The Daily Zeitgeist - Jack's Dark Home Alone Theory 12/18: IDF War Crimes, Donald Trump, Arlington National Cemetary, Gen Z, Pope Francis

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

In this edition of The WeekTrend Update, Jack and Bryan the Editor discuss their respective weektrends, the IDF shootingr Israeli captives because they DGAF about war crimes, Donald Trump's increasingly authoritarian rhetoric, Arlington National Cemetary "removing" a their Confederate Monument, Gen Z's "Menu Anxiety", and the Cool Pope says same sex civil unions are chill - sometimes… within limits!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 four 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 podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pardenti

and I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. 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. My mic sounds nice. My mic sounds nice. Let's include all the... Hello, the internet,

and welcome to this Week Trend episode. Weekend Trends. Weekend Trends. the internet and welcome to this week trend episodes weekend trends weekend trends it weekend trends on the zeitgeist my mic sounds nice my mic sounds nice my mic sounds nice that's super producer brian jeffrey Super producer Brian Jeffries Hello I am here How's everybody doing? He is here I am here we are here Together it's gonna be the last

Weekend trending episode of The year of 2022 Damn What year is it Jack? 2023 I've been looking through We're gonna do some best of episodes over the break for people to listen to

in addition to our evergreen ones and so I've been looking back over the past couple years of episodes I don't know that's not an excuse I've been only looking at 2023 episodes and for some reason that made me say 2022

I'm Jack that is super producer brian miles is away on assignment uh just getting a little relaxation that's his assignment uh and that's going to be all of our assignments in three short days but for now we are still here we are here to tell you uh what is trending this weekend uh but first we like to tell you what is trending this weekend. But first, we like to tell you a little bit about ourselves and what we think by telling you something we think is underrated and overrated. So, Brian, do you want to kick us off with something you think is underrated? Underrated? I'm going to go very, very literal. That new Obama movie, Leave the World Behind, is getting review bombed on Metacritic. Love the Obama movie.

I love calling it the Obama movie. He's all up. I mean, you know, I'm not going to call him an auteur, but his fingerprints are all over that sumbitch, man. I keep calling it the Obama movie movie because i i didn't plan on watching this movie right i was just what i was just passing through the living room and my partner was putting the movie on and she happened to she was like obama thanks a lot obama she and i was like huh obama made another movie yeah i sat down and i watched it i knew nothing about it and um i found it

perfectly enjoyable uh perfectly diverting and you know good performances and uh you know very good performances some some familiar faces and uh yeah yeah i was unaware of this movie's existence and uh you know it was like a pleasant little small surprise uh that it wasn't awful um yeah and didn't waste my time the the effects are really cool um it's like it's definitely i don't know it's kind of appropriate to me that it is an obama so so you're saying it's getting review bombed because it's Obama. Simply because it's produced by the Obamas. It's just one of the movies that they threw their weight behind

as part of their Netflix production deal, basically. And I have to assume it's based off of some book that he likes or some shit. I don't even know. I think that's right. Probably from his reading list. I know he likes books. Probably from his reading list. I know he likes books.

Yeah, guy's a fucking dork. It's, I think it's my favorite trailer of the year. The trailer with the LCD sound system, Oh Baby song over it is a blast. I then was so overcome by the trailer that I went and saw it in theaters. And then I won't dig too much into spoilers. Love the trailer.

Didn't love the film quite as much, but I highly recommend checking out the trailer. If it speaks to you, check out the movie. It is the number one trending movie on Netflix, and that I think means it's probably been viewed more times than most films that came out this year i remember what the other thing that caught my attention

was that it starts with like a banger song i don't know who does the song but it starts with like hip-hop music yeah just blaring and i'm like the fuck are you watching and then throughout the film number one this score sounds like us it sounds like some colombo type shit there's these weird little piano chords that when somebody says something and some spooky happens there's like a like a weird piano chord which was tickling me and um the music was like they were playing that that one song by next about getting a boner while dancing uh-huh i like the music um yeah there was a lot to like i'd say yeah lots of like the literal the very like intentional off-putting music cues seems to be a thing that's happening like may if you've

seen may december there's like some piano music that is like really strange and draws attention to itself and yeah i feel like there's a lot of like little music cues in this that draw attention themselves um my underrated brian is the psychological complexity of the Home Alone films. I watched the Home Alone films over the weekend with my children. Now, which ones did you watch? Did you watch only the... Just the Mac ones. Okay.

