The Daily Zeitgeist - Movie Myths About The South & Right Wing Myths About Guns 11.6.17

Episode Date: November 7, 2017

In episode 22, Jack & Miles are joined by comedian Caleb Synan to talk myths about the South, mass shootings, & then some fun stuff including Diddy's name change, Larry David, & then producer Anna Hossnieh joins in to discuss Saudi Arabia. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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How did we decide? What are we calling this? Episode 1A of the Daily Zeitgeist. It is November 6, 2017. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Potatoes O'Brien, and I'm joined by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Hello, the original Black Samurai. Sorry to Donald Trump that I could not bring down the missiles with my katana. And we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by the hilarious stand-up, Caleb Sinan. That's right.

And I'm the original Black Knight. Oh, wow. See? I was cast. They replaced me halfway. Got a lot of warriors in the building. I can't believe he really said that. I thought that was an onion.

I thought it was, too. Someone tweeted that at us over the weekend, and I knew he was going to say something fucking off about Japan, aside from the they should have known better kind of remarks about the A-bombs, which is way crazy well he said that too yeah he was like you know some people have underestimated our response and that didn't go well whoa like you're in japan it's like yo bro you need to like anyway like speaking in that vague third person like threatened tone yeah he's also lens? Was he two when that happened?

How's he taking credit for that? We're living in a problem world, guys, and I'm just triggered by everything now. Caleb, what is something that you have searched in the not-too-distant past that is revealing about you? Well, I checked this a few minutes ago, and the last thing I searched was young Dr. Phil. I wanted to see if he had the mustache, how long the mustache had been there.

How long has it been there? Quite a while. Oh. Quite a while. Has he looked like this? I'd imagine he has looked exactly like this for, since at least the early 80s. Yeah, I think, well, I think it's an early 80s look. Yeah.

I think he's still in that. I also searched yesterday if moleskin notebooks were made of moleskin. And they're not. No? They're not. They're made of moleskine. Moleskine. Oh, and also, Dr. Phil, another person who benefited from the Oprah effect.

Yeah. Wasn't nobody until Oprah. We did talk about on our last episode. All right. What's something that you believe to be overrated? Ooh, I wrote down a bunch for this. I got real angry.

So I got into a wormhole. Overrated. Jelly. I think jam is so much better and I don't know why they sell jelly at all. Explain the difference. It's harder to spread jelly.

Jelly is just a thicker jam. It's like jello. It smushes your bread. Jelly is just a thicker jam. It's like jello. It smushes your bread. I think jam is 100 times better, and it's the same price. I don't know why people don't. Up until two weeks ago, I thought jam was just a word that British people used instead of jelly, but apparently jam is better. No, British people just know jam is better, and we don't need jelly.

It's crazy that we have it. Yeah. So that was the first one I got real angry about. There's no fruit in jelly, right? It's usually just colored spread. Yes. Versus like preserves or jam where it's like jam is so much better. I didn't know that until I bought jam and I bought jelly like on consecutive times.

And I was like, why is this so bad? My girlfriend asked me to get stuff for toast and she was adamant that it wasn't jelly. She's like, it preserves the good shit. Right. I think it's the maddest I've ever been in my life was when my mom said, I'm about to go to the grocery store.

What do you guys want? And I said, I told her this. I was like, I don't know why the jelly exists. Jam is so much better. Can you make sure to get jam? She goes, yeah. Comes back, it's jelly. Wow.

And I think it's the maddest I've ever been in my life i was probably eight and that's like a very together and demanding eight-year-old i like that's the only thing i'm a stickler about but i i can't it's insane it's like what do you think poison water or not poison and i'm like i can't it's crazy that was water or poison water that was when you ran away to new york right that's when i ran away to new y, right? That's when I ran away to New York. And never got home. And I lived in the sewers. We've got to move on to underrated. Underrated.

Yeah. Okay. I would say being single is underrated. People go, ooh, I'm single. I've got to fix it. And I think it's fine. Yeah. Every time I'm single, I'm like, it's not bad.

I think being in a great relationship is better. But I think of it like margaritas and beer. Margaritas are my favorite, but I'll have a beer. I'm not like pissed when I'm drinking a beer, but I do like margaritas better. But people act like if you're single, it's a problem. I'm like, sometimes it's very fun. I've never, uh, never really disliked it. Uh, but yeah, people think it's, they get something wrong with them, but I think it's fun.

Yeah. I mean, some people are better at being single than others also. I guess that's true. Yeah, because some people are wired to just panic. Some people just can't have an identity outside of being with someone else. That's why I like being single. Yeah, I think it's really fun. You're nuts.

Think about that. Yeah. Poor guy. But they're both good. He has a healthy relationship. Also, beds. I think beds are overrated. I laid on the floor the other day and slept for like two hours.

