The Daily Zeitgeist - HBD LaurTrend Passell 3/21: Trump, Peanut Butter, I Survived…, Alex Jones, Winnie the Pooh

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

In this edition of HBD LaurTrend Passell, Jack and writer JM McNab discus Trump NOT getting arrested (yet), AI Trump getting arrested (in AI created photos), the eternal debate: is peanut butter a liquid?, the "I Survived…" book series, Alex Jones trying to hoard his money, and 'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' getting banned in China!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry.

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti and I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career.

That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of Happy Birthday, Lord Trend Pasal, friend of the pod, sends us great guests. Appreciate you. I'm Jack, and I'm thrilled to be joined by the writer of this show jm mcnab what's happening man hey so much so much is happening so much um so much is happening so much is not happening uh trump has not been arrested as of this recording what we're sold by the ai yeah people are making some fun ai photoshops i guess these used to just be called photoshops but now they have to use artificial intelligence kids these days am i right but they're uh i don't know they're pretty convincing there's there's one where he's being like dragged away um by a bunch of

being dragged away by a bunch of New York cops. And he's laying back on the ground. And a good tip for if you want to be able to tell if something is a bullshit AI thing is look at the legs. There's like 14 pairs of legs that don't match up to any body down below his torso. It's like Trump's being arrested for being the thing. Exactly. And then there's another one where he's running away from the police and they're like running

after him. But two problems. One, they've put him on the body of a much younger person who can bend his knees. So it's just like he looks like a person jogging, which I can't imagine that's happening a lot. It's Trump's head on the body of Tom Cruise from the firm. Right. And then also the cops chasing him appear to just be like jogging in a race, like they're part of a 5k that Trump is also participating in. And then it's just like a guy in a hoodie behind them. It's just like hanging out.

Who's that guy? Yeah, that's a great question. He's just like, oh man, look at that. A nice job, robot. Come on, robot. You dumb robot. Anyways, so that's how we're entertaining ourselves as a national internet. So that's how we're entertaining ourselves as a national internet, as we wait for a thing that, in retrospect, it seems like he's the only one who said it was going to happen.

Yeah. It doesn't seem like the best source when it's like, the guy being investigated for fraud is your source. Yeah. I'm going to say it. Donald Trump's a liar. There was also a protest. That was something that I think he called for. He was like, I want to see people hit the streets and save our democracy. And there was a group of young Republicans out in the streets of New York.

And it seemed it might have seemed to you, a non-expert, non-trained observer, that this was a small protest. But it turns out that was by design. Oh? Yeah. The person who organized it said, we weren't sure we even wanted to come out because some people don't like us. But we are here to show that there is support for President Trump in the bluest areas in the country, here in Manhattan. there is support for president trump in the bluest areas in the country here in manhattan and then later he was like we actually wanted to make it small to be quote low-key a low-key event which is a chill protest in there before you know where you're like no no it's actually low we wanted it

to be low-key that's why nobody came to the party yeah it's not like a it's like a birthday party once you're over 30 it's like you just want you know chill out with just a couple of friends you don't yes uh but i can't imagine that trump was was happy with with this turnout well at one point there was the opposite together at the last minute the last 24 hours said gavin wax gavin wax what a name for a young republican at one point there is uh i think outside trump tower it was like the opposite protest there was a bunch like some protesters showed up but they're all like calling for him to be arrested right which i don't think was what he mean, he didn't specify what kind of protest he wanted to be, to be fair. Um, anyways, we'll, we'll all be waiting with bated breath for him to be dragged

out of Mar-a-Lago and, you know, whisked up to New York. I gotta say even that counter protest or, you know, not counter protest, but the protest against Trump was also like quite small, like a former president is supposed to be arrested possibly. It feels like this is a later season of a show that's sort of run out of ideas. The Trump presidency has jumped the shark. I think we can all agree with that, right? Totally. Yeah. I mean, they're circling back to the Stormy Daniels story. Come on. story come on uh the question of is peanut butter liquid is circulating it is it's joined the pantheon of food-based philosophical queries like um is a hot dog a sandwich is cereal soup i'm not familiar with that one that sucks though no it's not quite obviously um are twizzlers still twizzlers without the twists

