The Daily Zeitgeist - Queen Of The Zeitgeist, What To Worry About On Election Day 11.6.18

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

In episode 268, Jack and Miles are joined by comedian and host of the Alchemy This! podcast Kevin Pollak to discuss the Bohemian Rhapsody film, Trump's behavior during midterms, Brian Kemp's office investigating the Democrats, why people like death metal, the calming game of Tetris, and more! FOOTNOTES: 1. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Rocks With $50 Million, ‘Nutcracker’ Crumbles2. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Rules International Box Office With Killer $72 Million3. Sacha Baron Cohen: I quit Freddie Mercury biopic after dispute with Queen4. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Doesn’t Straightwash, but It’s Confused About Freddie Mercury’s Sexuality5. 'Trump has hijacked the election': House Republicans in panic mode6. Brian Kemp’s Office, Without Citing Evidence, Investigates Georgia Democrats Over Alleged ‘Hack’7. Psychologists are trying to figure out why people like death metal8. TINY FINNISH TOWN WINS WORLD CAPITAL OF METAL CROWN9. Can't Stop Worrying? Try Tetris To Ease Your Mind10. A better distraction: Exploring the benefits of flow during uncertain waiting periods.11. WATCH: Sudan Archives - Nont for Sale Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed 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. a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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New episodes every Thursday. Hello, the internet, and welcome to season 56, Episode 2 of Der Daily Zeitgeist, the podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness and unconscious using the headlines, box office reports, TV ratings, what's trending on Google and social media. It's Tuesday, Election Day, November 6th, 2018. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. I try to Miles of Grey and I choke. Try to Jack O'Brien and I stumble. Though I try to hide it, it's clear.

My world crumbles when Daily Z's not here. A little fell apart a little bit at the end. That was courtesy of Vader for Prez. How appropriate. Well, he's already voted, guys. You guys need to get out there and do it yourselves. And I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. As I walk through the valley of the Trump rhetoric, I take a look at the month and realize we gotta vote.

Cause I've been Miles of Gray for so long that even Jack O'Brien thinks my mind is gone. But I ain't never voted for a chump that didn't deserve it. I just added that. But anyway, that is from Jay Copra. Thank you for that, Gangsters Paradise, a.k.a. And guys, yes, to vote today. If you have not already, if you're listening right now, it's the morning. Please remember to vote.

To vote is to, yeah. You sounded like you were going to be very profound. To vote today. I can hear Nick's eyes rolling in his sockets You sounded like you were going to be very profound. No. Two votes today. I've not had any. I can hear Nick's eyes rolling in his sockets as we do these AKAs. He's like, yeah, you know how you guys used to try to find songs that sounded like they had your name in it? But that's not going to stop us. That's not going to stop us at all.

Well, we are thrilled to be joined by the most famous person we've ever had in our third seat. Yes. That's embarrassing. He's not just for us, right? Exactly. He's the star of some of my favorite movies of all time. He has a new podcast on this very network. Please join me in welcoming Kevin Pollak.

Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you. You failed to mention the recent collection of many Emmy Awards. Yes. Oh, that's right. Emmy Award winning. This program I'm doing that stream.

Yes. I almost called it a television show, which I assume is how most people watch it. Yeah, on their TV. What's that show called? The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. That's right. I've heard of it. One of our frequent guests, Noah Garnsworth, is a writing consultant.

Yeah, he's a writer on the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Kevin, we are going to get to know you a little bit better, but first we're going to take our listeners through what we're talking about today. We're going to talk about Bohemian Rhapsody just dominating at the box office. Saw it yesterday. Did you? Yep.

Wonderful. Perfect. We have somebody to tell us firsthand what the deal. We're going to talk about just midterm stuff in the second block, and then we're going to talk about death metal music, and we're going to talk about Tetris in the third act. But first, Kevin, what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are? What is in my search history that reveals? Okay. Sorry.

I always backload the significance, and it's not really fair. I apologize. Where to vote early. I looked up that over the weekend. Okay. There you go. A couple of actresses, because I'm casting this movie I'm directing. Oh, cool.

So I had to look them up. And you can't say who they are. Certainly can't. I don't want to jinx it. What the hell else is in here? Are you allowed to talk about what the movie's about or anything like that? The film that I'm allegedly directing? Yeah.

No. Well, I can talk about it because the big splashy thing was in the so-called trades. The trades. Yeah. Fofo B.O. I'll let you explain that to your listeners if you feel variety magazine and uh hollywood reporter and they use fun slang like boffo bo and ankle to new york yes or gotham they call new york gotham yeah they do um yeah so uh i wrote

this uh sort of twisting turning whodunit uh contemporary set but it's a noir sort of classic in storytelling styles and um you know femme it's a noir sort of classic in storytelling styles. And, you know, femme fatale, detective, that sort of thing. Oh, cool. Twist and turn surprises. Period piece? No, it's contemporary set. Oh, neat.