Yeah, just the ones that I had seen as a child and had not looked at since. as a child and had not, uh, look at that since and viewing it as a parent. Um, this seems to be a film about an attempted, very late stage abortion. Like is, is what I'm taking from it.

Like, so I, I have, you know, I've talked before about like my, my theory, like we have like different people, different personalities inside of us. And like sometimes they're acting without the conscious self being aware. So when someone is like, I keep sabotaging myself, I think that's literally what is happening.

Oftentimes, like there's a part of you that doesn't want the career that and it's like sabotaging that career or like there's part of you that doesn't want that relationship and so that part of you is actually like working outside of your conscious mind to you know get you out of that relationship by sabotaging anyways this is what i think is happening with Kevin's mom in Home Alone and Home Alone 2 and I don't think I'm like I think this is all kind of what the filmmakers intended like I don't think they would necessarily call it

a movie about an attempted late stage very late stage abortion but like there's so Catherine O'Hara the mom like there's a conscious part of her that knows she's supposed to be a loving mother and like gestures towards that but I think there's a conscious part of her that knows she's supposed to be a loving mother and like gestures towards that but i think there's another part of her deeper down where like language doesn't reach that comes through in her eyes when she looks at kevin that truly wishes he

wasn't around like you you see it when she sends him to bed without dinner after he like he literally spills milk at dinner in the first minute in like the first 10 minutes of the first movie and is sent to bed in the attic without dinner and the first thing

that I noticed about this scene was that Catherine O'Hara is like looking at him with the deadest eyes and I'm like she's a good actor that's like why is she and she's saying wild shit and while sending this kid to bed without eating the next part I noticed is that she doesn't realize he's not with them in the airport. Which is always insane to me. They're carrying Fuller, who's the other kid who's around his age, which is what you do when you're in a hurry at the airport. You pick up anything under the age of 10 and you are carrying that shit because they are going to get lost otherwise. That's the first thing you see as a parent.

Traveling with kids is hell for a reason. They are not for one second out of your thoughts. They're tiny and distractible. I carry my kid on my shoulder when I'm running late. I just throw him over like

he's a sack of potatoes. The real thing that I think everyone remembers that kind of proves my point is the scene where she leaps forward and goes, Kevin! Because, so there's part of her that knows she left the kid behind. Like that, she does not. Like the whole time. She's fully, part're part of it.

It's fully aware. There's part of her. That's fully aware. That's trying to get through to the conscious part of her mind, but not until they're off the ground. It's not, it's not getting through until they're off the ground. Um,

she doesn't have to look in the back. Like, she's not like, Oh wait, no, there's no way we left Kevin. Like go back. It's only her. Yeah no there's no way we left kevin like go back it's only her yeah she's the only one yeah right because well i think that there there is like the dad

is among the dumbest dad characters we've ever seen outside of like a fucking beer commercial or like a i guess not beer like a hardware commercial or something like that dads are dumb commercials yeah he's very he's commercial dad dumb and he but so she she realizes it she's like oh my god we left him without checking

in the back because the kids are sitting in coach and the parents are sitting in first class something that she's like oh my god don't you feel like a heel kind of that we're sitting in coach and the parents are sitting in first class something that she's like oh my god don't you feel like a heel kind of that we're sitting in first class and the kids are in coach um so they're just bad bad people um but once so once the jig is up and her conscious mind is now aware that she left kevin um she makes like one call to the cops she like she makes one call to the cops. She makes

a call to the cops. The cops send her to family services appropriately. They're like, there's clearly something going on here. Then she's sent back to the cops. They send one cop by to do a wellness check on him and are like,