It was great. Yeah. You mean passed out? No, I just laid down. I was like, oh, I'm going to stretch. And I laid on the floor to stretch and fell asleep and it was wonderful. Oh, look at you. You might have a gas leak in your house.

Maybe I do. But gas leaks, underrated. Overrated. That common carbon monoxide monitor. Also, like bad stuff gas leaks, underrated. Overrated, that common carbon monoxide monitor. Also, like, bad stuff I think is underrated. Like, food that's bad for you. Like, people, oh, you got to watch, is that movie good? Like, who cares?

Right. There's bad movies that make me feel nice. Right. I think people get hung up on, like like blake shelton i don't think his music is good but i like it right and i don't think those conflict at all people go oh it's bad i can't listen to it m&m i can't defend one lyric he ever put out but i enjoy his music right so right what's wrong with a couple of bad things what's a blake shelton song to get into if if you've never heard of blake he has a He has a song called The More I Drink.

Alright, I'm going to write that down. It's just fun in the sun. I love it very much. I listen to it all the time. Not a good song, but I can't stop listening to it. I don't think it has any redeeming qualities. Alright, we're going to get into format. Is there anything else that you wanted to

call out as underrated? Oh yeah, there's this comedian Keith Alberstadt. I think he's like the funniest guy in the world. I bringrated? Oh, yeah. There's this comedian, Keith Albertstadt. I think he's like the funniest guy in the world. And I bring him up all the time. And he's doing well. But I think he's like people, everyone should know him. He should be the most famous. Yeah.

Check him out. He's the funniest guy in the world. All right. We're going to get into the zeitgeist before getting into the show. We're trying to take a sample of the ideas that are out there, changing the world, whether we're looking or not. We talk about politics, the president, the news. We also talk about movies and supermarket tabloids because, you know, lots of people pass by tabloids every day when they're buying milk. People still buy milk, still see those tabloid headlines.

So they influence the zeitgeist. milk still see those tabloid headlines. So they influence the zeitgeist. So, like I said, we talk about movies a lot because I think movies more than anything influence the zeitgeist and TV, like basically movies supply all your images for anything that you haven't experienced. So if you haven't gone and fought in the Vietnam War, when I say the Vietnam War, you picture probably Forrest Gump or Tropic Thunder, probably not Tropic Thunder.

Oh, I do. But Caleb, you're from a part of the world that a lot of people haven't visited. And, you know, they're probably getting a lot of their ideas for how that part of the world operates from movies. So you're from the South. Yes. What is that, the South? The South.

Well, we lost. That's the first thing to remember. And that affects everyone there. Right. Just on a constant basis. Yeah, yeah. You got that whole loser thing going on. We lost the big one.

And somehow there's still people like all the time growing up, you'd see that. Oh, the South will rise again. People had that on belt buckles and bumper stickers, like really into that somehow. So that's still like constant. Yeah. And like just always present is that loss. They're still kind of smarting from that. But it's also, you know, it's a global thing now.

Right. It's written from that. But it's also, you know, it's a global thing now. So, like, the South, we have paved roads and air conditioning, which was not the case 100 years ago. So the South is, people still have 100 years ago stereotypes. There's a lot of things that are true, but it's like tons of people moved there from everywhere, like all over the place. So it's not this, it's not, you know, deliverance. Right. You know. Parts of it this, it's not, you know, deliverance. Right.

You know. Parts of it are, right? Parts of it are. But, like, whenever I would see a movie set in the South, and it would be like, it's 1992 in the South. Right. And everybody's like, well, and, like, everyone has that accent. I'm like, I've never, I feel like that is not the most common thing. Like, I just, it's insane. I'm like, everyone doesn't have, it's like when you see a movie and everyone's wearing clothes from the year.

It's like, not everyone has clothes they bought in the last month. Right, right. Like, it's 1962 and everyone's wearing 1962 and they're driving a 62 car. It's just like, that's, it looks weird. Right. So, yeah, it's like, not everybody has an accent. None of my friends have an accent, really. Right.

And another thing that didn't happen until I moved here, when people find out, they go, oh, you're from the South. You ever fuck your cousin? And I'm like, geez, that's really forward. Yeah, that is. But that's a stereotype that I don't know why that is in the South. I don't know who's doing that. Yeah, that's a weird thing to just blow up to somebody.

Oh, people say that very casually really yeah i i don't i i'm not familiar with that uh yeah i don't know why maybe that happens more in the south than other places but i don't are there things that you wish films portrayed like the way they portray the south that would feel more accurate to people who live in the South? I really, the accents are almost always incorrect. The most common one you see, you ever see Big Fish? Yes. Where they go, well, and I'm like, that is one town that's just Savannah. I'll just dry it out.