I'm very excited that it'll have sort of a driving indie rock sound bed. Oh, cool. Very cool. To spin the genre on its ear a little bit. Yeah. And we're in the casting process now, allegedly shooting in New Orleans in January. I only say allegedly because it's been financed and fallen apart a few times already.

So I'm not going to count on this son of a bitch happening until I'm at the premiere. I used to say, until I'm on the set saying action. Nope. It's got to be the premiere. Ain't real till I see it with an audience. Right. What is something you think is overrated?

Oh, golly. People's opinions. opinions yeah fuck them well i just think uh you know there was a time when there were a few people who had very important opinions right and maybe arguably the worst thing to come out of the entire internet is uh everyone has a very loud opinion. Yeah. And they seemingly matter. Right. Matter to them. Yeah. But their opinion stated as fact has become a big fucking problem.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. And it's also harder to gauge what sort of information people are getting and what is influencing people because opinion is just on the same level as fact. They stated as such. So, you know, there was a time when you would believe people who had the facts.

Right. And there was a certain delivery with which they shared these facts. And that same exact delivery with confidence and poise is being used with opinion. Right. And it's fucking everything up pretty bad, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. So that's overrated. It used to be we only had bad, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

So that's overrated. It used to be we only had Andy Rooney, and that was it. Yes, right. Andy Rooney at the end. You're too young to remember that, but it's true. Well, now everyone is Andy Rooney. That's exactly it. Twitter has found a way where even if you have a thousand people who agree with you,

that elevates your voice, and suddenly people are like, and this person is the leader of some new other thing. You're like, I don't know. You have an overlap of a thousand idiots or a few thousand idiots. Unfortunately, their opinions are about stuff besides lines are too long. That's right. That's what he was mad about. Don't you hate it when...

When migrant caravans come up with lepers? Where did you get lepers from? Andy Rooney, what the hell are you talking about? What is something you think is underrated Underrated Yes sir Five guys french fries

Alright Cajun style Don't even need ketchup Yeah you really don't They're badass motherfuckers It's one of those fries too where when I first got it I didn't realize it was just coming in a bag. Yeah.

And that's my favorite type of fry delivery when they're just like, just here. Brown paper bag. Yeah. Oh, really? Just a brown paper bag? Yeah, because when you say bag, it could be the little white paper bag that most fries come in. So I wanted to back you up with the clear visual. Or they'll put the cup in the bag and then just overfill the entire thing.

Right. So it's just all over the place. Was the cup even necessary? Mixed in with your change. It's arguably, well, first of all, it is absolutely the best fast food French fry on the planet. And it's arguably one of the best French fries you can get. Now, are these the ones that are twice fried? They fry them twice.

That's exactly right. So they're a little bit extra crisp. I actually don't, I can't call them to mind. So I must not have had them. They're not necessarily extra crisp, but they are twice fried. Extra crisp. I actually don't. I can't call them to mind, so I must not have had them. They're not necessarily extra crisp, but they are twice fried. Twice fried. Yeah. They're still, I'm going to say, loosey-goosey in terms of body shape.

Yeah, I think crisp. I think stiff. Right. These are definitely not that. They don't snap. But man, oh, man. Yeah. Underrated.

Underrated. Good texture. Good seasoning. I suppose I should have said reading. We talk a lot about that. No, no, man. Yeah. Underrated. Underrated. Good texture. Good texture. I suppose I should have said reading is underrated. You nailed it. Awareness of your surroundings, also underrated. I find that to be a real fucking problem almost every day. People walking around.

Yeah, just completely oblivious to their surroundings. Yeah. Like, am I the only one who's watching where they're going? Yeah. Yeah. Either in my car or on foot? Yeah. It's astonishing.

I see a lot of people reading and walking a lot more now. Yeah. Like, not even on their phone. Like, full-on books. Guys, listen to podcasts, for God's sakes. Right. Do an audio book, at the very least. At the very least.

Yeah. Well, you had multiple underrated, but they were all good. Okay. What is a myth, finally? What is something people think is true that you know to be false? Well, I get asked this every now and then, and it won't seem to go away, no matter how many times on a wildly popular podcast I straighten the record. So I'll try once more.

Okay. podcast. I straightened the record. So I'll try once more. Those of us who were in and called the usual suspects never received a script where it wasn't clear to us who Kaiser Soze was by the end. That's a myth that people really invested in and think is true. There was a time when you guys didn't know either, right, who Kaiser Soosa was. Right. While you were shooting. Yeah. Well, we read the script, Knucklehead. And the screenplay that went on to win the Academy Award did, in fact, include the ending. Right. Yeah.

So we always knew. And the amazingness of the script had something maybe to do with the fact that you guys wanted to do the movie in the first place. Exactly. Yeah. You kind of need to know what that ending is to say yes. Yeah. Exactly. Maybe. What a Yeah, you kind of need to know what that ending is to say yes. Maybe.

What a movie, though. So those are just fans trying to project their fantasies and be like, I've been a fan. It's a legitimate urban legend that I've been asked by allegedly intelligent people. Right. And they're like, what was that like when you actually found out? Exactly.

