and mint, and cherry slab pie with vanilla ice cream to top it all off. I mean, yum. I'm getting hungry. But if you're not sold yet, we also have kitchen tips

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katiecouric.com slash goodtaste. That's K-A-T-I-E C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash goodtaste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. And we're back. And so are schools around this country. And, you know, it's a challenging time for teachers, for school administrators and staff reported to have contracted COVID during the first week of school in L.A. Yeah. And that's because a parent group is trying to create their own mechanism for tracking stuff because there's not a lot of good data out there for parents to get to. And even before that, there was a lot of infections before the school year started. And then you look at places like Oklahoma where there's straight're straight you know there's like no mask mandates there there's a whole school district just had to shut down for two weeks and we're only seeing the same thing over whenever i just search schools covid it's just always like this same theme of like

oh huge outbreak here gotta go remote or like, like, or a county just being like, you know what, let's just keep going remote till we figure it out. That's like in responsible places. But overall, we're just seeing this combination of the Delta variant and no masks and bringing kids together, spelling, not, you know, what every epidemiologist was like,

that's, you know, this isn't a good idea. Not a good idea. And now we're seeing like more reports too of like breakthrough covid infections with kids bringing covid home from school as being like oh yeah well it's not affecting the child as much but then they're around all their family members even if they're vaccinated just getting like not hospitalized levels of covid but they're like oh it felt like the worst sinus cold i've ever had things like that and this one uh physician said quote time and again we're seeing kids return to school and then come home either after an exposure or sick themselves the virus sheds for a couple of

days before the patient even has symptoms and entire families are suddenly exposed so it's the the whole like period where it's communicable but like not detectable symptomatic and not even detectable that was the thing that like surprised me when i was like dealing with an exposure was they were like oh no we got to test it like between seven and ten days to make sure that we actually will be able to detect it so it just seems like there's a lot of sloppiness with the testing. Like, I really think increasingly, as we have access to the vaccine, like, that needs to be mandated and not, like, giving people the out of, like, giving a test from 72 hours prior or whatever.

In my medical, my expert medical opinion. Thank you so much for that. Yes. But that does seem to be the direction things are headed. And or find a way to like fundamentally shift to educating our children remotely. Like that seems like I don't know what the system is because I understand parents who are like, look, my kids got to get the fuck out of here for a second. Like we can't just be condensed into the housing that society has allotted us all the time. So I don't know what that system is, but it seems to me that if we're going to get out of many of the problems we face right now globally, there have to

be fundamental societal changes of a historic nature. Like that we'll look back on and be like, school used to be a thing that was a building. You did it like this. Now school's not that. It's whatever. Like, I don't know what the answer is or I would not be a thing that was a building. You did it like this. Now school's not that it's whatever. Like, I don't know what the answer is or I would not be a comedian, but there's gotta be a way we have the internet. There's gotta be a way to remotely like just shift that burden. It's like arena schooling.

Just like, yo, you're outdoors pack 10, 10 K kids in here. We're getting these first graders fucking educated just like a yeah 10 foot radius around you you're in a learning pod it's all it's all very difficult and yeah like to your point we need hardcore societal change to address a lot of these situations and we're dealing with people who are like i won't put cloth on my face for a little bit

or we just simply all have to do one simple thing for a month or whatever but that's it's like it's just no you know yeah pretty hard to get signups for that yeah that it is interesting that like i could see school like the fact that kids all get together in the same like small room get each other sick come home and get their parents sick. Like that's just a part of school. Like that's just every parent knows like that happens. And like when somebody is out with a flu, people are like, oh, their kid went back to school. Like that has been a thing forever. So I could see some eventual evolution to a non-in-person learning. But I also just know in talking to you know family members who are teachers that it is hellish to try and teach kids uh right via yeah and it's also like

that's the other thing is like while like parents are stressed like the effect on kids is like they just have more anxiety and depression and like right they just don't get to do all these things like fucking run around with other kids like you know right right and that's so vital and I look back and I'm like oh shit like that when I was just throwing tennis balls that you know Corey's head that's how I was you know staying a happy kid yeah yeah wall ball the best yeah or the uh did you have the trees that yielded the little spike balls that were just made for eight years? Oh, yeah.

We collect those in my household. What do you call them? What do you call them? Spiky balls? We just call them spiky balls. And my five-year-old pointed out that they look exactly like the new depiction of the coronavirus. Yeah. There's like green coronavirus balls.

