The Daily Zeitgeist - Manafort Probed, George Clooney Sucks At Racial Commentary 10.31.17

Episode Date: October 31, 2017

In episode 17, Jack & Miles are joined by comedian Shannon Coffey to discuss Robert Mueller & his charges against Paul Manafort, Kevin Spacey's apology, Larry David's new season of Curb, George Clooney & Suburbicon, Albert Einstein, & more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. nerfs the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. They're just dreams. stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to season four, episode two of the Daily Zeitgeist for October 31st. It's Halloween.

Nice spooky noises, guys. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Potatoes O'Brien, a.k.a. Young Jack. I should have come up with an a.k.a. that like ties into Halloween, but I didn't. And I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Hello.

Shout-outs to the LA Dodgers, who will have to do the business tonight to keep my dream alive. And we are thrilled to be joined by Shannon Coffey. Yeah, that's me. Yeah. Halloween. What up? Hilarious stand-up.

Thank you. Shannon, what's something that you've searched on your phone in the not-too-distant past that you believe is revealing about who you are as a human being? Oh, mucus and stool. What does it mean? I actually went to the bathroom and it was 100% yellow mucus. And I was like, what? Stranger things. That's like a newborn baby.

Yeah. Don't newborn babies have like a mucus poop? No. No. Newborn babies have like black tar poop that is the worst and like stickiest thing you've ever encountered. But that's because like there's no digestive juices in like what's coming out like in their initial. It's just breast milk basically. Yeah it's called.

Muconium or some shit like that. But I bet that's not why. You haven't been drinking a lot of breast milk have you Shin? No I haven't been latching on to any titties lately. Latching. Latching is what's important. A key term. Yeah a key term.

Write that down. Look it up. I don't know what caused the mucus to be honest all right well we will we'll check in with you on that at a later date and see how that resulted did what you search were the results like alarming yeah it was all like stomach cancer yeah uh you have something stuck in your colon and i was like probably like i don't know you know i have a cat she likes to hide things right she might have hit something in your in your colon that's what i'm guessing is happening uh shannon what's one thing you believe to be overrated overrated oh man let's see um you know i would say teeth overrated who needs them, man. Who needs them, huh?

That's true. You just get dentures. Yeah. Yeah. Or you just mean like just the act of chewing with teeth is overrated. Oh, looking at them, you know? I'm so tired of looking at teeth all the time. Everybody's smiling at me.

I like a nice toothless smile. Yeah. No, I don't know. I panicked. I was like, I looked around and I was like, what's in this room? Teeth. Teeth. Anything underrated that you want to talk about?

Underrated? Cats. Cats are underrated. Not getting enough respect on the streets, I'd say. Yeah. The internet usually hates cats. You're saying cats are cool? Yeah, the internet hates cats.

No, I think cats are cute, but cats also have healing powers like crystals. Like if you sleep with a cat in your room? Yeah. Did you know that back in the day, witches used to bring cats into homes instead of crystals because people were like crystals that's like too that's too devilish but they're like cats still devilish but uh i'll i'll let them in my house another fact about cats is that people used to think that they inhaled people's souls because they would always be found sitting on dead people's faces for some reason, like back in the day. I think it was probably just because it was warm.

It was like the last warm thing. For the moment, yeah. And they just always wanted to do that. They'd been like, God, I've been dying to sit on this motherfucker's face, and finally he's not going to. Not as good as I thought it would be. Right, right. My cat doesn't wait for me to die to sit on my face. She's just like, you are a pillow.

She also, if I sleep too late, will chew on my fingers. So I think she's dying for me to die so she can eat. So she just straight up eats you. Yeah, she's like, she's tasty. You always hear about dogs eating their owners when their owners are paralyzed or whatever. When you hear about facial transplants, that's usually what has happened is somebody passed out for a long time and their dog ate their face. That's a good sign of love.

Honestly, if I was going to die, instead of burying my body like a dumbass, I'd be like, let my pet eat me. Then you become one with your pet. Animal buffet, yeah. Like the Kevin Spacey movie, Nine Lives. Bringing it back to the news.

Hold on. I still can't get over the fact that you're saying a lot of facial transplants are from people who are like... There's probably been two facial transplants that I'm aware of that that happened in. But it is weird that that seems to have happened multiple times. And I do think that that happens sometimes. Wow. The dog just gets hungry. Fuck it.

You're not going to say shit. I'm going to eat your face off. Right. So let's get into the news, you guys. We are trying to take a sample of the ideas that are out there changing the world, whether you are looking at them or not. We talk about politics, the president, the news. We also talk about movies and supermarket tabloids. And today we are going to start.

Actually, real quick, I want to talk to you guys about the World Series. Yes. We live in Los Angeles. I don't want to get too deep into just a weird thing I always look out for after the day after a big victory or loss. The next game is tonight. But two days ago, there was a big World Series game that Los Angeles lost. Just barely. Yeah, it was an insane game.