Before I accepted the role. Well, I was reading the script. Was it at the premiere or something? Yeah, we went to Cannes for the premiere. Mr. Kobayashi. Yeah, exactly. In the cup. There is some, like if you do actual research, you can find movies where that's true, where

they like didn't tell people on set even. Sometimes they shoot two endings. Right. And then you definitely don't know which one will be. The actor on set in the Darth Vader costume said, didn't say, Luke, I am your father. That was added, obviously, when James Earl Jones added it. But that was a thing that they kept super under wraps. I want to say Powers.

His last name is Powers. The physical actor inside the Darth Vader. Yeah. Can somebody look that up out there and get back to us? Where would they write to us at the email? Just let us know for future. PO Box. David Prowse.

There we go. David Prowse. Prowse. I said powers. I had a lot of the same letters. Right. And he put them in order. He was a bodybuilder.

So let's not forget that. Yes. Have you seen the cut of the first Star Wars when it's just him delivering the lines before they add the James Earl Jones. It's amazing. Because he kind of has a sort of prissy, angry delivery. Oh no.

It just changes everything. It's just so clear how much every single aspect of that movie contributed to it being great. Wow. I mean, it's obviously, they didn't think they were going to do that. Sure, sure, sure.

It was just, you know, a placeholder, but it was just interesting to see. That's what the actors were responding to. Prissy intensity. Right, prissy intensity. I would point you towards a wonderful YouTube channel that a great comedian and comic actor, British guy, Peter Serafinowicz,

does a thing called Sassy Trump, where he takes video of Trump speaking and replaces the audio with, you know, there's drunk version and there's slowed down version, but he does one where it's just slightly sassy. Slightly sassy Trump. Oh yeah, he does like Illegal Space Aliens, right? It was like the one over the summer. It was the name of that video. Yeah.

It's funny because both Darth Vader and Trump are both kind of like messy bitches a little bit sometimes. Sure. Like they are like very like he's kind of constantly having a tantrum sort of thing. Yeah, that's right. It does make a sort of sense, both the original Darth Vader actor's performance and Peter Serafinowicz's YouTube channel. Guys, let's talk about Bohemian Rhapsody. I feel like this is one of those stories that was in the Zyka, just like in the firmament. I didn't see it this weekend, but I took my two-year-old to Chipotle, and we had just been listening to the song Bohemian Rhapsody in

the car and he was singing Mamma Mia Mamma Mia and the person at Chipotle was like oh did you see the movie and like it was just like one of those like organic conversations that just struck up and she was like a 22 year old and she was like oh Queen's my favorite band like I can't wait to see it and she was like so excited about it. What 22 year old would have Queen as their favorite? I know. It doesn't make any sense at all. Someone who loves just great singing. If you're like a rock opera kind of person. But I think that's what we're finding out

because it dominated at the box office. I think we're finding out that their reach is... And I kind of found it like it's the band that most connects with my two-year-old son. Their songs... Well, there was a second coming, don't forget, in 91 because of Wayne's World. And it was possibly even bigger than the first one. That's when I first found out about it.

Exactly. It was Bohemian Rhapsody in Wayne's World and then on my tape player for the next five years just constantly. And I'm still not tired of it. I remember because when I demanded my mom take me to music plus when that was still a place to buy music sure in LA to buy the tape of the Waynesville

soundtrack for that song she was like you're listening to Queen yeah and she was like I used to tour with them as her translator I was like well yeah it's back now the kids yeah yeah but just some classic great pop songs that we're finding out are even more timeless than maybe was widely agreed on. But this, it seems like based on what people have told me, and Kevin, I'm interested to hear your take, that it is sort of Queen's greatest hits, the movie sort of thing. Well, they show how a lot of their biggest, most successful songs came to be. You know, how they were either written or rehearsed or recorded or performed. Right. In various stages, which is one of the better storytelling devices to tell the story of a famous band.

Yeah. Is to actually show how the fuck did you get to this song or this moment. And even in the high note, you know, that craziness, there's a moment in the film where they show the recording of the song and in that one singer who was the drummer, according to the movie,

is in the booth trying to hit that higher note. And it was just spectacular how Freddie Mercury just kept saying higher. And he would do one amazingly high and he'd go higher. Yeah, the movie was spectacular. I assumed that those vocals were like affected or like tuned up or sped up or something. Possibly by chemicals, but I don't think by knobs. Right. They weren't messing with the tape.

Yeah. Yeah. This movie has an interesting backstory because, so at first, Sacha Baron Cohen was connected to play Freddie Mercury. He actually looks more like him if you think about it. He looks a lot like him. Yeah, totally.

And he ended up having some issues, some clashes with the surviving band members. He really wanted to go full, just hard R version of the story where you see all of the debauchery. He had a scene in his vision for the movie where little people were walking around with plates of cocaine on their head because that was apparently a party that Freddie Mercury once attended. But he said this on, I think, the Howard Stern show that the moment he realized he couldn't move forward was a member of the band. This is a quote, a member of the band, I won't say who, said, you know, this is such a great movie because it's got such an amazing thing that happens in the middle.