Wait, what do you even fucking call? I'm like, spiky balls. Oh, for real oh for real i had no idea like what tree is that yeah we've just been doing this dude you know spiky balls but i guess they are they're wondering it's one of likely at the buckeye a horse chestnut a sweet gum tree okay whatever they're sticky balls i like i like spiky balls yeah forget it i mean i'm gonna call them covids now but yeah it does just highlight like you're saying jack yeah the stakes are just higher with something like covid which he then brings up what we really need to be doing on top of all this stuff is the infrastructure required to not have another pandemic five years from now. You know, there were definitely upstream, like things that happened or didn't happen that allowed

COVID to balloon out of control. And I question whether we're even like getting everything shored up so that that doesn't happen again. Cause we're so busy worrying about, are we ever going to reach herd immunity? Are we ever going to reach herd immunity are we ever going to reach herd immunity man i just knock on wood that there's not like i don't know like flovid or brovid coming right you know next summer flovid actually sounds fun flovid sounds very mucusy yeah yeah or that one from hell crovid back for revenge. That sounds like a pastry concoction of some sort. Like a cronut.

Yeah, I mean, it would be great if we learned our lesson from experiences and news stories, but we didn't even learn to get more hospital beds. We're still dealing with a hospital bed shortage since the first, like, handful of waves of the vaccine, or of the coronavirus. Because why spend preemptively? Because I don't know if it's going to happen, and I just waste a bunch of money on all this stuff. No, no.

And even if we need it in two years' time, that's a bunk investment. We're so grafted on to just like whatever is profitable that we first of all won't shut things down because we need to keep the stores and the businesses open and then we just never spend money preemptively so that's cool it's called socialism dude low overhead low overhead till the wheels fall off exactly yeah let's talk uh the pfizer vaccine which got the fda approval yesterday or two days ago joseph biden came out and was like all right so you guys who said you weren't doing the thing now you now you got to do it because fda boom it's got fda

what's your excuse now and shockingly the people the people who were, you know, cycling between, you know, juggling 12 different excuses, once this one was taken away, they just went with the 11 others that they've come up with. Yeah, you just look at a quick survey of the loud people who are against vaccines, like Lil RFK, Robert F. Kennedy. He, Lil Baby RFK is out here saying, quote, they know they can't win this argument on the science. Huh? And that's why they had to abolish the public process and independent oversight. Okay. Let's check in with dumb Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. The senator, he said, quote, I see no need to rush the FDA approval process for any of the three COVID-19 vaccines. Expediting the process appears to only serve the political purpose of imposing and enforcing vaccine mandates. And finally, majorly tainted queen,

Marjorie Taylor Greene said, quote, the FDA sped it up. And I wonder, was it Joe Biden himself making that call to approve the Pfizer vaccine that now in studies is showing only 40 percent effectiveness. So, yeah, there's no that it was never for many of these people. It was never about the FDA. It was just about being able to say something that everyone could agree that wasn't true and using that to bolster their larger argument, which is like against all kinds of science. all kinds of science. FDA approval, along with it, right, is that that's what a lot of people are pushing back because now it gives employers and schools and federal agencies the power to greenlight vaccine requirements. And now it's like, well, see, you just did that so you can make people do it to keep everyone safer. Right. Do you have an impression of whether

it seems to me like the anti-COVID vaccine people are a larger group than just anti-vaxxers generally. I remember back in the day, anti-vaxxer didn't refer to one particular vaccine. It was just people who like believed Jenna McCarthy. I think a lot of those people very easily just rolled over. Yeah. I know people who started off as like purely like, you know, those MRSA or whatever the what are all the what's that schedule? Those first panel of vaccines you get hit with? I don't know.

I just MMR measles, mumps, rubella. That one. They're like, no, I'm never doing that. They do the second this COVID shit started out. They they were like, yeah, throw that one in there, too. Yeah. All right. It's just this is a conspiracy that's hard

for me to break down because i don't even understand what they think is it like some big mask benefiting off mask sales like how in what universe is it beneficial to the cabal or like the illuminati to tank the entire global economy and send everyone inside and shut everything down to sell some sweet vaccines like it doesn't make any sense and it's hard because you can you can corner somebody with that and be like this would be the least elegant version of like global control if you're doing and you're that cynical like this isn't even moving at the speed you would need to for like massive the kinds of wealth distribution that you'd get from like a war or something right

there's so many easier ways. Check, check that out. Why don't you go to the military industrial complex and get back to me, but let's talk vaccines real quick because then it'll be something like, cause you'll be with someone who's savvy and they go, no, no, I don't think that's what it is. But it's just that like, you know, these drug companies, man, like they put stuff out there and it hurts people. It's not just vaccines.