Right. And the South has so many, the Texas accent is very different from a Georgia accent, and the Louisiana accent is very different. Than an Appalachian one, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of different Southern accents, and you hear them do the same one, and it's just, ugh. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like there are two modes of the South. There is, like, you know, charming.

Like, yeah, cowboy. Like, they've got a lot of lessons to teach us city slickers. Doc Hollywood style, where it's like a charming small town, and then there's, like, they've got a lot of lessons to teach us city slickers. Doc Hollywood style, where it's, like, a charming small town. And then there's, like, horror movie, like, Deliverance, like, The Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and you don't really get much in between. Yeah, there's not a lot of movies set in the South where everything's fine. Right. It's always something terrible.

I feel like Richard Linklater does a good job of because he like was raised in austin and lives in austin and sets his movies in austin and they have like a nice texture of like yeah that's probably how actual life was there like he made like dazed and confused and uh other movies, boyhood. All right. Any others before we go to a break? A Southern movie myth? I mean, the gun stuff is true. I will say that.

Everyone has a gun. Right. So, yeah. How many guns did you have growing up? I got one when I was 12 for, like, painting a house. Someone gave me a gun. Are you serious? Like, in lieu of payment?

Yeah. It's a totally different world as far as guns are, I mean, they're everywhere all the time. Yeah. So I had a friend from Oklahoma who was like, yeah, we just all like the thing to do was to drive around and shoot at stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that actually gets translated into how a lot of people from other countries picture America writ large because they don't like get the sort of regional

differences. So they just expect everybody to be carrying a gun when they arrive here. Yeah, that's true. You do like, if you travel abroad and like, sometimes you'll meet like, Oh,

you're from America. Like, do you have a gun right now? Yeah. Yep. Of course. Always. I remember Nick Thune told me a story when he was studying abroad in Barcelona that he was, like, about to get, like, someone was, like, fucking with him, like, maybe possibly harassing him or whatever.

And he faked having a gun and they scattered. Yeah. Whoa. Just even, like, and logic went out the window, like, as if, just because you're American, like, you somehow brought a gun to Spain and you're just like, get the fuck back, homie. You got a gun. somehow brought a gun to spain and he's like get the fuck back home he had a gun because people sometimes pretend to have a gun because they don't want because armed robbery is more serious of a crime right but if you if you believe in the second amendment shouldn't you just have a gun like that's the i don't know why the second amendment people aren't angry about that they're

like he had a right to have that gun during that robbery right why are we penalizing him yeah by the way there's no way nick thune pronounced it that way if he tried if he studied abroad he pronounced it barcelona barcelona madrid in spain a madrid all right that's gonna do it for this first segment we will be right back in a moment and we're back uh so yeah this is uh one of those tough days when you know our job is uh to talk about the zeitgeist and also we're a comedy podcast so uh when those things overlap with a mass shooting, another mass shooting like they do today, it's never fun.

There's not a lot of fun, funny observations to make. But there is sort of an overwhelming trend, we've noticed, in the way this shooting is being covered on the right among like sort of conservative media outlets. They are, I don't know, it's just this preordained like overdrive spin mode where they're already anticipating the conversation about gun control and all of their stories are an attempt to sort of get away from that, including Trump's statement, which I just consider Trump to be a wing of the conservative media at this point and them to be a wing of the White House. But his so his official stance is this is a mental health problem at the highest level, which begs the question of, you know, or which assumes that people are the alternative,

which is that it's a gun issue. Well, I think it also it's important to remember, like one of the first things Trump did when he got in office was roll back like Obama regulations that made it hard for people with mental health issues to buy guns. Not that that law would have prevented this, but if he's really going to practice what he preaches, maybe you shouldn't have rolled back regulations that would have made it harder for people with mental health issues to buy guns. Right. Yeah. So the shooter was clearly someone who should not have been allowed to buy a gun. clearly someone who should not have been allowed to buy a gun.

I think they're finding that he, under law, would not have been able to buy a gun in Texas, but he had this crazy idea to lie on the application and say that he hadn't been arrested for all the things he'd been arrested for. But yeah, apparently just a complete psycho of a human being when they go and ask people. Like none of his former neighbors are saying the thing like, oh, you know, he was just a normal person who kept to himself. They're like, yeah, this is about right. We voted him most likely to do something crazy, crazy thing. Yeah. But, you know, obviously saying it's a mental health issue is tied to gun control.