And I go, what happens in the middle of the movie? And he goes, you know, Freddy dies. And I go, what happens in the second half of the movie? And he goes, we see how the band carries on from strength to strength. And I said, listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS, and then you see how the band carries on.

And that isn't what happens in the movie. Is that correct? That's not at all what happens. That's not at all. So that's what Sacha Baron Cohen was saying when he was going back and forth with the band. A band member, one of the band members was like, then it's about us for the second half.

And we move on from Freddie and our attempt to find a singer who can replace him and failing to do that. He was like, I don't think that's going to work so well. But somebody got to the band and that's not at all how the movie is structured. One of the criticisms that's coming out, because this, despite being, you know,

big commercial success, critics are kind of mixed on it. And the treatment of Mercury's sexuality has been kind of panned a little bit for like his first homosexual encounter comes when their manager, who is sort of the movie's villain, suddenly kisses him. And then the manager drags him, quote-unquote, into a world of drugs and gay sex parties, and that's kind of part of Mercury's demise. Do you see that kind of criticism? I would say that's a pedestrian review. A pedestrian review.

In the sense that the story ultimately reveals when the love of his life, a woman. Right. Who he was married to. Or he gave her a ring. I don't think they showed an actual wedding. Common law wife. Yeah. It was always referred to, you are the love of my life, all the way through the film story.

Oh, really? And then at one point when he says to her in a private moment, I think I might be bisexual, she says without hesitation, Freddie, you're gay. So that helps us to understand that she always knew what was fairly clear from the first time you meet him in the film. He's played, I wouldn't say completely effeminate, but with a flair. Right. And that flair is not just dramatic or even melodramatic it's camp right the way that a gay person who's out and open right behaves in public right so freddie in the film anyways uh is portrayed as someone who sort of lives his life that way from

the beginning interesting and then it's kind of lives his life that way from the beginning. Interesting. And then it's kind of clear to everyone that he's gay. But when it is shown in the story of the film of having that kiss, I think there was a moment before that actually where he gets eyed up by a man and they exchange expressions and Freddie doesn't act on it. Got it. Okay. So I would say that's a very myopic review of maybe for someone who's looking for something to not like.

Right. You have to remember, well, you don't have to remember. Please consider that, again, my issue with everyone having an opinion on the internet, it also is, you you know film review used to be people who wrote essays right and they were learned individuals on the matter of storytelling right so now that everyone has a blog or a or an opinion on on film you're going to get fairly pedestrian points of view or very personalized points of view. I find like, I don't want to jump into that person's life, but if a gay person saw the film and felt like his homosexuality wasn't represented strong enough, then they would

take it as a personal affront because they, I would say, have an invested interest, if you know what I'm sort of getting at. So while I want to appreciate and empathize with what that person experienced when they saw it, I think the film represents a larger picture. Yeah. I mean, and the good thing about sites like Metacritic is that it's sort of a democratization where you can see a whole spectrum of voices and choose the critics that maybe you identify with. And I did hear that reviews were mixed, for sure.

Yeah, totally mixed. And it is a film that elicits a great deal of excitement and emotion, and you get caught up in the swirl of what the band went through from Total Unknowns. Treddy was working baggage at the airport, unloading off of a plane, rise up through the formation of the band. You really get caught up in their whirlwind lives and ultimately the demise of happiness that comes with over-the-top success.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. One other just thing that people pointed out about it that we probably don't have too much time to get into, but they were saying that his wife, his common law wife, Mary, is somebody who he remained with through his death and who nursed him and he left most of his things, most of his belongings uh wealth to her and uh they were saying that he was more he identified as bisexual and so the whole like gay versus bisexual thing is that that is

something that i feel like is in in the future or in other cultures we'll look back at the idea that you're either gay or straight as somewhat missing the mark in terms of how people's sexuality actually operates. Seems like a very individual choice. Yeah, totally. The rest of us need to put a title on it so we feel better about ourselves. Right, exactly. What box are you in?

Right. Exactly. I don't like this fluidity of a spectrum. We're like, what fucking, if it's a train, what car are you in? That's right. Right. We are going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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 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

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Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

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Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South

loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? I mean, the Boone County Rebels stay the Boone County rebels with the image of the Biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. They lying. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On the segregation academies, when the civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools,

these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And as we mentioned, it is Election Day. Get out there and vote.

Please vote. Please vote. Please vote. Whatever your viewpoint is, just let's take back the country from these maniacs. Whatever your viewpoint. Or if you're one of the maniacs, here's your chance to solidify your footing. Yeah, but you can stay at home. You're probably not listening to this show if you're a maniac. That's right.

Yeah. If you're one of the maniacs, make sure you pass in front of a reflecting device before you vote. So Trump has been closing out his sort of roving pep rally for Donald Trump. Trump tour? Yeah, Trump tour. With some, you know, usually the party in power will point to, you know, the things that are working well about their position. It'll be, you know, look how good things are going because we are, we have all the power. We have all the power. Let's continue this.