So there's this study where scientists say that whether a home team wins or loses can actually swing the vote in an election like a week or two later by up to five percent and basically the way they say it is uh the way they say it works is that if the home team wins uh the local people are five percent more likely to vote for the incumbent because their brain is essentially flooded with dopamine from like the happy event of, you know, the team winning. And so when they go into that booth and are thinking like, how do I feel about my life? They are 5% more likely to be like, yeah, I'm good with how things are going. So I want to vote for the incumbent. And, you know, a lot of politics actually breaks down to that, like how you feel about your life at that moment.

And, you know, arguably, that's where Trump came from. But I do think sports is just interesting from that perspective, in that it is like like this mass mover of dopamine in entire populations brains you know uh it like gives people a huge dose of dopamine if they win and i guess whatever the opposite of dopamine is if they lose nopamine nopamine there it is yeah it is weird because i think la has like some of the worst fair weather fan problems ever. Growing up in L.A. being a diehard Lakers fan, and Dodgers not so much now, but as a kid I was, you can see the momentum just swell up whenever a team is doing well in the postseason. And yeah, it does give people a little, it gives you something to be excited about.

My girlfriend, who absolutely doesn't, not really that interested in baseball at all, was suddenly enthralled by everything. And I think it's good because it gives you something to feel like, oh, well, if we win, I can take that on in my day. But it's interesting that you say that because now I want to look at NFL scores on the Sunday before the election in, like, swing states. Right. Because the Steelers lost to the Ravens before the election. Right. So I wonder if they were like, well, fuck this.

Yeah. Anyway. I don't know if people care that much about NFL anymore i'm just doing it i'm trying to make sense of it well i like a really good place you can see it uh is nebraska because like their entire state like travels and like right like a a big chunk of their state's population is in the football stadium on any given like saturday where like they that city's population like tri the football stadium on any given like Saturday where like they, that city's population like triples in size. Right.

Uh, when, when there's a football game there. I feel, I've met a lot of Nebraskans too who live out here who seemingly look like they have no interest in sports and someone will ask about like tangentially, like something about a college football game and then they'll just jump right in with it. Oh yeah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Oh wow.

Yeah man. Fucking Huskers bro. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. Uh, go, blah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, man. Fucking Huskers, bro. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. Go Dodgers, I guess. Yes. Go Dodgers.

So, the game is going to be tonight while people are trick-or-treating? Yes. And it will be a trick or a treat, depending on what side of it all you're on. It will certainly be a trick or a treat for sports headline writers. Shannon, do you have any skin in the game? No. I actually thought we won the last game and just found out we didn't win the last game. I'm kind of always...

So it's all about the sports nut. Yeah, I'm super into it. You know, I have this weird thing in my brain. I'm really simple that I always think I'm winning. I love that. That's like Kanye. Yeah, I have like a little Kanye-ism in my brain. That's never a bad thing.

Yeah. All right, so I guess there's something going on with Paul Manafort in the news. I thought we weren't going to talk about this. It's nothing. Right. It's a nothing burger. Yeah, if you watch Fox News, you'll realize that they're talking about more important things like hamburger emojis. When really, yes, it's the beginning of,

I'm not going to say the end, but shit is starting to pop off. Right. Now, we don't know for sure. Theoretically, it's possible that this is all he has. He found while he was investigating Trump and his advisors during the election, he found that this crime took place years ago. But the theory, the working theory of among anyone who knows anything about the law seems to be saying that this is how you conduct one of these investigations. You try and flip a lower level person by getting them into trouble. It's just crazy that their first low level person is someone who was the campaign advisor

for two months. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think, and yes, to be fair, none of these charges directly relate to the campaign at all. So that, that there is an element of truth to that. But what the other thing is they don't talk about is George Papadopoulos, who to the Trump people are saying was a low level guy. He actually pled guilty. They unsealed that he pled guilty earlier in October to actually lying to the FBI about, you know, conversations he had had with Russian actors about getting, quote unquote, dirt on Hillary Clinton. And, you know, the White House is very quick to be like, oh, this guy is low level, you know, whatever.

But there are photos of him in like, you know, national security like meetings during the campaign as if like this is someone who is advising us. So it's like he was the guy handing out, you know, MAGA hats in front of the convention center. Right. And so the thing he said at first was he had connections to this Russian professor, but he had them before he ever worked for the Trump campaign. And then he came back and was like, yeah, that was a lie.