It's like other stuff. Look at Johnson and Johnson with like the baby powder and stuff and what happened there. So they use. So on some level, that's why I try and figure out, are you just using a lot of true things because you're scared? Or. But then when you start being like, check out, you know, the whole thing about the great culling of the herd that the illuminati like well this yeah that so it's hard i do think the mainstream thing is like well this this was a big pandemic and therefore they made like rash decisions they're like doing things in a too rushed way and doctors are just telling us to get a something that could be dangerous to us before they recognize it because they just want to cover their ass from the from the covid thing or whatever.

That seems to be the one that has bled over to like people vaccinated, we might have this thing under control in the spring. And like I'm like, oh, fuck, Tony, you are in a fucking fantasy world. And I love you to death, man. I love you to death because you're trying to incentivize it. Like other people like, hey, if you take your medicine, we can go to Disneyland in the spring. That doesn't and that's just not working. People don't aren't that's not their calculus anymore. And you're just like that idea completely ignores people like Ron Johnson who are like, yo, I'm willing to die to make a fuck to own the lives. And I might regret it at the very last minute, but I will bluster my way to near death.

To my early grave. Yeah. Many have. Right. A bunch of these people have been taken out. Dr. Peter Hotez, he said, quote, I do think there will be a modest increase because of the authorization from the FDA. But look, we have a long way to go to fill this gap. I think having the full approval will certainly convince some, but it's just one of a dozen fake talking points put out there by the disinformation campaign.

And I think a number of people are just going to revert to one of those other ones. Yeah, it's pretty frustrating. And I do think like, even though the Fauci thing is seems very like pie in the sky and unrealistic, I'm coming around to being like a little bit more sympathetic with just like recognizing that nobody knows what the fuck to do here like this is this is a massive problem it's gonna go down hard no matter which way like absolutely yeah we're just trying a bunch of shit i'm like it's more just like i feel bad for fauci because like he keeps trying this version of it. Right. And every time.

And then people are going to be like, he said it was going to be gone by the spring. And you're like, yeah, motherfucker. If. If. If. Right. In the 60s, the hippies used to say, what if they threw a war and no one came? Well, guess what?

People always show up to wars. That is a nice thought. It theoretically makes sense. It just doesn't ever happen that way. That is a nice thought. It theoretically makes sense. It just doesn't ever happen that way. Like I always said that they should pitch flu shots as being the like ethical thing to do, because people don't realize that even if you don't get the flu very often by getting the flu shot, you make it less likely that you're going to like kill a elderly person or like a baby that you come into contact with. And that's that seems to be kind of

what they did with the messaging around this vaccine and it was a complete fucking fail like people are like i don't give a shit about that i don't care about right you know like that's just about my own mom yeah that that so you know my best guess was wrong, so I'll just own that. But it just seems like trying to win the argument is not the thing that is succeeding. I think making people get the vaccine in order to continue to live comfortable lives is probably the only way around this. That said. But let's be real. They can do that. only way around this that said but let's be real they can they can do that they can they're not going to be arrested or have their kids taken away because they're not going to take the vaccine

although like that's what they're trying to make it seem like and like the whole thing is this is what the rest of the society is saying and based on the medical research like this is what has to be done to help this community this world that we live in because it's not just the u.s it's everywhere and on top of it even when we're talking about well you're gonna say boosters and shit well the world health organization's like yo do not do anything until at least september if you can because you know when you look at sort of the the rest of the the planet especially in places where the incomes are not high, we're talking under 2% of that global population is vaccinated. And we're like, yo, get someone a third one.

And then on top of it, we have people who are laughing off the first dose. So it's just a very fucked up situation. I mean, we'll see what happens. I mean, luckily, the vaccine numbers have slowly been going up because I think on some level people realize other people are getting hurt, but we'll get to that number. As sad as it is, I think the thing that might convince people around the edges is like being a devout follower of some like right-wing pundit who then gets COVID and dies. That would be one of the few things if I put my mind in there, like mind space, that I'd be like, oh, okay, maybe, maybe, even if I still think the vaccine's

risky, maybe the risk outweighs, you know, maybe. So this is an example of someone tough talking and it not working out. Yeah, there's this guy, Phil Valentine, a conservative talk radio host in Tennessee, who's probably has an audience 10 times the size of this show, who was openly vaccine skeptic. No, but like just massive, like probably very popular, very influential, was vaccine skeptical, you know, thrown out all the common talking points and then caught COVID in early July, changed his tune through public statements made by his family. But I don't think those were aired on his radio show.