Let's continue having the power. But that's not how Trump generally rolls. So he has continued to sort of, you know, fight against people. Well, yeah. I mean, I think the thing is, though, everyone was saying, you know, the one thing that Republicans have is a really good economy, even though it was inherited from the past administration. Who had to get over the worst economy since the crash of the 20s. And normally, you know, he's out there saying, I created the strongest economy or whatever. And they like that because it's a thing people can kind of latch on to. But Trump, again, he's in 2016 mode where he just is trying to get the base fired up, which means xenophobia and racism. So it's been constant migrant caravan talk at like really

bizarre TV ads that are so aggressively racist, like even Fox News had to say, we've actually reconsidered airing this because it's too racist for even Fox News, which should be telling you something. And, you know, the thing is that works for your base because, you know, they're there. And if you're just trying to turn them out, that's a good strategy. But this is an election where a lot of people who may have voted for Trump in 2016 are having second thoughts or other people who may be encouraged to vote might not be convinced. And a lot of Republican congressmen or people who are running for office right now don't like that messaging because when you just hit the racism button over and over, when they go out to campaign, then people come up to them and say, well, what do you think? Is this your position too? And that puts them in a very, very awkward place because they don't want to speak against the president, but they also might not actually be that racist. So they don't

want to, you know, it just puts them in a bad place. So Paul Ryan, I guess, on Sunday called to beg the president to just focus on the economy. Wow. Because that is just less divisive. You already have a slew of incidents that have occurred, whether it's the Cesar Sayoc bomber or the shooting in Pittsburgh. There are numerous things. It's like this rhetoric is just not good.

It reminds people of all these other things. And he was begged and Trump just said, no, because I really like he's like, this works with the base. And I'm sorry you said that, but this works with the base. Yeah. All he knows how to do is pander. Yeah. Yeah.

It's to use a sports metaphor for our sports fans. There's like the multi-tool athlete who can do, who's versatile and can be put in lots of different positions. And he's just very, he's not, he's like got one, he's a home run hitter, power hitter, who strikes out a lot. And he just seems very valuable in the right circumstances, which it seems now that 2016 was. I think this is going to be a referendum on whether his sort of anger and divisive campaigning works across different situations. It seems like it shouldn't. By traditional political logic, it should not be something that translates. But he's also a one-of-a-kind hate monger who is very good at that thing.

So we'll see how it translates. Yeah. I mean, a lot of like GOP operatives in this Politico article, they were just sort of resigned to the fact that they're just saying, well, he hijacked the election. Yeah. And all the work we've done to try and shape messaging to avoid this, it's like we can't do anything. His voice drowns everything out. So fingers crossed.

But, I mean, he subtly had even hinted, even Trump wasn't fully confident that the Republicans could keep the House. And he's like, who knows? We might lose the House. There are a lot of houses. There are a lot of seats out there. It's a housing crisis. That's right. But, Yeah, that's right.

But yeah, it's just that's, you know, the closing argument for the GOP is racism. Yeah. So I guess vote accordingly, y'all. Yeah. Brian Kemp, who this has kind of become the marquee matchup between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams in Georgia. So Stacey Abrams has been polling really well lately, and Brian Kemp has been pulling out all the stops of voter suppression. He is the Secretary of State, so he's in charge of a lot of the laws that make it possible for him to suppress the vote. And he has come out and accused the Georgia Democrats of hacking the Republican party. Can you explain what actually happened? Well, it's just weird. Okay, you can get into

all the moving parts, but you can boil it down to a very simple narrative. A volunteer on the Democratic side received an email from someone who had just done a simple analysis of the information systems for the Georgia voting system and found vulnerabilities and sent it to this volunteer and said, you know, some of the most basic computer knowledge could probably begin stealing data from here. And this is how it could be done just so you know. That person took it to their superior, who then took it to cybersecurity experts that they had employed just to be like, can you assess this threat of like how vulnerable the Georgia voting system is from hacking? And they said, oh, yeah, it's actually very vulnerable. So then those cybersecurity people reached out to Brian Kemp, who as Secretary of State,

that would be pretty relevant to him since he has to watch over elections in the state of Georgia. And he then basically took that information to then say that the Democrats had information on how to hack the systems, and they may have been trying to hack the system because they had noticed some attempt to breach the system. So he used this very weird logic of the fact that they pointed out to him how vulnerable the system was, that they're probably a suspect in possible hacking. Because that's what thieves do. They go to the police and say, just so you know, here's our tools that we use to break into that house.

Right, exactly. That's what all thieves do. Oh, yeah. You fucking idiot. Ahead of the big heist, by the way. Ahead of the big moment. This is how we would break in. This is how we would break in if we were to.

Here's our blueprints. You have a vulnerability. Just so you know, there have a vulnerability. Yeah. Just so you know, there's a vulnerability at the safe that we're trying to break into. We thought we'd share with you all the information we gathered about the safe. Just in case something happens. Wouldn't want this to be too easy. And this is the thing is that this isn't, they aren't the first or the only group to warn Brian Kemp or the state of Georgia that there are so many ways that the voter information or voter files could be tampered with or accessed.