I actually met this Russian professor who allegedly had dirt on Hillary Clinton three days after I started working for the Trump campaign. And, oh, yeah, this professor has, like, ties to the Kremlin. And what's also interesting, too, is, like, he first met with the FBI in February. And that's when he was kind of lying. He was like, no, no, no, no, there's nothing weird going on. And he's like, I'll totally cooperate. Like, I think the next day or two days after, he deactivates his Facebook account,

like, starts a new one that has no, no like paper trail of him communicating with anyone. And then like starts like using his cell phone, starts using a new phone. And then in July, he tried to, you know, bounce out of town and they arrested him at Dulles Airport, which is when apparently he's been cooperating since then. Yeah. So enthusiastically, right? Yeah. He's an enthusiastic cooperator. Proactive.

I think proactive cooperation is what they call it in the indictment. So I think that's code for he's been wearing a wire in every conversation. Or making phone calls like, hey, remember when we were like fucking colluding with Russia? What do you think about that? Do you remember that? So, yeah, I think, again, the Manafort stuff is definitely a setup move to get him to talk. And I think also by revealing Papadopoulos today, that's letting Manafort know we already have someone who is talking to us. Right. So and the thing that was already known about Manafort.

So the media isn't covering it as much. But the thing that got him fired in the first place from the Trump campaign and the thing that he was, you know, hiding the money from was a shady relationship. He was like advising a guy who wanted to be like take power in Ukraine, eventually got him to take power. And that person was the preferred like political leader of Vladimir Putin. So it's like the thing that he that Manafort and Trump are being accused of doing, like Manafort had already done that in the Ukraine, essentially. And like the thing that he's in trouble for is that he hid the money and like sort of laundered the money from doing that. So I don't know. I don't feel like that's being mentioned that much, because I think people knew that he did all this stuff like last summer. So it's not like new news, but it is still, I don't know, it's still worth bringing up.

Well, at the time when he became the campaign manager, a lot of people were like, this is the guy who like helped Viktor Yanukovych rise to power in Ukraine. Right. So what, and he doesn't really work much in the u.s so it's almost like this is the guy whose specialty is like propping up people who are pro-russia right so he also came to dc to like sort of portray victor yankovic as this pro-western democrat leader uh then as you remember in 2014 uh he was deposed uh by the people like he straight up had to leave Ukraine and go to Russia because everyone could could smell the Russia fuckery going on. Right. And he cannot go back to Ukraine because he's one on charges of high treason.

So this it's a fucking this is not a good look for anybody. This is not the guy you want uh working on your behalf and also just the other thing is that the ken star report which is the last uh big investigation like this into a presidency uh that started out investigating whitewater and basically like land deals that the clintons were supposedly involved. And that ended up being the Monica Lewinsky investigation. So, I mean, these cases can be really far ranging. And the thing that they start out looking for might not end up being the thing that is the most surprising finding, I guess. Oh, man, that's such a bummer. Imagine if Trump just gets to run off to Russia and we can't even get him and he's living large

and he's still tweeting and we're like, can we at least deactivate his account? And Twitter's like, no. Freedom of speech, man. Freedom of speech, we love it. Right. Well, he could live with Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden and Steven Seagal. Right. So that's already a weird buddy comedy coming together. That would be a fucking great sitcom.

Alright, we're going to take a quick break. That would be a fucking great sitcom. All right. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back after that. 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. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017,

was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Bruce Bozzi. On my podcast, Table for Two,

we have unforgettable lunch after unforgettable lunch with the best guest you could possibly ask for. People like Matt Bomer. Thank you for that introduction. I'm going to slip you a couple of 20s under the table for that. Emma Roberts. When it came into my email inbox, I was like, okay, I know I'm going to love this so much that I don't even want to read it. Because if I can't be in it, I'm going to be bummed.

And Colin Jost. You know, your wife was the first guest on Table for Two. It's come full circle. As long as I do better than her, I'm happy. Table for Two is a bit different from other interview shows. We sit down at a great restaurant for a meal, maybe a glass of rosé, and the stories start flowing. Our second season is airing right now, so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious. Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 and we're back um so while uh the manafort thing was breaking i guess a little bit before it uh

news dropped on on sunday night that uh kevin spacey was being accused of sexually assaulting uh the actor anthony rapp when anthony rapp was 14 and spacey was 26 um and kevin spacey's response was to uh issue a statement that i don't know do you have that handy miles yeah uh kevin spacey on his twitter posted uh this message. Quote, I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I'm beyond horrified to hear his story. I honestly do not remember the encounter. It would have been over 30 years ago.

But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate, drunken behavior. And I'm sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years. This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life. I know that there are stories out there about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I've been so protective of my privacy. As those closest to me know, in my life, I've had relationships with both men and women. I've loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life.

And I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly, and that starts with examining my own behavior. End quote. Lame. Wow. He's so lame. I'm so annoyed by this statement.