And then he died a couple of days ago. And according to his brother, his like number one concern as he was dying was that he had caused anyone to not get the vaccine. So, you know, that's not just evidence the vaccine works. That's a horrible way to die, realizing you've like really harmed a bunch of people who trusted you. But like when you go to his website, doesn't contain any of this information or change of pace. His last blog post was a screed against global warming that claims that climate change said we'd never see snow again. So it's from back when it was snowing. Yeah. And that's been a thing with people who, conservatives who have passed away,

who are like rah-rah on anti-vax stuff, is like on their obits, they don't say the cause of death. Or in the, like saying, if they're announcing that someone has passed away, they won't talk about the cause of death. Or sometimes trying to make sure that the death certificate doesn't say COVID.

So that's, that feels like, in cases like this, where somebody who has, you know, used all the things that are evil, that social media, to get their harmful message in front of people and then changes their mind, changes the message they want to get out and dies as a result of the previous message that seems like one of those things that like facebook and like all the social networks should be making sure everyone who ever shared a post like by this guy like seats like that like i yeah i don't understand why we're not holding them to a higher standard of just like yeah do use like the immense power i'm sure it's because they're trying to claim they don't have this immense power, but. Except the immense power to like brainwash you into buying a fucking one wheel skateboard. Right.

I mean, those are pretty cool, though. I mean, yeah, they're pretty sick, dude. Have you seen the one that goes off road? No. I don't even skate, dude. I don't even skate, dude. I don't even skate. Actually, Justin, cut the previous section.

Let's just talk about the skateboard. Dude, so what? Wait, what's the Instagram account that is? All right, hold on. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.

One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Thank 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?

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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. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends

at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning.

In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric.

If you follow me on social media, you know I love to cook or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyt, Alison Roman, and of course, Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste that comes out every Thursday, and it's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water. Thursday, and it's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water. Think a candied bacon Bloody Mary, tacos with cabbage slaw, curry cauliflower with almonds and mint, and cherry slab pie with vanilla ice cream to top it all off. I mean, yum. I'm getting hungry. But if you're not sold yet, we also have kitchen tips like a foolproof way to grill the perfect burger and

must-have products like the best cast iron skillet to feel like a chef in way to grill the perfect burger and must have products like the best cast iron skillet to feel like a chef in your own kitchen. All you need to do is sign up at katiecouric.com slash good taste. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C.com slash good taste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. Ace Buds will be happy you did. And we're back. And, you know, last November, we covered Prop 22, which was where gig economy driven companies, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, invested $200 million into propaganda that basically made it seem as though this proposition was going to harm employees, not employees, by the way, contractors who worked for them.

No, no, it was going to benefit them. Oh, okay. I don't know whether it was yes or no, but yeah, that it was going to made it seem as though it was going to benefit them. And it succeeded because the employee, the labor forces and like organizations, organizational forces did not have $200 million to spend on this. And it's one of those things that that's complicated. Like I said, I didn't even know which was yes or no. You didn't even know which was yes or no you didn't even know which one was the bad one yeah ballot initiatives man are the bread and butter of

california rich people can just be like yo dude we'll get these signatures and we'll fucking make this a lot of watch this shit they want to fucking fine us we'll trick voters into fucking owning the drivers and that's what it was they the whole tone of it was like oh my god if you ask anyone who drives uber or lyft they're dying to be independent contractors i mean they're dying from being independent contractors because we won't know i mean they are they love props and like they would do shit like do these like you know paid sort of spokespeople who were like have worked uber or whatever to give a quote and they show this mother ray keisha from pasadena says it allows me to take care of my daughter and her special needs while making extra money

that's needed and already trying to sort of you know frame it of like oh look look at who you're helping you know like this is what it is and this is the tremendous benefit that will that will be afforded to these drivers when they are misclassified as independent contractors and not employees of fucking Uber or Lyft or Instacart or Postmates. And because of it, all the deceptive marketing fucking worked and people were like, oh, great. And what it did was just completely offer drivers fuck all in the way of any kind of collective bargaining power benefits and things like that. But luckily, a lawsuit was filed by the SEIU, Service Employees International Union, and three drivers. And it's gained traction in a California Superior Court where a judge, he just said, did you guys read this shit? This is unenforceable. This is unconstitutional. What the fuck? What is this? So the judge said that Prop 22 appears to quote, only protect economic interests of gig companies. What he says is he points to a part of Prop 22 that quote, required a seven eighths legislative majority to alter the proposition but even then only with the approval