there's nobody here so my brain before was distracted by those are the worst cops in the world but she's just like okay with that she doesn't like keep harassing she's not on the phone continuously with the local police i feel like she's just checking off the boxes of what a loving mother would do so that like she has she can continue to tell herself she does not want this kid dead but that's i think ultimately what she wants until she gets home and sees that he's kept the house neat at which point she's like okay you're acceptable um because like yeah she she clearly has big problems with like messiness uh and when he spilled that thing she was like no fuck this and then the fact that it happens again in a second movie at a certain point you're trying

to kill this kid um but again when she realizes it she just faints straight away like there's the scene probably less iconic but where they're at the baggage claim and she's like here give this bag to Kevin it goes down the thing and then they're like Kevin's not here and the second she hears the phrase Kevin's not here she just

screams Kevin and then faints dead away so again she knows that they've left him or lost him. Um, in, in the second one, there is part of her that is consciously doing this. It's not a coincidence that it happens twice.

This is a movie about a very conflicted mother who does not like her son taking, taking matters into her own hands is my theory. Interesting. Interesting. I was, I was not that long ago. I was,

I was watching a group of movies because I was trying to find the worst movie mother. Yeah. But I totally forgot about home alone. Really not great parenting. Um, the other loose theory that i think you could probably also make the case for is that she does it all consciously and it is just checking off the boxes

just trying to make it so that it seems like uh you know she she actually gives a shit, but she's sociopathic, like, Oh, Kevin's not here. And we actually don't need to, um, granted this is putting all the pressure on her and not the dad. But as we mentioned,

the dad is commercial dumb. So you can't, you just have to assume she, all the weight is on her shoulders, which isn't fair. And maybe a reason why she's trying to off one of these little fuckers. Just my read on the Home Alone franchise.

Also, just an incredible amount of hyper-violence in both movies. The second one in particular is wild because in the second one, The second one in particular is like, it's wild because in the second one, he catches them at a toy store. They're robbing a toy store. Everything about storytelling and who the target demographic is for this movie suggests, oh, he's going to use toys to trap them and torture them.

Nope. he's going to use toys to trap them and like torture them. And instead he like lures them to a kill house and repeatedly kills them. Like repeatedly does things that would murder any living organism, like a brick from like four stories up thrown straight into the forehead. All of these stunts individually would kill a man yes easily and it just keeps it keeps going yeah it's yeah it's something it's wild i i'm really curious if anybody knows the backstory to home alone 2 if there was like a last minute rewrite by the guy who would go on to direct Saw or something because everything

is leading up to that moment is like yeah he's just gonna like use nerf guns to like trap and trick these guys I love the idea that Kevin McAllister is actually the Saw man when he grows up to be that guy I think there is a

theory online, a loose theory, that he is like Jigsaw as a child. Yeah, anyways. Yeah, I'm very curious how that came about. How the

Home Alone 2 kill house came about. Why they weren't just like, it would be funny if he used toys because that was what he did in the first one. He used toys as weapons against these guys and they were like,

we gotta up it, man. We gotta take the violence to at least the level of the equalizer you know like it's like it is really like he just takes them into an abandoned house like a murderer and then uses just industrial strength weapons to murder them repeatedly i wonder I wonder if you could change. The entire tone of the film. By just changing the score. To make it feel more appropriate.

Yeah. And then just adding some blood sprays. Here and there. Some spooky piano stingers. Yeah. Well that actually leads into my overrated. Which is. The high pitched choral thing that, I don't know.

I just noticed it's the second verse of Nat King Cole's Silent Night, which is in heavy rotation around this time of year. It goes from Nat King Cole singing Silent Night, which, you know, one of the great voices. You know, it seems like it was built to sing Silent Night. And then the second verse is like all of these high pitched choral, like, like just overlapping. It's also in a lot of early Disney movies. So I just think, I think it was a thing that people had seen live before recorded music and were like, this shit goes.