So why are you annoyed by this statement? Aside from the obvious problems, right? Yeah, he's just glossing over the fact that he's a pedo who assaulted this kid a teenager 14 year old yeah like he's just like oh man i'm sorry if i did that i don't really remember because i was drunk which is like all these excuses he's not even owning up to it and then he's using being gay as like this reason to actually like celebrate and like he just wants to be like hey guys the bigger deal is i'm out it's like really you could have been out this whole time and actually like i thought he was already out right i personally can't believe the spaceman

is gay i mean that guy that guy's really no yeah i'm just joking mr macho himself yeah no i always i think i think it was like openly assumed he was gay and the fact that he wasn't out was seen as kind of strange on his part. It's I mean, I think I know amongst Hollywood, it was pretty well known, like just sort of an unspoken thing. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think people have to come out. But I think it's lame that now he's trying to use it to get out of trouble. Right. It's it is strange. Right. It's it is strange. And I, you know, I saw people like members of the gay community being like coming out as gay is not the same as coming out as like a pedophile. And like, this is a stigma that like that. That was a thing that people like there's an old public service announcement that's like, watch out for the homosexual, like around your kids kids and stuff, where they, like, conflate being gay with being a pedophile. And people were like, you know, we've had to fight that stigma for so long. And then for, like, this famous dude to come out and be like, hey, speaking of me being a pedophile.

And also rhetorically to say that I choose now to live as a gay man. Yeah, like, everything he wrote there's so problematic and harmful to the gay community it's just like that choice thing and it's crazy too he if you really like add up the lines like he devotes more lines to the in the second half to talk about his own sexuality than he does actually owning up and apologizing to someone that he you know quite possibly sexually assaulted yeah even the first line i have a lot of respect and admiration for anthony rap it's like we're not talking about him as an actor asshole right well it almost sounds like the beginning of him defending somebody like if anthony rap was

in a scandal right you'd be like first i like to say i have a lot of respect and admiration for anthony rap that's not how you start like a sincere, wholehearted apology for, you know, sexually assaulting, sexually assaulting a fucking 14 year old. Right. And yeah, it also just in retrospect, in retrospect, I've always found American beauty to be,

uh, somewhat disturbing. I think I was like at a weird age. Like, I think I was like, you know, 14 when I first saw the movie American beauty. And so it wasn't quite as creepy to me because the teenage girl that he was creeping on was probably a couple years older than me.

Right. So I was like, you know, didn't. But now as an adult rewatching that movie, it's so fucking creepy. re-watching that movie it's like so fucking creepy like and it he's a protagonist and like the way the ways that he is like shown sort of uh rebelling against society is like quitting his job and like telling everybody fuck you and then like basically like lusting after a teenager and like yeah i mean lolita i get it but lolita it's like written by a master and i don't know lolita was supposed to be like a horror story it was supposed to be scary right yeah not like midlife crisis this is what i'm gonna do right also another creepy fact is that thora birch was

only 17 in that nude scene yeah which is like yikes okay um well so uh isn't he like straight up jerking off thinking about these this he almost has sex with her yeah well yeah it's just there's like a very near sex scene and like yeah there's a part where he's jerking off thinking about her uh i don't know it's like one of those things like the other american movie that is unwatchable now american pie like that whole thing where like they're filming a girl naked and like everybody's watching it and it's like whoa yeah we both knew what this uptake shannon you were saying that uh that you love american pie no i'm just you were saying that uh

i said that i i love sexual baked goods, but not that movie. Like, I will definitely fuck a loaf of bread. But, you know, the movie was, I don't know, I didn't like it. Yeah, it's weird when you go back and watch movies and you're like, consent doesn't exist. Right. But you're saying that Curb, like the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm is like sort of like that? Yeah. I, you know, I used to watch back in the day, and I didn't remember it being problematic,

but that first episode is so bad where he's just basically telling this lesbian woman that she can't be a bride because she doesn't look femme enough. And it's just like, I mean, there's no moment until the very end where they even call out Larry David. Right. But it's not even a good call out. And it's like too little too late. And'm just like where did i don't know like what is his it doesn't seem like he is part of the joke where he's like i'm writing myself to be an outdated old man i feel like he's trying to be edgy and be like look at me i have gay characters in my show

right yeah and also the way yeah like you're saying the way they're talking about carrie brownstein her character too they're like making fun of her what happens in in the carrie brownstein thing so she is basically a crappy assistant that he is trying to get rid of but she has um she has like a one shorter leg and they make fun of her for having like a boot they make fun of her for limping and having a cane they like in one scene call her a bitch like in every other line and it's not like it's like aggressive and negative and it's not like you know i mean like we all call each other bitches sometimes around here you know that's fine no you incessantly call me a bitch yeah actually but out of love you know right the

context matters i guess yeah so also they're saying that her character had been had like her uncle had sex with her and it's like sort of flippantly just sort of like it's weird i don't know like it's very weird like i i couldn't sometimes i watched it twice because i made somebody else watch it to be like am i just being super sensitive like am i somehow the biggest snowflake and they were like this is this is really bad. It was weird because I love Curve. Like, I think it's a great show. And watching that first episode, it was like one of the first times I had the same thing like you. I was just kind of like, yo, what?