of the gig company drafters so there was no way to alter this it's like okay first get to an impossible majority and then from there then you got to get them to agree to it and then you can change it and so he goes on to say a prohibition on legislation authorizing collective bargaining by app-based drivers does not promote the right to work as an independent contractor nor does it protect work flexibility nor does it provide minimum workplace safety and pay standards for those workers those are the like all of those are the points that they use to sell the yes better safety better standards he says and then he goes on to say quote it appears only to protect the economic interests of the network companies and having a divided ununionized, which is not a stated legal goal of this legislation.

I love that Miles' read is giving the judge like a confused, slightly befuddled aspect. Like, wait a minute, you exploited them, but you said you weren't going to? It's real. This ain't it. No, no. this ain't it no but that's this feels like so revolutionary and like unprecedented to me for a judge to be like no this is clearly what you're doing like we see what you're doing we know what you're doing and like we can look at how the law has in effect worked once it was passed like so fuck you like no no way there's a point where that becomes like union busting right like it's

not legal to keep people from unionizing i don't think right yeah yeah then the last thing they want is to again have workers be able to you know collectively figure out what's best for themselves or have any negotiating power or you know be able to have sick days and things like that so you're not driving when you're sick and possibly making other people ill or whatever. It's inhumane. And most people who really get caught up in it too, depending on where you drive, sometimes it's just barely enough to break even or just make a little bit more money. And it's like, what is this all for? And again, that's but that's been the whole business model of Uber. They've been just deficit spending and promising investors like, nah, dude, we're going to do just wait till these fucking profits come through, doggy. It's going to be fucking sick.

And apparently part of their whole strategy was, you know, underpaying drivers and having these like artificially low prices to lure riders in. And they've sunk $30 billion in the last six years in pursuit of all this shit, Uber specifically. Wow. And you look at the state of similar bills in other states, that's coming up with much heavier opposition than Prop 22 did. So in a way, it's kind of like a tick talk on like what what's going to happen here with these companies are they going to implode are they going to figure it out because even offering 250 million dollar bonuses hasn't been like really enough to move the needle

to get drivers to come back wow and they the whole like uh the whole ploy seems to be we pass the savings on to you but i don't know if you've used DoorDash lately, but you can order like a $6 hot dog and it costs $28.50 to get delivered. And you guarantee that's not going to the driver unless you... I love that you'll hit in the tip section, other, if you put too much in there, it won't let you. Like there's an arbitrary cap on how much you can tip a DoorDash.

You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, hold on here. Well, if you have that much money we'll raise the fees yeah right oh you got it like that swaim okay uh i mean i'll stop you a new there was a venue we weren't aware of yeah the capitalists from the start have been saying this is like unsustainable that they were basically operating at such an incredible loss like from the start and that they were eventually going to do like a bait and switch. And the question would be like whether people would still pay these incredibly high prices. And I think we're in that phase in a lot of places, in a lot of cases. And now, or my question is like, we've also become dependent on that infrastructurally. I do it like

the idea of an Uber Lyft being available is a product category that people want now in their minds. And so my question is like, when this cycle fulfills itself in these companies, let's say crash and burn, does the next company to fill that gap do anything different or do they run the same game plan and they last 12 years and then they crash and burn?

Because I could see it going either way. I mean, I feel like you have to at least, have to pivot to the idea of like we pair we pay people fairly like that i feel like the only shot that you have to at least arrive at a place you can be up front with people like look it's not as cheap but here's the deal like this is the only way we can pay people to to like have a good life and have some kind of service it may cost a little bit more it smells less like cigarettes than a normal cab i don't know is that still cool like you know that's kind of where we're at yeah yeah and if you're wary about paying more to secure the future of the globe i got bad news about like coffee and meat and eventually water. Yeah. Oh, my God. Nobody was killed procuring this bottle of water.

Will eventually be a thing that we have. That's the name of the water brand. Yeah. No one killed. No kill water. Oh, my God. All right, let's talk video games to correct a story that we got wrong.