Well, yeah, because it's easy. It's it's it's not about guns, about mental health. Right. It's not about, you know, it's not about slavery. It's about states rights. Right. Right. One of our writers was pointing out that the NRA tweeted like something about the difference between clips and magazines immediately after the shooting, which I think it was one of those like timed tweets probably we're assuming because they then went on to delete that tweet. But I don't know that it's just a occupational hazard of the NRA. I guess, you know, why don't you just hire someone to just tweet like don't just put everything on autopilot because, you know, the chances are something can happen in this world. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, they should just have somebody whose job it is to just make sure that they don't tweet something inappropriate after a mass shooting since there are, like, a mass shooting every week or so. Yeah, I think it's been, what is it, 300 this year or something? Yeah. It's quite a bit this year. So the really over-the-top stuff, the Mike Cernovich's and Alex Jones's of the world are coming out and trying to claim that this was a left-wing conspiracy, that the shooter was Antifa. Uh, there was like an immediate tweet from Mike Cernovich,

uh, that said mass shooting at the first Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, which has a largely white denomination. Cernovich wrote, uh, quote, Antifa terrorist attack. It was a question.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So he's, any headline that ends on a question is, uh, right. Yeah. It's not meant... Any headline that ends in a question is... Right.

Yeah, is not meant to be accurate in any way. One time, I think it was Nancy Grace had a headline that said, Pot to blame? And I was like, for what? Like, what could be... Yeah, right. For what? Are you trying to blame pot?

Yeah. So, Fox and Friends, as always, is a good little sampling of what is going on on the right wing. What's really going on? Sort of what will be going on after Fox and Friends ends in the president's mind. So they had a pastor on there. There's there's this genre of story that they uh like to tell after a mass shooting and in this case it might be appropriate the uh good guy with a gun uh where they say no the the answer is not stricter gun laws the answer is looser gun laws because if anybody in that church had a gun

uh they would have you, stopped the shooting quicker. And in this case, there is a story that a good Samaritan with a rifle did chase the shooter down. So, you know, we don't know all the details of that. If so, like that is obviously a brave and badass thing that that person did. But focusing on that angle also has the weird implication of like making these people like people i don't know like helpless and also like well they should have like had a gun to protect themselves like men who like lost their lives and lost their family like weren't like manly enough to have a gun or something like and there's even fbi data that shows like between what 2000 and

2013 that only three percent of active shooter events were stopped by a civilian with a gun right like to put that kind of emphasis it really does kind of make the the conversation a bit lopsided right so uh going along with that narrative fox and friends brought on a pastor who uh has a mega church i think down in texas he has a mega church, I think, down in Texas. He has a church that he says is larger than the church where the shooting happened. And his take on why his church would never have one of these shootings is pretty enlightening. Pastor, I heard one report that there were a number of people who were in the church but didn't have the guns with them

because out of respect for the fact that they were going into church, they left their guns in their car. Is that common? Well, it's certainly not common in our church. I'd say a quarter to half of our members are concealed carry. They have guns, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. They bring them into the church with them. It probably makes yeah well i think it does and i think look if somebody tries that in our church they may get one shot off or two shots off but that's it and that's the last thing they'll ever do in this life that's i mean he's describing like a mad max type world

right like everybody's got they're strapped and they're like no i wonder if he puts that on the church son like you might get one or two shots in right what a weird thing to say about your church right we will kill you right we have the deadliest parishioners deadliest worship and then to say yeah like they didn't have their guns but so the responsibility is now on these victims, essentially, or to even say or to try and enter the realm of saying, had these people had their guns, then maybe this wouldn't have happened. Well, I mean, when you're praying, you're supposed to take your hat off.

Right. Yeah, so leave your guns in the car. Again, it's crazy to think that, man, on the right, it's so people just do not want to even approach the idea of any kind of gun control at all. And then if you talk to someone long enough, even a super right wing person, super Second Amendment person, they'll agree with you on that. They'll go, oh, we got to do something. Right. But it just never happens. Right. with you on that they'll go oh we gotta do something right but it just never happens right well it's just and also it blows my mind that i've seen more like very sound people like like comedians have offered up better ideas on gun control than i've even seen like legislators

like on the internet just uh well once the nra starts giving money to comedians those bits are gonna drop off quick um i mean you can't we have the right to pursue happiness but we can't drink and drive and uh some people enjoy that but you gotta crack down on drinking and driving no matter how fun it is oh but i like drinking and driving i know i bet there was a guy in congress who was getting paid off by al capone. Right. Come on, drinking and driving is what this country is built on. Driving is boring. You're not drunk. Yeah, and then so another, and this is just Fox sort of contorting themselves into a really weird look to try and put a positive spin on it,

on why this isn't as horrifying a tragedy as we might have thought. We were saying there's no other place we would want to go other than church because I'm there asking for forgiveness. I feel very close to Christ when I'm there. So I'm trying to look at some positives here and know that those people are with the Lord now and experiencing eternity and no more suffering, no more sadness anymore. Jesus.