And a lot of people with their hair on fire have been screaming at him. And this whole time, too, his response to those people initially has always been, oh, that's impossible. The system is safe. It's impenetrable. We don't have to worry about these things. Yet in this instance, he's saying, oh, the people who even brought this up are probably suspect number one.

Really, the wild thing about this entire story is the fact that his team went out and then parades this as a victory, like they stopped the second 9-11 from happening. So his spokesperson for his campaign said in a statement that they threw out an effort to expose vulnerabilities in the voter system that was an act of desperation by Democrats. Quote, this was a fourth quarter Hail Mary pass that was intercepted in the end zone. Thanks to the systems and protocols established by the secretary of state, Brian Kemp. No personal information was breached. These power hungry radicals should be held accountable for their criminal behavior. Yikes.

That is some banana republic. Really? This is. Yeah. I mean, it's a that just shows you how. That is some banana republic shit. Really, this is – Yeah, yeah. I mean, that just shows you how – I mean, if we're getting that desperate – because, I mean, when you look at the amount of registrations or, like, mail-in ballots that they've been trying to put on ice to try and keep from going Stacey Abrams way, or it's likely that those votes would go to Stacey Abrams, I mean, if he wins,

you would think that there would be massive cries for some kind of investigation because they've pulled out all the stops and not just in Georgia, like all over the country, like Kansas, North Dakota. There's been all kinds of really horrific stories. It's too easy. That should be the takeaway from the 2016 election, that we need to go back to the most archaic forms of voting. It all needs to be physical. It all needs to take a couple of days to count. No computers can be used. I mean, it really does need to grind to a halt in terms of technology

to make it not vulnerable other than human error, which you can, I think, police even better by having a multitude of counting physical bodies right right this person counts and then that person recounts sure those and so on yeah i mean computers yeah it's just so easy to either misdirect voters but it'll never be the same yeah right yeah the russian guard service has started using typewriters again just to go to what you're saying yeah right they're just They're just like, yeah, fuck all this. Everything is vulnerable.

You dummies. Well, even it's funny. What was it? When, uh, the elections happened in Russia recently and there was like that footage of one of the counting sites and they were just like throwing back votes away.

I think those are for Putin probably. Right. It's like, yeah, it's all good. Yeah. I mean, I do wonder how, I think it would be extremely difficult for if the Democrats, you know, have a bad election day today.

I think it's going to be very difficult for them to then say, well, there were security issues because, I mean, look how difficult it's been for them to say that about 2016. for them to say that about 2016. Yeah, well, and that's, but the Republicans have done a good job to put their people in positions like this as secretaries of state or attorney generals or judges. So they have a way to ensure minority rule no matter what happens. And I think that's the other thing is they've,

they took a cue when Obama became president. It's like, okay, we're going to have to load this deck in whatever way possible. And now this is what's happening. Like you're seeing the product of that. All right. So what races are we watching tonight, guys? load this deck in whatever way possible. And now this is what's happening. Like you're seeing the product of that. Uh, all right. So what races are we watching tonight,

guys? What, what are you keeping your eye on? We've got Beto, obviously, and that's, you know, leaning Cruz.

It would be a huge upset if Beto were to pull it off. And then you've got Gillum, Abrams, uh, both looking good isish for Democrats. Close, yeah. I mean, hey, these are the kinds of races that I think will really help people understand what direction a wave is moving, if there's a wave or if there's a, I don't know, what's

a smaller wave? A bit of a- Ripple. Ripple, yeah. And then I know Jon Tester in Montana is one Republicans are really looking at to try and turn red. Claire McCaskill is barely hanging on in Missouri. Heidi Heitkamp might.

That's not. Yeah, that one's basically a loss. Yeah. But one that's really interesting is Abigail Spanberger, who is in Virginia's seventh district, which is Eric Cantor's old seat, who was unseated by this guy, Dave Bratt. And this has been a pretty solid red district for a long time. But she is a very interesting candidate. She has an insanely credible national security background. She's a CIA operative.

So she's not any novice when it comes to national security. And she has really been closing in on this seat, too. And it's the kind of race that I think is indicative of like you have a solidly red seat, but you're seeing a Democratic challenger really perform, like overperform really in the district. And we'll see how a lot of these suburban like ex-serv voters go. But I think that's one to look out for and could be an indicator of other things to come. But I mean, it's tense. And I think just like over the weekend, SNL kind of summed it up with that like fake video about the blue wave coming and everyone is like through clenched teeth, like smiling, like- Super nervous.

Yeah. I mean, because, you know, traditional wisdom failed us last time or what we were relying on to try and indicate what the race we were going to go. Well, at 16, we were complacent. Yeah, exactly. Overly confident. So I like the idea that we're nervous. Yeah. Yes.

And trying to do something about it. Yeah. This seems like a perfect time to mention I have an all new comedy podcast. Yes. It has a relief. It's called Comic Relief for a reason. Yes. The general terminology.