This is a transfixing, transformative experience. And then they just tried to put it everywhere. It's the sound that you hear in 2001 uh, like in 2001, the space odyssey where they see the big black, uh, obelisk or is that what that thing's called? Um, the big black domino monolith and yeah,

it, so it just has like creepy connotations now. So, I mean, not, there's, I guess nobody's really using it anymore for any reason other than to creep people out but it just it's really a bad one yeah it's it's firmly in the realm of cliche

yeah almost to the point where it's like it's reserved for like comedy bits yeah i think so. Um, it's, uh, I don't know. It's just shorthand for spooky now. Yeah. And it just feels like, I think this is a thing that happens still is people underestimate the difference between like music that sounds good live and it's fun to see. And then like recorded music, we're still like, we're working with that gap somehow and so I don't

know that this feels like the original sin of that where they're like yeah we all love being in church and hearing the like a really good chorus just nail it so here's that experience and then it just sounds like shit just sounds creepy and screechy uh what's something you think is overrated brian all right i'm gonna stick with films films and uh i love films so i saw another movie this weekend and this movie just pissed me right the way off uh-oh did it cheese you off um okay so this film is called Soft and Quiet, and it is literally overrated. It's got an 87 on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's got an 82 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating universal acclaim. And here's a little snippet of a review. A painfully timely horror-fueled thriller, Soft and Quiet forces the viewer to confront the ugly underbelly of modern American race relations. And to that I say, no the fuck it doesn't. It really, really seriously. Because this movie was, I'm just going to say it, it was straight trash. Straight trash. It was not good.

It was one of those movies where I saw the reviews, right? And I'm like, I don't watch trailers usually. And I see horror, thriller. I'm like, okay, watch trailers usually and i i see horror thriller i'm like okay that's the vibe i'm looking for horror thriller and i knew race was an element and this movie ended up being are you familiar with mumblecore jack uh-huh yeah so it was ended up being a mumblecloth brothers yeah it ended up being a mumble. Plus brothers. Yeah. It ended up being a mumble core nightmare with everybody talking over each other as they do in mobile core movies. And I won't get into spoilers, but it literally it goes from these these Karens essentially meeting up for a racist get together that is very blunt and unsubtle. And there's literally a pie with a swastika on it.

Wow. And it's like, you didn't need to. That's a little too on the nose. And then it just gets stupider from there. This is basically the sound sound of freedom but for racism it's that bad right it gets racism wrong and yeah it's it's it totally gets raised the same way that sound of freedom gets human trafficking yeah it just yeah there are simpler, less stupid and embarrassing ways to depict racism in America than what they chose. It's really baffling.

So, yeah, a literally overrated film, soft and quiet. Piece of shit. There you go. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Talk about news. news. 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.

for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right. In our own world, we're two space cadets and

totally normal humans. Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right. Right.

And if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey! Join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World

as a part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry,

we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre.

It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish

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And there's a story coming out of Gaza that I feel like could get lost in the avalanche of devastating news, but I think it's worth stopping and just acknowledging. So IDF snipers killed three innocent israeli captives who had escaped and were trying to get rescued and they came out with their arms raised uh

torsos bared literally waving a white flag and were summarily executed by the idf only later was it revealed that they were innocent Israelis and not innocent Palestinians, at which point it became news. But this is like, acknowledge this is being like reported on from like by the sun, like the UK newspaper, the sun, not,

not exactly a pro Palestinian rag. No, um, it's just worth acknowledging that this is what is going on. They seem to be out of the bombing everything to rubble

phase in Gaza and have moved into the shooting everything that moves phase. And if three Israeli hostages waving a literal white flag can't even be spoken to before they're killed and israeli hostages are the reason they're there uh is supposedly it's probably time to ask what what they're actually doing there and whether

uh they should be there but um it's yeah it's it's horrifying this uh writer moin rabani wrote the incident confirms yet again that israeli soldiers are authorized to shoot dead both surrendering combatants and civilians waving flags of surrender under current conditions in the gaza strip and despite the israeli military being fully aware it it may encounter live Israeli captives, ostensibly a key reason for their presence there. It may additionally be the case that soldiers are being encouraged by their commanders to shoot anything that moves. So yeah, it's not great.

It's pretty fucking horrifying. That's war crimes. You can't shoot people waving a white flag of surrender. Look, we're well past that, Jack. Yeah. Right. Yeah. How bad of a war crime do you think someone would have to commit for people to start giving a shit about war crimes again?

They seem to be in search of an answer to that. You think of white phosphorus or a napalm? Like, yeah. Cause that, that, that goalposts keep shifting of like, yep.