um also not really a philosophical question but more of like a branding thing but this one is is peanut butter a liquid and it came up because somebody was prevented from bringing peanut butter onto a flight by the tsa who was like we said no liquid and they were like it's peanut butter though so they posted to instagram uh the tsa popped on and whoever the tsa is like social media person is apparently of the opinion like the tsa needs to be cute because they were like yeah actually it's liquid and then like had little fun things fun repartee with people being like aha but what about jelly which was confusing to me because it's like well if peanut butter is a liquid then jelly is obviously a liquid right like they're kind of

similar the tsa confirmed also a liquid but i don't know apparently this is what is known as a non-newtonian liquid according to super producer brian uh he he turned me on to the non-newtonian liquid which is something that one minute behaves like a solid the next it flows like a liquid uh non-newtonian fluids can switch between a solid and liquid state depending on the forces acting upon them which then brought up the great molasses flood which is just a wild story where a large storage tank filled with 2.3 million u.s gallons of molasses weighing approximately 12 000 metric tons burst and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at 35 miles per hour. So like, not that fast, but ended up killing 21 people. It's as slow as something.

I can't think of something to compare it to. Yeah, it's a car like on a suburban street that has a stop sign. Like it's like, you know, you can really, you really have time to contemplate the very stupid thing that's about to happen to you. Why has this not been a movie? Like it was in Boston, right? Yeah. Where's the Ben Affleck historical drama?

I know. He's working his way up to it. It does feel like one of those things that a movie should make just so we could see what that looks like. Like James Cameron should spend a decade just creating the 3D molasses flood movie just because it seems like it would be very cool to watch that happen. But yeah, so might as well build a story around it, I guess. But yeah, I mean a horrible tragedy that then for decades afterwards, the area still smelled like molasses anytime it would get hot, which is like just a weird way to be haunted by something. Just by the sweet smell. Smells like molasses.

Yeah. Which then led us to the, I survived series of books. So this isn't really a trending episode so much as a thing that was trending that led us down a internet rabbit hole. This is not something that was around when I was young, but there is a book called,

that Superduser Victor found, the I Survived the Great Molasses Flood or the Great Molasses Wave of 1919. But there's also like, I survived nine 11. It's just like a children's book where it's like, like the drawing on the cover reminds me of the choose your own adventure books.

Totally. If, if they had a choose your own adventure book about nine 11, you know, I misremembered it. Cause I like, I didn't read these books, but I remember seeing them

pop up online. And for a minute, I misremembered it as being about time travelers. I was like, are these the same kids just going from disaster to disaster and surviving? But no, they're all different characters. I guess in my mind, they were like teenage thrill seekers just you know right going to the the most horrific parts of human history but there's like one one of them was like i survived like the nazis yeah which is like evasion of 1944 which is like i know like 19 people died in the molasses thing but like it seems like a pretty wild swing to me to go from like molasses to the

Nazis. It's, I don't know. Yeah. I guess, but I guess it's just things that are, that kids are interested in and like a way of like getting them some sort of historical detail.

I guess I'm glad that they're learning about the nazis from a book that i i don't know i i haven't read these books but i would imagine they are based not they're not like written by white supremacists who are like and it actually wasn't that bad i survived the nazis and it was you know it was fine right no yeah no i'm sure i'm sure they're good books they just i mean they look very extreme i guess they're for older kids yeah um i'm just gonna read you the description of i survived the attacks of september 11 2001 i survived number six it's the sixth book in the series the only thing lucas loves more than football is his uncle benny his dad's best friend at the fire department where they both work benny taught lucas everything about football. So when Lucas's parents decide the