Like in the past. This is 2017. Like, I don't know. It felt different, right? Because normally Larry is all about pushing against like conventional social norms of of what it is to be polite or whatever and things like that. Holding the elevator door for someone or whatever. Right. And now it's just some of the way the humor is derived now just was, yeah, it was a little – I was watching, kind of scratching my head.

The laughs I had weren't wholehearted, like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, kind of shit. I was like, oh, damn. I barely, I don't think I laughed once. I think I was just kind of like, wow, really? HBO? Nobody read this before? I laughed the hardest when the dude from Iran was reading the Fatwa, I think. That was my favorite part, because he was speaking Farsi.

Oh, I also did. And I was like, oh, they legit, they're doing it right how larry was like doing his voice i thought that wasn't cool either he was doing a voice of a guy oh yeah at the end he was just kind of like doing this like offensive voice it was a character like just like okay uh no i don't know bruh and they don't let up like he actually is is truly annoying this season where I'm just like, can you stop? Like, everything. It's like, oh, the way you're standing. Oh, the way you're doing this.

And it's like, oh, okay, you could take a break. Like, the whole point is that, like, it should be, like, fun to watch. Actually, Super Producer Anna Hosnia, you are caught up on Curb, right? Yes, I'm also Iranian. You are also Iranian. So speak on behalf of all Iranian people. Right. herb right yes i'm also iranian so you all are also speak on behalf of all iranian people so from my understanding larry david's daughter has a best friend who's iranian who's been living and staying with them for about a few months maybe up to like six months and um uh is this going to go in the american beauty direction or no jesus no and so the reason this new season has all this like weird like iranian references and fatwas

right ayatollahs is because i think he started to learn more about iran from his daughter's good friend who lived with them and i believe they did a web series together that i'm not sure it has anything to do with iran but that's the reason there's this focus. The focus, yeah, that Iran's kind of coming to the fore. And as an Iranian, the first episode I thought was kind of funny, like this whole Ayatollah declaring war on Larry David. It's just so random. In real life, the Ayatollah, it would never get to the Ayatollah. He's not going to see some Jimmy Kimmel special and be like, how dare he? So there's this really funny connection.

and be like, how dare he? So there's this really funny connection. But then as it goes on, it's kind of like, it becomes problematic in the sense that in the most recent episode of Not to Spoil Anything, he sees a brown man and assumes he's here to kill him for the fatwa. Isn't that just racism? Yeah. He just sees a brown man who's like, he has his hand in a cast,

so it's under his jacket, so we think that that's a gun so he just immediately stands up he yells fatwa and then empties the room because everyone starts screaming and running and it's like not it's just some guy who came to like to be you know at this funeral and that's the moment where i was like oh boy but then there's this other angle that i see i'm like it's kind of cool to see larry see Larry David bringing Iranians into like more of a mainstream curb light. But at the same time, you know, it's like they could have, you know, dealt with it better. Yeah. But he could have used that character and given him lines and a role and like something more so that you're like, OK, cool.

You're not just using them as puppets. Yeah. Or this joke that doesn't help them at all. Right. You know, he's, yeah, he, again, I think a lot of the fun of the show is about him doing things that's typically most people don't view as being right or the thing that they would ever do. Socially unacceptable. Yeah.

And now it's just, I don't know if it's just because like we're kind of running out of like the mundane things about life that are fun to make fun of or have him do that. Now we're entering sort of like a just new territory that doesn't quite have the same spirit well it just seems like a weird choice on his part to go after pc culture after trump just got elected by going after pc culture it's like what which point are you making or you know yeah are you are you saying trump was right to go after like racial and, you know, societal taboos like that? Yeah, that's the thing I don't understand. I don't know if he's fully self-aware.

Right. Because he seems like a smart guy. It's Larry David, you know? Yeah. I mean, he's a brilliant comedy writer. Very funny guy. But he's also been wildly rich and famous for uh many many years so that that doesn't do the best stuff for your uh attachment to reality yeah well because yeah and back to

sort of your point about there not being the correcting presence from another character on screen right like even when he would have like make flubs about black and white relationships there was always there was repercussions or someone who have to come in and be like, yo, you can't look. What the fuck are you doing? You can't talk like that. That was built into the narrative of the episode. And where this one just seems like unchecked, like like it's just it's just a hysteria. Hey, speaking of, you know, misguided attempts at addressing racial situations by people from Hollywood. What if I just kept going with that?