I think a lot of people got wrong. It's not that we got it wrong. It's that there's shit going on. Hey, as an IGN representative, I can say we covered it loud and proud. It turned out to be bullshit, so we're right there with you. Well, what do you mean by that? Like, more than a deception, more than like something

that didn't happen, right? Yeah. Because we're talking about like artificial... Okay, it's debunking a mythical myth that was perpetuated by... Yeah. We didn't get it wrong given the information we had at the time we're still doing we've never never we've been a hundred batten one thousand when it comes to accuracy we've been asking people we we put it out there and but come debate me okay debate me on anything i've said on this show uh no so there's been like a month or two ago we discussed the auctioning of a like two different

video game cartridges that fetched what seemed like too much money for a video game cartridge and made us all feel like shit for having thrown away this is something that almost everybody in america owned at one point or another oh i should have kept the wrapping on oh yeah worth 1.56 million for that super mario 64 unboxed two million for an unopened super mario on nes but as you point out like in the grand scheme of the history of gaming mario 64 is not even that old and we all owned that game so it is weird we should have known like why would it go for that right because everyone's like it's not even like the first appearance of a character like you know like a donkey kong if you're really into mario like you could have you could have peeped them

over there like is it or like a zelda game you think would be more in demand and things like that but no this 64 cartridge sold for 1.56 million and a lot of investors were like go buckle up. Hold on for dear life because these video games are the new anti-vaxxer. Come, you're going to get rich off of it. And this journalist named Carl Jobst did an investigation and essentially found that these prices seem like they were manipulated an awful lot. And it turns out it was a scheme that involved the company that grades the games. Like when bring in they they're like okay this is about 100k game or whatever they're called wata and the auction house heritage auctions and he said that what happened was the previous record

holder in video in the video game world was super mario brothers that was graded by this company wata for a hundred thousand dollars and then he notes that this copy was allegedly bought by the guy who started the auction house and like two other people who were collectors and essentially published then this heritage auction house is like hey man i just gotta let you know we got this record smashing sale of a super mario game and also you know come check out look at all the look at the upper trajectory of all these games. Like this shit ain't slowing down. Anyway, so come through.

We might have this up for auction and maybe it'll be worth more since like, you know, now it's at the bottom is 100K and go. Right. That's some Mike Richards shit. Right. Yeah. Just controlling things from behind the scenes. Yeah.

I mean, one of the guys from the grading house was going on like Pawn Stars and like news shows to fucking tout like the rising value of these retro cartridges and just to keep the fucking energy up to have more news stories. You're like, oh my God, this is the new thing. Fascinating.

Like the product is the market itself. Like trying to convince rich people. This is a thing rich people do and buy. You should do and buy this. Yeah, so weird. Hey, sell your grandma's house and go in on a third of a video game with someone. So did they do the same thing with the 1.56 million? Or were the people who spent the 1.56 million just like fooled by these stories?

I don't know specific about those ones but essentially what they're saying is like this is a pattern that the grading house and the auction house we're using to be like like it's a runaway train and that could be but it seems like that would maybe be a little too egregious at this point when all they might need is like that origin sale to like set this whole thing up yeah but it sounds an awful like awful lot like the art world you know yeah it sounds like same shit goes nfc and crypto by which i always assume is money laundering like rich criminals doing stuff that's none of my business making their money clean i got it right actually

well because like you know like a scheme what'll happened with fine art right is an artist and like our gallery and a collector will collaborate and say let's tell people like let's straight up lie and say you bought this piece for three hundred thousand dollars we'll sell it to you for a hundred but then right you can now say we're going to now say that this artist's work is around that level. And that'll make the other pieces go up too. And that'll only make your piece rise in value too. It's like a very similar fucking cynical way of, you know, just artificially pulling, you know, just bringing people into a fake world of infinite value. Wow.

That's, uh, I, I'm assuming that's illegal, but maybe not if it's but how can it be yeah it's like art world how much is this painting worth it's worth however much it makes you feel man like you know what i mean how can you peg that yeah right right yeah it seems like if you were gonna do a like create a fake sale going for super mario and super Mario brothers would make the most sense because they are the ones that most people have owned. And so if you want the story to like spread as fast as possible and as wide as possible, like that is the smart thing to do. I, I wonder how they got it up to 2 million or 1.56 million. I, I don't think it's too egregious to assume that those numbers were complete bullshit.

Right. Or wonder if like a check for that amount ever actually changed hands or anything. Yeah. All right. And finally, we have some chicken sandwich rankings to report. At long last. We're through the rain. We've been just waiting by the news desk for this information to come through.