Biden saying, uh, Israel's, we want you out of there by Christmas, which doesn't seem likely at this point. Also seems kind of arbitrary. Why not now? Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Like, oh, so they can play soccer like in world war two. Yeah. Also seems kind of arbitrary. Why not now? Yeah, right. Like Christmas. Oh, so they can play soccer like in World War II. Yeah, I think that's the hope. On the other side, wanted to do a quick check-in with Donald Trump's rhetoric.

Over the weekend, he quoted Vladimir Putin and Viktor Or in speeches uh saying that he's innocent of his crimes uh he used the term hostages to describe people charged with violent crimes uh on january 6th um he and like he's he just seems to be ramping up his rhetoric the week after everyone was like, man, this guy might be an authoritarian. He's just gone full dictator. They were like, he's ramping up

that authoritarianism, almost like he wants to be a dictator, and he responded with the Jack Nicholson nodding and smiling crazily meme. Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean,

this is a surprise to no one. It actually seems late. He's been an authoritarian for a long time. Yeah. Like some of the stuff is like, he's also using blatantly like white supremacist eugenicist language around undocumented immigrants claiming they are quote poisoning the blood of our country.

But like in the past, he had just made that statement to hard right conservative outlets. But this time he's's using it in his political speeches and the thing that people are grasping at for hope is also kind of depressing to me. People were like,

Nikki Haley's gaining on Trump in New Hampshire. Hell yeah. That just means she's at 29% to his 44%. In Iowa it's 58% to 13%. So, I mean, I guess you gotta start somewhere. But I also feel like the two factors are not unrelated.

Like, Trump is saying this wild shit and getting more popular because, you know, his base is... You know, there are enough people who are racist and, uh, there is, I think a broad sense, uh, among people that,

um, there's just been years of ineffectual leadership where like the president is clearly not acting on behalf of people, but like instead on behalf of corporations. And so, you know, for a while now there's been this unstated in the mainstream media, hope that like someone's going to come through and step outside of that

system. And like, I don't know, I feel like there are probably a lot of people who are like, yeah, let's go with an authoritarian at least. Well, that's the, well, that's the interesting thing because okay so with like your joe biden's they

have shareholders essentially like there's a bunch of people in line ahead of the constituency that he has to appease right yeah so with an authoritarian he's free to just throw that out the fucking window and do whatever he wants now that doesn't that might not be good for a lot of the constituency but it's oddly closer i want to say because in theory seems like it could be close because it's not he's not he's not necessarily going to appease the shareholders first he's going to appease his ego right yeah much better and that there might be a little more crossover with the people who are into what he's throwing down yeah to you know get something out of it i don't know what that something is but they're getting something out of it. I don't know what that something is, but they're getting something out of it.

And I think that something's white supremacy. Yeah, I think for white supremacists, this is the answer to a lot of long-held beliefs where they're like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Everyone's acting like whites aren't supreme. And the, but I also, yeah, I think there's something that's very real there with people looking at,

you know, Joe Biden trying to forgive student debt and like throwing his hands up and being like, it's out of my hands, guys, or like trying to forgive student debt and like throwing his hands up and being like, it's out of my hands guys are like trying to pass like this progressive legislation that he promised. And, you know, just repeatedly saying it's out of my hands.

And if anything good happens, it's like some weird little writer on some other shit. That's not for us. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I just think the, not for us yeah yeah so i don't know i i just think the it's being treated as like trump is succeeding despite the authoritarian like him saying these authoritarian things and i think

it's probably more accurate that he's succeeding at least partially because of that which is fucking scary a scary place for the country to be um so um yeah not great though yeah uh all right let's take a quick break and we'll be back i'm jess casavetto executive producer of the hit netflix documentary series dancing for the devil the 7m tikt. 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. Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right.

And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Spring. Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J. And more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you got to listen. Like if you're watching us, you have to tell us like if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just just you know what? Listen to the Amber and Lacey Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha Libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre.

And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring.