Like a paragraph. Jesus, man. Your segues are getting long, man. George Clooney just released a film that he directed and I think co-wrote and stars Matt Damon

and it is suburbicon called suburbicon and allegedly uh i i did not get to the theater to see it uh making me like almost the entire country because it is one of the least successful movies yet um and uh so basically it was a unproduced Coen brothers screenplay that they had written in the eighties, uh, that George Clooney got ahold of like back in oh suburbs with Matt Damon killing somebody in typical wacky Coen Brothers screenplay. The historical event was a black family moved into a white neighborhood, and all these white neighbors started harassing them openly. And it was this horrible, ugly, racist incident that, you know, I heard one commentator say, like, it wasn't that revealing for, you know, black families because they were aware that racism existed already. But it was really eye opening for white people in the north because they saw other white people sort of harassing this family. So anyways, George Clooney in the background of this story about Matt Damon getting away with wacky murder.

He has this actual historical event. He actually uses real footage from Levittown, like on the TV and shows like these neighbors freaking out. And basically he was like trying to juxtapose, I guess, like the two stories never interact. So there's, he just basically, he has two movies going on at once.

Such a bad idea. Glued a historical, like, you know, really intense commentary on race in the background of a movie that like tonally has nothing to do with that and like doesn't interact with it in any way. And basically the way he uses it is the black characters are supposed to serve as like this virtuous contrast. But I was listening to this podcast from Channel 33, The Ringer. It was Justin Harmony. condescending and the black characters are treated like you know archetypal inhuman you know like magical black guy and you know like archetypal black characters that aren't actual lived in characters they're just like there to prove some abstract point right and further your script on right which is i just think that maybe george clooney should take a step back from ever talking about race ever again, because he also, back in 2006, was accepting Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Syriana and gave this speech about how forward-thinking Hollywood was because they had given the actress Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1933.

But she was playing, like, a mammy character. She was playing a character in Gone with the Wind. And that film is basically – so Spike Lee came out and was like, you know, that film was basically saying that the wrong side won the Civil War and that black people should be enslaved. And she was like a happy slave who worked in the household. But Clooney, you know, in his well-intentioned but completely wrong headed, like poorly executed way, was like, see, look how progressive Hollywood is. They gave a black woman an Oscar back in 1933. Yeah.

For reaffirming a horribly negative stereotype. Right. And not challenging anyone, any viewers idea of what a black person could be like. Right. I mean, it's super embarrassing for George Clooney, but I do feel like it's really good that he's put out both of those opinions because he thinks that he's being an ally. He thinks he's a cool dude who gets it, and he genuinely doesn't know what he's saying

is not good. Right. But once he says it, you can be like, hey, let's shine a light on why that's not the right way to think. Right. And I think we need those examples. We need good people who have the wrong idea to be speaking out. Right. And I think we need those examples. Like, we need good, you know, good people who have, like, the wrong idea to be speaking out.

Right, right, right. So that we could be like, hey, guys, see, you're trying, but you're just not getting it. And this is what you should get. It's like, hey, but your ship is turned in the right direction. Yeah. You're just, you're not powering the ship the right way. Right.

Like, it's sad, because he's missing the mark. Like, he is trying, and he thinks he's doing a good job. He's like, look, I put some, you know, I put a black family on screen. And you're like, yeah, but you didn't make them real people. Exactly. Right. Yeah. This review from The Atlantic says his good intentions make Suburbicon all the more frustrating to behold its treatment of racism in 1950s America has the air of a rushed homework assignment.

And that's them fighting words in the atlantic right and i feel like we see a lot of this we see a lot of shows get like criticized for their first season being super whitewashed and then the second season they just throw in some new actors but those people don't really have good storylines it takes time like some people don't don't do it overnight but like transparent like transparent got way better once they got called out like right they got called out they took their criticism they at first fought a little bit but then by the end of it like that show actually i feel like pulled through yeah yeah for sure and stranger things i don't even remember there being

any like big critique on that but but season two is way better. Is it? Yeah. I haven't watched it yet. Was there any? I thought the first season was all white, except for one of the kids. One of the kids, yeah. Yeah, I think that's basically right. I just started watching, so don't spoil nothing. Everybody does.

I was more surprised that they had an after show attached to it, but that's a whole other thing. Got to get those views. I was more surprised that they had an after show attached to it, but that's a whole other thing. Got to get those views. And Rick and Morty got called out for having an all-male writing staff, and so they incorporated women into the writing staff this year. And I don't know if, like, the show itself is any more woke, but the show is just, like, way better from presumably from presumably having like those added points of view. So it's not just a bunch of white dudes in a room like cracking each other up. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. And we'll be right back after this. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudente. 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 Saner. 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. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist or wherever you get your podcasts. Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder

a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Bruce Bozzi. On my podcast, Table for Two, we have unforgettable lunch after unforgettable lunch with the best guest you could possibly ask for. People like David Duchovny. You know, New Yorkers have a reputation of being very tough, but it's not. It's not that way at all. They're very accepting.