Who won? I can smell it. Yeah, I don't. So not, not a surprise at number one, we got Popeye's. Wait,

who is this from? This is from the takeout, which I usually trust there. I like that. They seem to really like food. Like almost all of their reviews are like an A or a B. And they that they seem to really like food. Like almost all of their reviews are like an A or a B. And they're like, this is fucking awesome.

Oh, man. I love this thing. It's like a turtle van. It tastes so good. Just Homer, the food critic. Everything. Number one with a bullet. Yeah.

Right. bullet yeah right but so you know this is fun because they're setting all the uh you know chicken fried chicken sandwich offerings against one another you know there was a big rush and what about chick-fil-a is that on this list not that i'm like chick-fil-a is not on this list because i think it predated i think they're saying like oh they're saying since people started chasing a dragon okay i got it yeah so popeye's number one with a bullet they're like sorry we tried to like come up with a different one that would be more surprising but it's just really good yeah we were there we were there for that we know yeah we've seen we've heard but two is shocking to me hardy's carl's jr what did not

see that coming their sandwiches sandwiches always look too... The meat always looks too thick. The burger just looks like it's a giant hot dog. Yeah, it looks like a linebacker's forearm. And you're like, oh, I don't want to eat that much chicken in a bite. I love my curvy chicken sandwich. I honestly almost put Carl's Jr. as my underrated. I think Carl's Jr.

slash Hardee's. I think I need to get up on that. Yeah, a lot of people sleep on Carl's Jr. I definitely I used to get, it's funny, even though I'm like, oh no, I never got their fried chicken sandwiches. I used to eat the Santa Fe chicken sandwich a lot at Carl's Jr. And that's like on a wheat bun.

That's fucking unheard of for like a sloppy teenager who like wants maximum junk i'm like fuck it man it even hits it knocks with the wheat bun too but i guess they're so what they got the good crunch they got the good flavor is it spicy on the inside manages it manages to keep every last bit of its crispy crunch while in transit the potato bun did exactly what it was supposed to do held things together tasted great without being distracting that i will say they really love pickles like yeah there are multiple of these reviews where they're like i could use more pickles uh the pickles saved it this one they're like but the pickles saved the day in the end

the sandwich really only loses marks because not enough pickles are involved. And that's kind of their consensus on other ones. Also, I just love that they refer to it as the chicken's deafening crunch. That really makes me want Popeyes right now. Yeah. Your gums won't be able to handle that. Shred my gums.'t be able to handle that shred my gums yeah dude wait so they got like oh kfc really took a fucking kick in the fucking ass kfc is seven of ten i mean y'all had one job and how

the might fall the they said and this is not hard for me or anyone who's at kfc to imagine the skin separates from the chicken a little too easily oh yeah making it a mess they're social distancing their skin from their chicken right now they always have been chilies even entered the game and came in at eight which you would expect chilies to be able to put something together at a higher price point but you don't not so you know yeah i feel like you can only class up a fried chicken sandwich so much like until you're going into like ridiculous luxury foods territory like if it's really about the fry on it the batter you use and the pickles and the little sauce i also think of chilies in a different category than popeyes hardy's bk oh for sure yeah yeah it's almost like embarrassing that they're gonna be like and chilies i guess

like they shouldn't even be here but they tried and it's really sad and we should talk about it and then boston market oh boston market is the last place flavorful pickles though yeah they give them credit for flavorful pickles and the sandwich staying together which is a very low bar yeah that's like that's like some fuck that's like some fucking Spielberg watching a kindergartner's film. And just doing like, well, there was a camera that was recording. So that was good for this. And we'll leave it there. Otherwise, a total disaster.

Burger King was the other big surprise for me. I don't know if you've seen the Burger King chicken sandwich. But it looks like a big piece of like general sauce chicken. Like it looks like it's just a bit like dipped in. It's glazed. Yeah, it's a glazed chunk of chicken, but they say it's good. The sauce is apparently more hot than sweet. All right.

Well, BK, I guess we'll have it their way. we'll have it their way. It's just so funny how quickly the chicken sandwich wars came and went. Because life just became more complicated. Do you remember when we were like, oh, look at people lining up for Popeyes.

And now I feel like I've just firmly landed on that's the best one. I've had the McDonald's one. That one's alright. But there's just something about that Popeye. I think the only one I've never the McDonald's one. That one's all right, but it's still not. There's just something about that pot pie. I think the only one I've never had is number six, Zaxby's, which I've honestly never heard of. That's now my nail. I'm going to seek out Zaxby's.