This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. And we're back and

Arlington National Cemetery will remove their Confederate Memorial this week. Hey, it only took a couple hundred years. That's right. It sits in Arlington National Cemetery, and it is set to be removed later this week, out by the end of the year per a Department of Defense directive on renaming and or removing Confederate monuments. Republicans, of course, not happy about this, claiming the

memorial should stay because according to a letter signed by more than 40 House Republicans, it does not honor nor commemorate the Confederacy, this Confederate monument, but rather the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity. And who

it is the statue of? I believe there are slaves involved in it. And so even the Arlington National Cemetery website admits the sculpture includes a nostalgic,

mythologized vision of the Confederacy with highly sanitized depictions of slavery. And among those calling for the statue's removal include the family of the original artist who said in a statement that, quote, this statue intended to rewrite history to justify the Confederacy and the subsequent racist Jim Crow laws. It glorifies the fight to own human beings and in its portrayal of African-Americans implies their collusion. This seems like not a great statue that you'd think they would be removing by breaking it to pieces or like putting it in a mysterious warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant, but actually it's

just moving to a different park. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is going to move it to New Market Battlefield State Historical Park where the DOD has no power. One of my favorite battlefield parks.

It's a good one. The water slides are sick there. Oh, man. All right. So there's this New York Post article that they just continue to try and sweatily dunk on

young people. I think they're just like harvesting boomer rage clicks by being like look at look at these helpless youngs um so let's see who wrote this yeah um i mean somebody who's probably just knows what their editors want uh but one of one of their articles that made the social media rounds this weekend blasted gen Z's menu anxiety problem. Kids today are just, quote,

too scared to order their own meals. Gen Z suffers from menu anxiety when dining out, with many too scared to order their own meals, is the tweet from the New York Post. So the science is there. I mean, this is based on a study conducted by a british pizza chain which is where most of our most of the science that we cite on this show is studies from various

pizza chains not always british um but because british pizza chains don't make pizza that anyone wants to eat. They have tons of time for research. I was wondering, I was like, is that going to be any good? Best pizza I had in the like time that I spent living in Ireland, which I know is not Britain, but it was a pizza hut,

a pizza hut, personal pan pizza. So so um ouch that's uh maybe it's changed that was a long time ago but i hope so and also like the menu anxiety was reportedly triggered by uh the increasingly exorbitant cost of a meal out like even the study says that so like the headline makes it sound like anyone under 30 is just like irrationally afraid of an inanimate object like the menu and yeah i hate the framing of this like yeah it's you know it's clearly i mean you look at the uh the author's page and they clearly have some sort of mandate to work Gen Z into, uh, at least,

at least 30% of their headlines. What else you got on there? Well, there's one that says, uh, Gen Zers hate email, but so do the rest of us. What do we do now?

And it's like, what the fuck does that have to do with anything? But, uh, uh, that's amazing. Yeah i mean that like so yeah it's just anxiety around how much it costs to eat out which is very uh understandable understandable and common to everyone like hatred of email uh everybody can identify with that and also like anxiety around decision-making has always been a thing like choice overload choice.

Uh, fatigue, uh, has been studied for decades. I've had many, many people in my life who, uh, um,

yeah, like eating out with like a group of people. And that, that for some people that's pressure, like having everybody's ordering in a circle and you gotta be ready when the person gets to you. And yeah, it stresses some people out just eating out prices aside.

So it's like, uh, I can totally see how, yeah. Uh, yeah. Let me see. I mean,

I don't really go out to the new places unless I check out the menu first. It's just what you do. I don't know. To me, I if Yelp didn't exist, I wouldn't know what to order. I yeah, ordering that is a thing like ordering at a restaurant is a skill and some people have it and some people use Yelp to cheat at it. have it and some people use Yelp to cheat at it and I am in the latter category but like in the same way that you know they say that like Chuck Close the great portrait artist had face blindness but like in having face blindness he like break the face down into its component parts and like do an amazing job of like painting a portrait I because I don't have the skill, I look at a menu and I don't see music. I see a bunch of choices of ways

that this could go horribly wrong. And so I recognize in other people, this is a great skill that some people have and I will just cheat off of their order. I'll be like, you order first and then i'll be like i'll have what he's having um because they are better at it than me like i i work with like archetypes like i'm very habitual so it's like if i go to a certain genre of restaurant i already have an idea in my mind of what sort of thing i'm gonna get whether i

whether or not i've been there before i'm like i'm going to italian um you know i like creamy sauces and like uh salty meats and stuff like that man that's also what i like but saying creamy sauces and salty meats uh just grosses me out for some reason. But yeah. What do you have? Do you ever verbalize it that way? What do you have that's creamy-sauced and salty-meated? Only when I want to embarrass my partner.