Jeff Goldblum. Are you saying secret fries? Secret fries. What? That's what you're saying? Yeah. And Kristen Wiig. I just became so aware that I'm such a loud chewer. My husband's just like, sometimes I'll be eating and he'll just be looking at me. I'm like, I'm just eating. Like, I don't know how else to chew. Table for Two is a bit different from other interview shows. We sit down at a great restaurant for a meal and the stories start flowing. Our second season is airing right now so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious. that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious. Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. And we're back. So just a couple quick things before we go out. just a couple quick things before we go out. Uh,

Albert Einstein's handwritten theory about happiness just sold for $1.56 million. You guys. Um, and this drives me fucking crazy because, uh, I, so one of my pet peeves, it's like a thing that you start,

you'll notice everywhere. If you're looking for it, it's, uh, when like being good at one thing is confused with being good at another thing. And like this dominates like the book charts. You like have these like I'm a football coach and here's my book on like how to have a happy family or something. It's just like, yo, you don't like that's not your area of expertise.

Tell me about a nickel offense. Right. So I mean, defense. Einstein's theory of happiness is a calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness. That shit is just straight up like taken from a self-help book. Yeah. That's like phoning in advice to anyone it's it's so it's so nebulous right and oh man like i've seen that on a starbucks cup right my my favorite is a second note uh that he that also recently sold for 240 000 read, where there's a will, there's a way.

It's like, yo, dude. That is not even. I also fucking like that shit, though, that you can just write some bullshit on paper and people are like, yes, I will pay close to a quarter of a million dollars for that napkin. But they're not saying he coined those phrases, right? I don't. Well, he might have coined his theory on happiness. I don't know if he coined. Yeah, maybe if he invented where there's a will, there's a way in that moment, then that might be worth the money.

But the theory on happiness is just so it is generic bullshit you would read in a fucking horoscope. Practically, it's like if you open the dictionary up and looked up cliche right like that's what would be in a calm and modest life like i'm pretty sure he was trying to he could have gotten that from like a fake quote by abraham lincoln like that's what it sounds like he probably told him when he wrote that and you know who said that right abraham lincoln right didn't fit on the napkin you know who said that, right? Abraham Lincoln. Right. That didn't fit on the napkin. You know who said that, right? Me. I'm Einstein.

Is it expensive just because it's handwritten? I think so. Right? Because I think what he wrote doesn't matter, but they're just like, ooh, la la. Right. Yeah. He wrote this. Well, that's why people even when they get old hotel bills from Frank Sinatra, he just

signed the folio from checking out of a hotel. Right. It's got his name on it, and now I know that he drank a lot of Jack Daniels. Right. They're like, he invented bill hotels. Right. I've always said Einstein probably has, if not the most powerful brand, one of the most powerful brands.

If you could monetize Einstein as a brand, you would be so... The way that Jordan monetizes the jordan brand like einstein is so like internationally beloved that people just give him credit for every seemingly like remotely smart sounding quote like you know einstein said that shit um but yeah apparently he knew that his brand was powerful because that's how he would pay for stuff. Where if he didn't have money to tip someone, he's like, here, I'm going to write where there's a will, there's a way. That'll be worth money someday. So Einstein, bit of a cocky asshole.

You know what else is a bit of a cocky asshole? Who dat? I don't want to say this, but Jay-Z, kind of. I'm even having trouble saying this because I'm such a fan. I went to his show over the weekend in Vegas at the T-Mobile Center, which is a great venue, by the way. Not a bad seat in that building. Shout-outs to Joel Manalo, who took a picture of me from the second tier area. Shout-outs to T-Mobile.

Yeah. I was thinking about switching over. Should I? Hey, I started off as a broke drug dealer in college, and T-Mobile was the only company that I could actually get a phone line on and to this day i've stayed with them for being loyal to me so i was at the show the show the tickets say show starts today right vick mensa is supposed to open for him cut to 10 o'clock he's still not out vick mensa is not even out yet vick mensa it got bad vick mensa man i feel bad i don know, because they kept moving the screens. Because he had a very, not like elaborate video setup, but he had a video setup that I think something may have gone wrong.

But I felt bad because, first of all, people just started vomiting in the bathrooms and the concourses because I think they were getting too turnt up thinking the show would start. And then now we just had a bunch of people just spinning in their their seats, waiting for the show. Well, that's on them. You got to know your own limits. No, but that was just kind of funny. And then vomiting from Jay-Z anticipation, a new, and then there are other people who were just getting,

starting to get mad, like just blaming Vic Mensa for whatever reason. Like, well, I'm not, he, he better not even come out. Right.