sport is too dangerous and he needs to quit, Lucas has to talk to his biggest fan. So the next morning, Lucas takes the train to the city instead of the bus to school. It's a bright, beautiful day in New York. Yeah. So it's like just children's book premise and then 9-11 happens jesus so it's like 9-11 like teaches him a lesson about not cutting class yeah like i'm wondering how they weave that all together um well it's like do you remember that robert pattinson movie yeah i do remember me yeah yeah that's that should be the twist of every movie i think we should always pull out from every movie to reveal that the character we've been following all along has ended up on one of the top floors of the world trade center and then like pulls out does he like

pull out a newspaper or it's like another character in the movie is in class and it's like a intercut and then the teacher writes like 9-11 2001 on the board and then we're like why did she write it like that and then she writes never forget and yeah what date it is i was thinking about 9-11 today for some reason and I was thinking about remembering when I was walking home from school on the street corner, there were paper boys on the street going extra, extra. Yeah. Because they had like the extra supplement for the paper. Cause something so major had happened that they had to print another newspaper going extra. And I remember being like, oh, I never got that. That that that's what extra extra means it's like an extra newspaper and then i had that

thought and then i felt like am i a thousand years old like how am i how do i have this memory of paper like where do these paper boys come from newsies on the street corner saying extra extra yeah and then christian bale showed up and they did a whole song and dance. You were on your way to sing with your do op group around a trash can fire. Yeah. It's that's, that's wild. I'm sure there are listeners of this show who are not at all surprised to

hear that because nine 11 is just like history. Just like all, all the all the other just just like world war ii you know yeah they're like yes of course they were newsies yeah that'd be a funny historical period piece written by a 12 year old so it's just like mashing everything together it's like hendrix was there playing for FDR and 9-11 happened. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series,

Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed

will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?

Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't

get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career. Without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.

I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them. Why is that? I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black.

I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. and we're back and alex jones is still hoarding his money he's saying things like quote i'm officially out of money personally you will see that alex jones has almost no cash so and then

then like is putting so he's like investing in a company that his personal trainer just made up, um, declaring bankruptcy, transferring his $3 million home to his wife, buying a private jet like that. So there's like some stuff like he's giving the money away or like investing in a different thing. But then like buying a private jet seems like the sort of thing that the

government should be able to be like, but you can do that you're supposed like you're supposed to be giving all your money away yeah like i can't give the money i can't pay the money i own it's all tied up in jets it's all tied up in these private jets i bought for myself they're like well it's good for the economy um but yeah i mean he's supposed to be in the hole, like close to a billion dollars to the Sandy Hook parents. And because of the way the country operates, apparently it's just, you know, it's the greatest sin that can happen is like a company or a person not being able to make money, you know, like making the survival of a business is like the top priority and so the american bankruptcy system is making it possible for this garbage human to just continue to pretend like he doesn't have money well um you know being the main person at a company that makes 70 million dollars a year yeah that's the frustrating thing it's working like this i mean it's like a shell game with you know private

jets and mansions that's so obvious it's like a shell game with no shells like everyone can see what he's doing and uh and frustratingly it seems to be working and no one knows if you know the the victims families who are owed this money are actually going to get paid. It's just ridiculous. Yeah. That's really frustrating. Uh,

his lawyers have claimed that Jones did not fully remember where he holds bank accounts, nor how many trusts he had set up over the past decade, uh, and has no idea about the whereabouts of his 2022 w-2 form documenting his wages like isn't that something the government can find like dig up i guess not in america where they make the tax system intentionally confusing but all right and then this is kind of a story like so winnie the pooh uh blood and honey the Winnie the Pooh slasher movie was set to open in Hong Kong and then pulled at the last second from theaters for possibly political reasons.

This, of course, ties to Xi Jinping being very sensitive about his resemblance to Winnie the Pooh and like that being a thing that people troll him with is like images to Winnie the Pooh. And like that being a thing that people troll him with is like images of Winnie the Pooh. I'm very skeptical of the filmmaker behind the movie, Winnie the Pooh, blood and honey. And he seems to be the primary source here. However,

there is a detail in this story that really blew my mind. But like, it seems like you put this story together, Jam, and it seems like it's story after story where it's like, it could be that he's really sensitive about Winnie the Pooh, or it might be this other thing.