Yeah, it's a southern delicacy. In the KFC in Paris, France, when I was visiting, they had a chicken sandwich with hash browns as the buns called the stacker so good i've never seen it as the bun i've never seen in the states chicken sandwich hash brown buns yeah what the fuck that sounds like some american shit kfc paris i know and i fully expected i was like this is so american clearly i just missed the switch over and when i head back to the states this will be at kFC, but no, it was unique to the French KFCs. Yeah.

Is there any chance that they're doing it out of a sense of like responsibility socially, like not to like kill Americans with this sandwich? It's so good that they're just like, I mean, the French can handle it, but I always imagine with decisions that chain restaurants make like that. I'm like,

potatoes must be cheap this year in France or whatever. It's always that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because I guess what? The double down was just they probably like, look, we fucked around with the double down and that just grossed people out when we replaced bread with chicken. Right.

And then just put cheese. But we're still we're still not over replacing stuff with other stuff. Yeah. We're going to keep trying. Bad habit, bad habit, bad habit. KFC, fuck bread. That's their motto. Just one way or another.

What if the bread was cheese and the chicken was a potato and the potato was... What? Just twitching in the corner. Michael, as always, such a pleasure having you, man. Oh, a delight. Where can people find you, follow you, hear you, all that good stuff? I am a regular contributor to IGN, who you can follow on YouTube. But for the stuff that really inhabits my heart, that sounds grim.

I'm over at patreon.com slash small beans or find the Small Beans podcasting network on your Apple, iPad, iCast, whatever. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. You know, search small beans is the name of the brand. You got it. One of those casts for your eyes. Yeah. Is there a tweet or any work of social media that you've been enjoying?

Absolutely. I was prepped for this. So with complete wherewithal, I chose one of my own tweets, Jack. There you go. I know that's bad form, but I think it makes sense when you consider the content,

which is sometimes I think my tweets deserve more likes, but then I remember that no tweets deserve any likes. And I stand by that. Okay. I think paradoxically, only that tweet needs to be retweeted to

add infinitum that's just until no other tweets are liked yeah yeah that's the plan miles where can people find you what's a tweet you've been enjoying you can find me on twitter and instagram at miles of gray also the other show 420 day fiance although right now i don't know something's going on instagram did something to that account, but we're working on trying to figure what that was. Maybe it'll be gone forever. I don't know. I don't know, but we'll see what happens there. A tweet

that I like is from Andrew T. It's just kind of, I don't know, just indicative of where we're at right now. At Andrew T. He said, okay, it actually would be kind of funny if the FDA rejected the Moderna vaccine, though. No, but I don't know. It's a favorite.

Yeah. If we're just going to laugh it all off, we're going to just have to laugh at that. I want my booster to be Moderna. I hear I hear if you mix them up, if you have like a little fruit punch of vaccines in your arm, it's better. Moderna before Pfizer, everyone dies. Pfizer before Moderna, you're not gonna return. Oh, no. Both ways. Sounds bad either way. Eat your Popeye's chicken sandwich and get the hell out. Some tweets I've been enjoying delia kai tweeted do you ever leave a social situation and you're just like that was not my best work and i only leave social resonations of pj evans tweeted hi

i'm johnny knoxville and this is killing a guy and uh zach silberberg tweeted depressed people love to put lull or lmao at the end of the most psychologically troubling sentence you've ever read in your life and i find that to be true you can find me on twitter at jack underscore o'brien you can find us on twitter at daily zeitgeist we're at the daily zeitgeist on instagram we have a facebook fan page and a website dailyzeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode as well as a song that we think you might enjoy uh miles what song do we think people might enjoy it's a new artist i've been getting into called bakar b-a-k-a-r and it is called the mission and yeah i think i think he's from london but it's just got like really good like it almost feels like a jungle track um like

the band jungle it's got like sort of that kind of you know four on the floor it's got just good rhythm to it and it's i don't know i don't know how to say it it's this it's a great it's a great song to listen to, even though the content might not be all bubbly. But who's listening to lyrics anyway? We like to nod our heads. So check out Bacar with The Mission. Now I have to go listen to what those lyrics are.

The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this morning uh we're back this afternoon to tell you what's trending and then after that for our live show go get tickets at momenthouse.com slash the daily zeitgeist and we will see y'all there uh all right bye bye kay hasn't heard from her sister

in seven years I have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do what was that? that was live audio of a woman's nightmare can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself

there's nothing dangerous about what you're doing they're just dreams Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio 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?

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