Again, so scared to explore the topic of how to prevent something like this that they just resort to looking for positives. I don't care how faithful you are. I'm sure nobody was sitting in that church a minute before that dude burst in and was like, yeah, you know, we're good. Unbelievable. How do you even say that out loud and then was like yeah you know we're good unbelievable like yeah how do you even say that out loud and then be like yep i'm proud of that yeah that made sense i mean there's that just shouldn't be on the tv right that's something you say in your house

and uh that's an incorrect opinion for your home that's a crazy thing to say i can't believe someone said that yeah it's interesting because they talk about like not politicizing the conversation immediately after which like only applies to guns i guess is the only literally the only thing it applies to because uh and only guns in one very specific direction right because uh they are willing to say, which is arguably way more offensive that like the people should have had guns on them, like sort of exaggerated example would be how the Mike Cernovich and Alex Jones is of the world responded to it, which was to immediately speculate that this was part of a Antifa uprising. immediately speculate that this was part of a Antifa uprising. There was a tweet from Mike Cernovich, I believe, where he quoted some anonymous conversation he was having over Messenger, where somebody was claiming that they talked to somebody who was on the inside. And the guy came in, swore allegiance to Antifa, ran up to the front of the church, draped

Antifa flag over the altar, and then made like brought out a communist manifesto and then started asking people to like answer quiz questions about the contents of the communist manifesto and if they got it wrong that's who he would kill uh which i'm pretty sure has has not come out as true or being confirmed that was mike cernovich saying that's that was from like first-hand account yes what he says something that happened in there that is so fucking dangerous first of all because some people are dumb enough to believe that shit and you're just creating this whole like weird antifa super soldier thing is fucking crazy and i like you know they try to say november 4th where there was going to be some kind of they were going to kickstart the civil war or whatever on kickstarter yeah yeah that

there was going to be like that was the day of reckoning for anti but they were just like a couple like anti-trump things like no again to say that these people are coming in and then sort of like clearly this is fake because it's written from the perspective of like someone on the like deep alt right who's saying like oh this is what he probably like in a movie version that you're trying to vilify people coming in, draping the altar and a flag, making people like answer quiz questions. What is a scene from a fucking Batman movie or something? Yeah. So it might not have been Cernovich. It was this guy, Adam Johnson, who tweeted that. And there's there's like some journalistic take on it, says Devin Kelly, who killed at least 27 people and injured many more was one of two shooters in

the church. That's another thing that you always hear in the aftermath of a shooting. Like people always think there's two shooters for some reason, just because there's like conflicting eyewitness accounts. And so they always assume two shooters when there's almost always one. They say, according to eyewitnesses who also report Kelly carried an Antifa flag and told the churchgoers, this is a communist revolution before unloading on the congregation. And then they have a picture of a instant messenger conversation where they talk about him draping the flag over the thing, making people answer questions about Das Kapital.

So that's the sort of that's what's going on out there among the right wing. And I guess we should say that none of that is true. And as of yet, there has been no confirmed reports on what his motive was, other than that this was a church where his mother-in-law went. Yeah, they're saying that it's connected to some kind of domestic dispute. And he had, like, allegedly was sending threatening texts to his ex-mother-in-law or his in-law. I just wonder, like, with these Alex Jones things or any of these guys, do they ever stop and go, I wonder if we're wrong like we were every other time? Like, with Obama's birth certificate, all this stuff, like, do they ever go, you know, we've been wrong every single time we've obama's birth certificate all this stuff like do they ever go you know we've been wrong every single time we've gone out on a limb like this i think alex

jones knows he's wrong that's why he will constantly say he's a what what did he say he's a performance artist to like avoid any kind of like serious like legal problems right so i think he's just uh he's just like the embodiment of just a really like a sick fucking troll who will just be like, okay, this, this is the, this is the kind of misinformation I'm going to spread.

Wow. Yeah. That's, that's terrible. I just, I, I, I'm amazed when people go like,

uh, cause I knew a lot of people like during that thing, the birther thing who were like, Oh, absolutely. Let's see that certificate. Uh, and then once it came out that it was was not even remotely a thing at all,

all of them just go, I don't know. And I'm like, you're not even embarrassed at all? Or questioning the guy who told you that? Maybe never listen to them again? That's not popping in your head at all? That's so nuts to me. I listen to people, but any time a journalist lies and gets caught, I'm like, well, I can't trust them anymore. Right.

I don't, even if they're on my team, I'm like, well, they're a liar. Brian Williams is still on TV. Right. So. Yeah. My buddy Casey owes me 10 bucks from, like, 2005. I don't trust a word he says. He's a good friend of mine, but I don't trust him anymore.

Right. He owes me 10 bucks. Casey, if you're listening, I need that money. But even with your friends, right? Like people double down or like be like, no, this is the next thing or whatever. Have opinions. I just don't hold up after the fact. You usually never let them live that down.