No, I'm kidding. We'll get to it whenever you guys want to talk a reason. Yes. The general terminology. No, I'm kidding. We'll get to it whenever you guys want to talk about it. Yes. And then Steve King. Very funny. Coming off of comedy. Steve King, open white supremacist, has been slated to win. But the guy who's running against him, who's a complete political newcomer, J.D.

Scholten, former professional pitcher, he's making a run at Steve King's Iowa's fourth congressional district. And, you know, the Cook, this is one of those ones where the Cook Political Report, which, you know, as Miles has shared back in his political days, that's the report that you checked every morning, even to the point that I was like, what's going on with Cook Political Report? And he was like, oh, it's always there's always long lag time because all the political consultants are checking it. That or just their servers need to get up. Right. Yeah. Well, a little bit of both. I think right now, especially though,

because it's getting so tight, everyone looks to Charlie Cook to read the tea leaves. Yeah. And they do a good job. And the King-Schulten race is one where it's going from solid R, solid Republican, to likely Republican, to now just a lean Republican. So it's moving to the left. It's moving Democratic, but it's just a question of whether it's going to move far enough. Well, there's always so many ways to look at polling. And it truly is. I've noticed like a lot of the reporting on polls comes out. Really, it is sort of if you are a half empty or half full kind of person. Right.

Because, for example, like the Democrat lead in the generic ballot is something people go, oh, it's tightening or it's widening. And you can look at it in a few ways. Like if you look on an arc, right, from June to September, the lead that the Democrats took on a generic ballot just like shoots up. So it's surged. And then in September, it like dropped slightly. So depending on who you are, you could say that the Democrat has grown substantially, like over time in the summer months. Or you can say that since September, it's waned a little bit. But the fact of the matter remains, like it's been a pretty consistent upward trajectory and then sort of a leveling off. And yeah, but I think a lot of people who write on this stuff, they don't want to fall into the same sort of mistake of 2016 and be like, oh yeah, solid. It's moving the right way. Everything's going to be fine. But I think in the end, there's the only way to guarantee that is everyone gets their ass to the polls if you haven't already.

There's no excuse to vote. If you're allowed to have an opinion, which we've been talking about how everyone is forced now to listen to all the fucking opinions, then you have to vote. That would be a good law, right? You can't have a Twitter account unless you fucking vote and we can verify that. That'd be great. Vote or shut your yap. that they are just not politically engaged, not interested. While they may be the most opinionated of members of the internet, they are not the most politically motivated. There are some early indicators that suggest that maybe that is changing in this election because millennial turnout for early voting compared to 2014

is up to a pretty ridiculous degree across the country. Yeah, especially in states that matter. Yeah, Arizona, Georgia. Well, when those high school kids across the country protested and had marches on their own, they couldn't seem more motivated. Right. And that they're all coming of age to vote is one of the more exciting things for the Democratic Party. Absolutely.

And that could be the thing that the polls can't measure too. And I think that's what a lot of people on the Beto O'Rourke side are saying. It's like it's in the same way how Trump was sort of this insurgent campaign that was hard to sort of quantify. That's sort of the same feeling because when you look at some of the numbers, right, in Georgia, for example, it's 415% higher than the last midterms. Tennessee, it's just a ridiculous, astounding number. Yeah. Tennessee, it's 767% higher, which people, Republicans have been like, okay, we don't care what Taylor Swift says. She can shut her mouth. It's like, well, Taylor Swift might've driven-

She might've helped a little bit. And I know there's. It's like, well, Taylor Swift might have driven. She might have helped a little bit. And I know there's just, but again, there's been so much grassroots and organizing effort from at every level to do this. So it's hard to pin it on any one thing, but yeah, Texas, 448% increase, Virginia, 351% increase. It's just skyrocketing. And when you look at the amount of, you know, we were saying last week, I think something close to 40% of millennials will definitely vote or we're saying they're very close to voting. Right. 30%. They look at now like sort of the kinds of things that they care about. And 56% of these people surveyed were saying they support a federal jobs guarantee with $15 an hour minimum wage and family paid, you know, sick leave

and, you know, increasing support for Medicare for all, and more public university tuition funding, and things like that. So these are like, we're starting to see what the values are of this generation. It's more about being able to have a decent wage, have access to healthcare, have access to education. And it's not like, hey, we need to gut social security or some other stuff like that, which is more the existing establishment conservative ideology that's in the White House and Congress. Yeah. And Yara Shahidi, the actress from Black-ish, who just turned 18 in February and has been

out there registering people her age to vote, is another kind of inspiring story. So maybe it's just like the people younger than millennials are about to. Yeah, we got to come up with a new name because these kids. Gen Z, I think. They're Gen Z. Okay. There you go. Yeah.

And when I say come up with, I mean, tell me what the new name is. Or just stop calling them millennials because they aren't. The millennials seem to be the ones we made fun of five, eight years ago. Right. About being lazy, no good. Yeah, us. Yeah. Well, not you because you're clearly not representing the generalization I'm talking about.