It could be that he's really sensitive, or there's this other explanation that made this movie not very popular, and they still let the books happen. But then there's the release of the video game Kingdom Hearts 3, which has Disney characters. And Winnie the Pooh is one of the characters

in the video game. And they just replaced him with... It looks like they just haphazardly used the erase tool from Photoshop on Winnie the Pooh, but like not even his whole, like his legs are still poking out the bottom of this like amorphous white blob.

So that made me think, okay, anything is possible. And he probably is doing this because that is just so shameless. Like the removal of Winnie the Pooh from kingdom hearts three, probably is doing this because that is just so shameless. Like the removal of Winnie the Pooh from Kingdom Hearts 3, like in a way that just looks like he went in himself and used the erase tool. Yeah.

They couldn't even like, you know, copy and paste of like Roger Rabbit or something. Sure. Just, just, yeah. Like you said,

just a void of nothingness where Winnie the Pooh so i don't know that that makes me think i mean you were pointing out like the movie is not very popular like the movie yeah has a four percent on rotten tomatoes and so it's entirely possible any failure of this movie has to do with the fact that it sucks. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Like you said, it's the director who's saying like, oh, there's something mysterious happening behind the scenes because they okayed this movie and they screened it once and then they pulled it. And to me, I was like, oh, that's very possible. That's the case.

But it's also like, well, it could also be they screened it once. It was awful. And then they canceled it. God. Yeah. I mean, it is a movie where like piglet like runs over a woman's head with a car and like yeah winnie the pooh like whips christopher robin with eeyore's tail and stuff like that but you know done with a budget of gift cards from

starbucks it's like very low budget but i know i haven't encountered anyone that liked it online. It seems to be pretty universally panned. This movie seems like it's the, I think I talked about this before on the show that like Corey Doctorow told this story about ordering food from his local like favorite Thai place. And like when he made the order, the actual Thai place called him and we're like, you actually ordered that from like a clone website that exists and is the number one result on Google.

And they just put the order in for you, but charge you like five extra dollars per item. And so they're just like this way that people are like artlessly finding ways to just wedge themselves into other people's transactions to like make money like that. That feels like what Winnie the Pooh blood and honey is like somebody just like figured out that he could make a Winnie the Pooh movie like and just happened to be such a compelling idea for people that it's now a national news story but yeah well i think people also like it's a funny idea and i think people are also like so frustrated with how disney has uh circumvented copyright laws like they keep you know extending the making like they upended it for everybody i think right like they keep, you know, extending the Mickey, like they upended it for everybody, I think, right? Like they, they had, they actually wielded their power to have it extended to a certain point and they keep getting extensions for Mickey Mouse. Like they have used

their power to change the law. Yeah, exactly. So I think having this finally come in public domain, having someone come in and do something that seems contradictory, yeah, transgressive. And also like, you know know kind of opposes the sort of intellectual property hoarding that that disney's known for like i think everyone wanted to be on board with this movie we're all rooting for you winnie the pooh blood and honey uh unfortunately let us all down you let us all down um But the Kingdom Hearts 3 thing is unbelievable. I mean, that is amazing. Just self-ownage by Xi Jinping to just be like,

yeah, you just can't see how much he looks like me. Okay. So nothing to see here. The funny thing about that story too, like looking it up was that that whole thing about Winnie the Pooh being banned by the Chinese government, like may have started about may have started as a joke about how the government banned Winnie the Pooh. Like it was like a screenshot of a government document that was never verified.

So it was like, you know, it may have been just made by someone as a joke, but then everyone latched onto the joke and the joke basically just became real. Yeah. It seems like if the CIA was good at their job, this is the sort of thing that they would have done just to like troll him, you know? But I would be surprised if they, if they had that level of like social media wherewithal. Oh, definitely. All right. Well, JM, such a pleasure having you as always. Where can people find you and follow you? You can find me on Twitter at J.M. McNabb again. All right. That's going to do it for us this afternoon.

We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get the vaccine. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow. Bye. And we will talk to you all tomorrow.

Bye. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking

about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.