Yeah, of course. I don't know why we. How is every press conference not starting with, hey, Trump, remember when you asked for Obama's birth certificate for like five years? Remember that? No. That should be every one of them should start with that. Yeah.

obama's birth certificate for like five years remember that no that should be every one of them should start with that yeah um so alex jones uh just real quick the way he promoted his show on sunday evening last night uh quote was this part of the antifa revolution against christians and conservatives or isis op question mark uh then tune in live from the church. And then that just speaking of Obama, that pastor who's claims that half or a quarter of his congregants are armed is somebody who once claimed that Obama was the harbinger of the Antichrist. OK, yeah. So he doesn't have a dog in this fight, I don't think. Oh, okay. Yeah. And he was right about that. He doesn't have a dog in this fight, I don't think. And again, yeah, it seems like the prevailing super far-right myths are, A, like everyone's quoting the Trump thing where he said, fortunately, somebody else had a gun.

And then the other one is sort of like vaguely, he's a social justice warrior atheist who hated Christians. Right. Or something to that effect. I know Drudge was like, he prefessed atheism. Right. Or whatever. He swore allegiance to nothing shortlyism. Right. Or whatever. He swore allegiance to nothing. Right.

Shortly before. Right. That's crazy. I mean. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. How I also any headline that ends in a question mark, you should be shut down after that. Right.

You should have your website taken down. Yeah. No one. I can't believe people are getting away with that. Yeah. Journalism should not be about speculating. No, I can't believe it. Yeah.

They have done studies on that. And there's this thing called I think it's origin blindness, where people who like people will have an idea that they read. that they read and even if people say like this idea is from a you know many times debunked website uh it doesn't matter that idea just still sticks like our brain is not good at remembering where we learned effect right uh like you don't remember where you found out about giraffes you just know that giraffes exist right um miles on the other hand a. Alex Jones has a great theory that giraffes are liberal false flag. Yeah. Crisis actors. Their necks are so long, so they think they're better than you.

Exactly. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, something a little lighter. A bunch of stuff that'll be a little lighter. Oh, I like it light. And we're back whoa hey uh so real quick wanted to go through a bunch of other stuff that's in the uh zeitgeist not spend too too much time on any one thing uh i saw thor ragnarok over the weekend if that is the name of that. I saw Thor 3 over the weekend. There you go. I like that. And it was very good.

Oh, dope. Yeah, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Tessa Thompson, who is sort of the female lead. Cate Blanchett is the villain, but Tessa Thompson is sort of the female love interest, badass superhero. She's also the girlfriend from Creed and the Scott Stapp. And the from the film so far from the film Creed. Yeah, I don't think Scott Stapp would have a shot with Tessa Thompson. I very clearly have a crush on Tessa Thompson.

Girlfriend from Creed, also the sort of sexual deviant chairman of the board in Westworld. Anyways, she's in this. She's dope. She's going to be a huge star. She's in this. She's dope. She's going to be a huge star. It's definitely worth checking out because they gave a huge blockbuster movie to a comedy director. Look what it got you. A good movie. A good movie. Holy shit. We need to find comedy where we can get it because comedies are now streaming things, so they don't open big at the box office.

Now everything is either a superhero movie or a horror movie. This is how we will get our comedy going forward as part of Giant. Yeah, It was really funny. I was surprised at how funny It was. Really? I heard there was a lot of improvising in it. I laughed so much at It, and Baby Driver made me laugh a lot. Yeah, Baby Driver was funny. They're just big fun. I think it's such a...

Chris Rock made the point where he's like, you get a comedy director and get him to direct a drama, it probably is going to be pretty good. But you get a drama director, you get him to direct a drama, it probably is going to be pretty good. But you get a drama director, you get him to direct a comedy, it's not going to be easy. It's going to be a disaster. The director, Teika Waititi, did an interview on Vice and he's saying his next film that he's working on

is a Nazi comedy. Really? Yeah. We'll see where that... Speaking of Nazi comedy, Larry David came in with a... Wow, seamless transition. With a hot take on SNL. Yeah, he made a pretty off joke about hitting on women in a concentration camp. Yep.

It was just, it was like one of those things, again, we're kind of slowly seeing him lose steam here. I don't know, like it seemed like one of those things that it may have worked in a Curb episode when there's another character there to say, Larry, what the fuck are you talking about? That's crazy. And then he has to push back. But when you're just doing it, it's a one-way conversation with a live studio audience, and you can hear them cringing as he gets into it.

It's not... The thing that made me laugh was it seemed like an episode of Curb, where there's an episode where Larry's like, I gotta host SNL. I don't know what to tell. I got was an episode where larry's like i gotta host snl i don't know what to tell i got this new bit right and and just like do it do it yeah then uh so it made me laugh in that way because i was just thinking because larry's character is i'm gonna do the wrong thing right i'm gonna be i'm gonna ruin a situation so i couldn't tell if i was laughing but it made me laugh so hard just being like, I can't believe Larry.