And then he came out, no one was feeling it. Cause everyone was just like, dude, just get to the thing. Right. And then Jay came out and No one was feeling it because everyone was just like, dude, just get to the thing. But then Jay came out and killed it. Oh, all right. That's why I felt like.

What was he wearing? Was he wearing shorts? You know what? Dude, he had like a couple costume changes. So shout out to Beyonce for kind of getting in his mind. He's like, you can't wear one thing the whole show. Oh, good. Yes.

But it was very, they were very simple. Like first he had like a track suit on. Then he throw on like some jeans. It wasn't anything like he didn't come out like, you know, amazing headdress, but they were very simple. First, he had a tracksuit on, then he'd throw on some jeans. It wasn't anything like... He didn't come out in an amazing headdress, which would have been cool. I'm just obsessed with Jay-Z's legs. Have you seen his legs? His little legs?

Does he have great legs? No, he has the opposite of great legs. He's got little legs. Weird little legs. They're so tiny. They're chopsticks. His knees are always buckling in. Very smooth.

Not much hair. Well, don't ever say we didn't teach you guys anything. You now know that Jay-Z has weird little hairless legs. Shannon, thank you so much for joining us. This was a blast as always. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's been so much fun.

Where can people find you or follow you? Oh, you can follow me on Twitter. It's my last name. My first initial coffees. Coffee is C-O-F-F-E-Y. Aha. Like John coffee from the green mile. Yeah. Like to drink-O-F-F-E-Y. Aha. Like John Coffee from the Green Mile.

Yeah. Like to drink, but spelled different. Yeah, that's me. That's you? Yeah, that was me, yeah. Michael Clark Duncan? Yeah, that was me.

Rest in peace. Yeah, rest in peace. I always forget he's dead. It's a bummer. He is one of those celebrities you forget dead died. I choose not to believe. I'm like the way Elvis fans

refuse to believe that he's dead. I don't believe that John Coffey's dead. I also believe that none of us really die. Right. We all just keep on going. These are just

little meat suits that we're wearing. So is N.E.R.D. your favorite band? Yeah. That's what N.E.R.D. stands for. Never,

no one ever really dies. Really? Yeah. Oh. You learn something new every day and we learned a lot of new stuff today.

We did. What else are you up to? I'm sorry, I cut off where people can find you. Oh, no. I think go to Twitter. You can find me there.

You could, you know, my name. If you just Google it, you can find me on Instagram. I have my own podcast called That Annoying Podcast with my best friend, Rob Michael Hugel. Yeah, I have a show called That Annoying Comedy Show that happens at Open Space on Fairfax. That's the second tuesday of every month at 8 p.m you can go check me out there um i'm everywhere guys you're like water everywhere i'm a pisces so i am like water oh march 11th is my birthday whoa 311 yeah 311 that's dope my uh really close friend her son was born on 311 and her husband is like a huge like like

metal fan and he hates that his son was born on 311 i think it's kind of funny i mean he's not like actually pissed off about it but it is something he's like my first born son was born on 311 yeah over the weekend i tried to dress up as an alien and then i realized i looked exactly like that cover of 311 where they're all aliens yeah yeah and i was like man i tried to be an alien but I just look like the world's last 311 fan. Another trivia fact, also from Nebraska, 311. 311? I wouldn't guess that. Also has many fans, by the way.

Not that I'm one. I'm not a 311 fan. Oh, I am. But I just happen to know that they have a... Number is the color of your energy. There is a 311 cruise where you can go on cruise with the band 311. Oh, shit. Doug Benson. That's pretty cool. Perform performs on it all the time yeah okay well that's that's where my next vacation guys together uh

miles where can people find you other than on the 311 cruise yeah if i'm not incessantly googling more jay-z leg photos uh you can find me on twitter and instagram at miles of gray i personally am okay with jay-Z's legs. I'm just going to go out there. I'm not mad. I think they're nice. No, they're nice.

They're like, those are great legs. They just legs too. So, but they're, they're not like the old, like, you know,

Renaissance period thing, like where noble men wore like stockings to show how strong their legs were. Right. Show of power. Like he would not do well in that culture. Right. Right. And I'm stuck in the past.

Well, you can follow me at Jack underscore O-B-R-I-E-N. You can follow us at Daily Zeitgeist on Twitter, at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook page called The Daily Zeitgeist because we're clever. And we have a website called DailyZeitgeist.com where you can find the footnotes for this episode and all episodes where we link off to our sources for all the crazy shit we talked about today. That's going to do it for today. We'll be back tomorrow because it is a daily podcast. Thanks for listening.

Go Dodgers! Hey, I'm Gianna Pardenti. Thank you. 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. investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. You know, if you've been following 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 Hoyk, Alison Roman, and Ina Garten. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste

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