Yeah, there you go. What do you have in a salty meat, good sir? I'll have your finest salty meats, please. My wife does not like salty things, and so it has been called to my attention that I eat some salty-ass meats. I eat some salty-ass everything. I love me some pancetta, man. Yeah, yeah.

It's so good. Get that cheddar. And by cheddar, I mean pan cheddar. Finally, the Pope has okayed same-sex blessings with a massive asterisk. But the formally approved same-sex blessings in a new document that also stresses that people shouldn't be subject to exhaustive moral analysis,

which is weird coming from catholicism but okay seems to be like a eternal machine of exhaustive moral analysis it's um i can't think of a better definition for catholicism than that but this is the cool pope this is the come on man just love one another he's the cool pope he smokes dope that, come on, man. Just love one another. He's the cool Pope. He smokes dope. That's right. As it, do we know, has this Pope smoked weed?

Has he commented? I'm sure it'll come out soon enough. He'll be on Joe Rogan smoking a blunt guy like that. Come on. Just no way. He's not getting high, not token up. Um,

but yeah, so seemingly a far cry from the Vatican's previous, uh, congregation for the doctrine of the faith. Yeah. The CDF CDF. Yeah. Yeah. Of course that we all, we remember when that bomb dropped and we were all just eagerly reading.

Um, but, uh, that one stated the church can't bless the unions of two men or two women because god cannot bless sin oh okay they say the same shit about like any couple that had premarital sex you know um but the the church is not the coolest hippest of institutions um but so the new document follows up on a letter that Pope Francis published in October, which suggested that there could be ways and I've

been talking to God, there might be some ways to bless same-sex unions. Like maybe if I do it with my eyes closed. Maybe I do it with my eyes up closed. sorry for the south america yeah or whatever wherever he's from i don't know where he's from he's brazilian argentinian i forget he's from i don't know why i assumed he was just italian um just a couple tiny massive uh caveats

here the document reaffirms the church's position that marriage is only between a man and a woman and stresses that any blessings conferred upon a same-sex couple can't be done at the same time as a civil union or using set rituals from a civil union or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding. So the church can now bless a gay couple, but they'd better not be dressed in formal wear is essentially the, the rules here.

So it's the church's version of civil union. They just, they changed all the trappings, but you can still get it. Yeah. But it's just, we can't call it what it is yeah right god will get mad yeah and he'll send locusts he will send locusts he will send locusts and and various

poxes upon your house uh the document also underscores that any quote irregular unions are in a state of sin so these couples can still receive a blessing uh which is like a nice wave from the pope on their way to hell according to the catholic church like all right well that was nice he's like all right have a nice trip see you next exactly um anyways so unclear uh where this all shakes out. Uh, I w I would say we'll continue to pay attention and try and like rank all the orders of importance of the blessing versus the, uh, statement that it's still a sin. Uh, but I have been advised against exhaustive moral analysis.

So I think I'll just, you know, ignore the shit and continue to try and just be kind to people. Seems like maybe a way to go. Yeah, but what are you getting out of it, though? That's right. I got, I don't know. Yeah, no, I'm going to go back to the Catholic Church way

because that way I can just like read up a lot on these, uh, all these doctrines and then sound smart as hell and, uh, maybe find a way to tie in Taylor Swift to my condemnation of the modern world. Um, all right,

Brian, that's going to do it for us on this, uh, Monday, December 18th. We are back tomorrow with a whole last episode of the show. Uh, Where can people find you, follow you,

any of that good stuff? You can't find me. Don't follow me. Yeah, leave them alone. How about that? And you can't fool me again. Can't fool me again. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice.

You can't get fooled again. Yeah, yeah. All right. Back tomorrow. 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. 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 Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. 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.