Like, it just, I don't know. Because it seemed like it was fiction to you. It was crazy. It really felt like Curb and real life were like right there. Which is not a good feeling sometimes when you look at Larry up there. And then him going, I feel like I'm doing pretty well. Yeah. Pretty.

Killing me. Speaking of pretty well, did he change his name i don't know uh yeah so i don't know people who uh young people won't remember this but there was a period uh when we were a pre-911 world where the where the world like did he change his name to Diddy from Puff Daddy and the media talked about it for like a full six months. And I was very frustrated by that. I was like, nothing is happening here. He's just like, hey, look at me. And we're following through. through so uh i guess we will see now that he has changed his name to brother love uh whether

our media has wisened up at all or whether they're still like what does it mean yeah well i mean he's either really smart because he's like i can change my name and that that gives me the headlines for at least a couple days because i remember yeah when he went to diddy he's like don't call me puff anything anymore i'm diddy not puffy i'm diddy yeah and now uh being brother love it just seems like he's having like a midlife crisis kind of thing. And like you're here, he has money to buy like cars and do typical midlife crisis stuff. So he's like,

fuck it. I'm just going to change my name to something out there. Like love. Hmm. Yeah. Brother love, brother love. Also,

I thought it was so funny in his announcement when he goes, I'm not who I was two years ago. Right. Right. Now I, so I'm like, okay, I guess so.

You're filled with love. You feel like your brother love now, but like, what did you feel like when you told people to call you puffy? Right. What just mood? Like, I just doesn't make any sense.

Right. Or puffed at, I just, he's like, I'm, I was a 44 year old man child then. Now I'm 46. Right.

And I've realized who I really am. Like, okay. I really brother love. Literally nobody else in the world is the same person they were two years ago. We don't all change our name, though. We just kind of live with that. Who knows?

I might change my name next week. If I do, that means I've had it. What if I start telling people to call me, I want to be Diddy now? Now that no one's using it. It's open. Jump in. If you fucking call me Caleb, I'm pissed. Is that handle around?

At Diddy? Yeah. At Diddy. No, he's finally, finally he's not squatting on that handle. I can take it. And Rand Paul got his ass whooped. And we don't know why the dude was charged with fourth degree assault, which is apparently a thing. But it has all the trappings of Rand Paul having some kind of problem. It's weird.

Yeah. Your neighbor comes over and busts you up like that while you're mowing your lawn. If this were what a desperate housewives, that's like, you're, you were, you have sex with my wife. Definitely kind of shit. Yeah. Uh, I, that's also a thing about the South is that it's, uh, like people are quicker to fight.

I feel like in the South, have you noticed that? Um, well, I, I mean, that's definitely not a thing for me. Last time I got punched was second grade and I learned how to stop. You learned how to sue somebody. Well, I was just like, oh, I guess I was yelling at them about kickball

in their face. I mean, they shouldn't have punched me, but I really was instigating there. But that's the last time. I avoid... It was like fights every day at school. Like a fist fight over like... me but i was uh i really was instigating there yeah but that's the last time i avoid come but and it was like fights every day at school like a fist fight over like oh that was my milk like just dumb yeah uh so i don't know i mean i've never lived uh you know in boston i'm sure they're fighting up there but yeah i saw fights all the time and like it didn't even bother me i don't know what if i was just a psycho as a kid but but like, I'd be like, look, there's a guy getting hurt.

Like, and we would like, one time that we would sell tickets for fights in school. No, you sold tickets? I didn't sell. I bought one. Because they'd be like, we're going to fight in recess. And they were working together. And they were like handing out these tickets like, we're going to fight. We are going to fight.

And then they fought and blood and like punching. And I'm like, what? It was so weird. And they like hugged punching and i'm like what it was so we like hugged after and like well it was a good purse we just couldn't believe it they made money 23 bucks were splitting that was third grade wait who was the venue who was running the venue it was just outside and the teachers were like wait no no like the teachers have to come and be like what is this i'm just curious the the ticket clearly meant that there was a access point that you had to get through right which is why you would even need a

ticket, because if it's out in the open, what the fuck do you need a ticket for? These are two guys who like to fight. I wouldn't recommend sneaking in and watching. Right, right. You better avert your eyes. You guys sneaking in our fight? Yeah. We'll fight you next. That was my fear.

I was like, I don't want to be pirating this fight. People have written interesting and done interesting studies about like whether the south is different it like that the south is quicker to anger like including like measurements of blood pressure and that it's based on like them being an honor-based culture and bacon or gravy and stuff whether it it's their descent, like being descendants from borderlands where people had to fight for their flock of sheep. But that'll be another that'll be a future episode. For right now, we want to close out with a segment with a visit from our super producer

Anna Hosni. Yeah. Thank you for having me. So, two stories that we want you to cover. You finished Stranger Things and I really appreciated your take on that. It was, uh, I don't like

sci-fi. It's like, why'd you watch it then? I watched it because originally season one hype was so good, I was like, hell yeah. And then I got really into Vaporwave for a while. I was deep into it. i was like hell yeah and then i got really into vaporwave for a while oh hell yeah you did i was deep into it i was like yeah that's a that's the theme song is vaporwave yeah the genre yeah well vapor i don't know if it feels like vaporwave is more like to take like it's like post-music music where you're flipping like sounds like i'll play you some vaporwave later it's, we'll ride out on Vaporwave.

Sounds great. We'll ride on some Vaporwave to ride out on. But the main story we wanted to bring you in for, Miles, what are you calling this story? Arabia Majora. Yeah. So there's been some developments over the weekend in Saudi Arabia, and Anna is an expert on the subject. I'm obsessed with Saudi Arabia. I'm single-handedly maybe one day

going to take them down as a country. Thanks for announcing that on this show. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Do not put that on me. What? I can't say I'm Iranian so I'm against Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia and Iran have a long standing... Oh, I was just saying you're knowledgeable about... like you travel to Iran

frequently. You've got to be careful out here. A lot of people are against them sunni versus shia you know you really gotta be careful all right you say who you are i'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole okay yeah it's true i travel to iran a lot a lot of my um extended family is still in iran so i go to the middle east we'll see i'll still be able to go after these comments um so saudi Saudi Arabia had a wild weekend. Okay. And by that, what do you mean? These are popping off. All right.

So this weekend, the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who, if you don't know, he's the 30-something-year-old new guy on the scene who is basically taking all the power and pressuring people to respect him.

The hip crown prince. Yeah, he's cool. He's trying to bring Saudi Arabia back to a moderate Islam. So he's the guy that was like, women can drive now and women are allowed in sports stadiums and all that crap. And all that crap. Yeah. Well, we'll see how it goes because Saudi Arabia is known for talking, but are they

known for walking? We'll see. So this weekend, he ordered an arrest of a bunch of different princes he had a billionaire one of the richest men in the world arrested who's basically has invested in twitter city group like all these different places he's a very rich man he's a billionaire and uh he had all these people arrested their charges are like conspiracy to i don't know talk shit i don't know, talk shit. I don't know. There's no real. Conspiracy to talk shit about the Crown Prince.

Yeah. Now, Crown Prince means that you are. He's next in line. Next in line. Right. But it's a weird thing where like once the king is old enough, like the Crown Prince basically makes all the decisions. Becomes the most powerful person.

Yeah. And Mohammed bin Salman is starting to get very paranoid and wants all the power. So we'll be seeing the next few months who else he arrests and what happens with his relationship with the U.S. because Jared Kushner was just there. So I'm thinking that Kushner went to say, hey, do what you got to do, the U.S. backs you. Jerry Cushy Babies goes over there and... He's like, hey, hi, Mr. Sala.

And then all of a sudden... Hey, he does really sound like a child. And then all of a sudden, people just start getting taken out. Interesting. I'm sure I have a theory that maybe he said, don worry what you're doing is okay in the u.s backs you i don't know that for a fact that's just my thing because the u.s really likes to support saudi arabia regardless of all the terror they cause and that's all the time we have uh this has been fun uh anna where can people so if you want to hear more talk about the middle east i have my

own podcast called ethnically ambiguous on the feral audio network you can find us on wherever podcasts are and i host it with a syrian woman named shireen yunez and we have great time and we joke and we have fun and we'll take out saudi arabia and the white men. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I went too far. All right, thank you. Thanks for having me. Caleb, where can people follow you? Caleb Sinan. That's my handle on everything. I didn't come up with a fun one.

It's just my name because there's no other Caleb Sinans. But my last name is S-Y-N-A-N. And if you can't spell it or remember that, just Google Caleb Conan and watch me on Conan and follow me from there. Yeah. Miles, where can people follow you? You can find me listening to some Blake Shelton. Oh, hell yeah. My man over here gave me some tips.

But if you want to follow me on social media, check me out on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Grey. You can follow me at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can follow us collectively at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. Our Facebook page is The Daily Zeitgeist. We are at Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. Our Facebook page is the Daily Zeitgeist. We are at Daily Zeitgeist. Drop the the for Twitter. And our website is dailyzeitgeist.com where you can find all of our episodes

and you can also find our footnotes where we upload all the links to the stories we have been using to inform us. And that's going to do it for today. We're going to ride out on a vaporwave song called Cumulus Fractus that Miles is a fan of by Echo Virtual. Yeah. So we will be back tomorrow because it is a daily podcast. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Hey, fam, I'm Simone Boyce.

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