But this Gen Z is exciting as hell, quite frankly. Yeah. No, absolutely. All right. We're going to take another quick break and we'll – And then talk about Alchemy This? And then we'll talk about Alchemy This. Yes. 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 Gianna Pardenti. 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. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120.

She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything?

You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? I mean, the Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the Biscuits.

It's right here in black and white in print. They lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. Segregation academies. When civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools,

these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And Miles, we're talking black metal music. Yep.

Not metal for black people. Not metal for black people. Very dark. Yes. The dark shit. Have you ever been to a UK record store where just like rap and r&b are just titled black music no really swear to god i mean back in like 2000 oh cool what the entire section of a record store was called was that over at the hmv yeah right uh well no there was a researcher who was trying to figure out like what the appeal was of black metal music because it's sort of the

same thinking of like how violent video games people like well these are going to make people violent right so if you listen to black metal you're probably a aggro murderer yeah because that's what the thematically what the music is around so you know he decided to kind of do a not the most scientifically sound study because it's a lot of self-reporting but he got a group of non-black metal fans in a group of black metal fans uh self-described black metal fans, to take a listen to some tracks and see how they felt after. And some of the tracks that they were listening to were songs like Slowly We Rot by Obituary, Waiting for the Screams by Autopsy. My wedding song. And obviously the Cannibal Corpse fucking classic Hammer Smashed Face.

Yes. If you remember in Ace Ventura, the first movie, when he goes to a concert, when he's meeting the dude where he has to do the New England clam chowder code, he's at a metal show. That's Cannibal Corpse playing on stage.

Okay. Anyway, so he found that after these people listened to the music that the non-fans were like, it just sounds like people screaming because they're whiny and hate their parents,

sort of like they were put off by the music, where the actual actual fans they report experiencing feelings of empowerment joy peace and transcendence uh and so he was and it wasn't like it had nothing to do with anger attention they never felt like that at all and he was sort of scratching his head and was wondering okay then make like the appeal of it must be sort of that the fact that the lyrics are so aggressive and pronounced that it's very divisive. So you're either going to love it or you're going to hate it. And he found that a lot of the fans of black metal are already nonconformists. So the fact that people who like it helped sort of self-define them a bit more, like they can wear it as a badge of honor.

It's like, yeah, this music appeals to me and I'm not interested in that music. And to him, that's what he thought the appeal was of metal. I mean, it's just just this music appeals to me and i'm not interested in that music and to him that's what he thought the appeal was of metal i mean it's just just heavy music you know yeah she wants your head to explode there's something about a numbing effect right that might bring on a peaceful feeling that the music is more aggressive loud and angry than you could ever be right so therefore it sort of calms you yeah because you thought you were aggressive and angry and now you don't feel as much because this music yeah yeah way more intense than i'm feeling especially really just like sludge like metal like that's slower and way heavier and those people at those shows aren't like violently moshing they're more just intensely just head

banging right so you know it and again these are like sounds that people are like custom making instruments to hit frequencies that are just so low and so heavy that they'll just make your chest cave in at a show. And I mean, they're hearing, they're legitimately, the sound is hitting their brain in a different, it might as well be a different sound than the sound hitting our brain as non-fans. And like, it's just they're processing it differently because they have so much context and they know all the different like they know where each note fits within the context of all the other black metal they've heard

so uh you can have the same debate though about cardi b in my opinion yeah well cardi b we we happen to be fans of cardi b B. It's my brain. But I think that's also the, it falls on either side. Yeah, I think some people are like, what? Yes. I think it's a very divisive. Yeah. Very divisive.

I mean, how heavy do you get, Jack? What's the heaviest shit you listen to? Oh, I don't know. I guess like Guns N' Roses and some Metallica would probably be the heaviest, which is like every fan of black metal just like scoffed. Yeah. Kevin, what about you? What's the heaviest music you listen to?

What's the heaviest you go? Yeah, it doesn't really register. It's not on the playlist in any way, shape, or form. I much prefer New Wave from the 80s than the long-haired metal band. There you go. Yeah, way, way, way more. I'll listen to some Torch, some Tar Pit Carnivore. I don't know what that is.

Oh, my. Are you making that up? No, the bassist- No, you're making that up. It kind of says it all. Right, are you making the Tar Pit Carnivore? Yeah, it's an amazing song. Look, the bassist has a-

Just call it the bomb note. I mean, that's evocative. Tar Pit Carnivore might as well be some Cormac McCarthy shit. I would ride out on it, but if you had headphones, you can't even listen to this properly in any conventional amplification.

Which is what I like in all my music. But I just feel like before you talk about any music negatively, just realize that everybody says the music they don't like all sounds the same. Right. Basically, all negative music criticism all sounds the same. You're all saying the same shit, and it's not true in any objective sense. So, like, just—

Well, none of it's objective. Right. Exactly. That's the thing about any art form. The most subjective thing. Frankly. Yeah. Yeah. Frankly. Yeah.

Absolutely. I don't think less of someone who loves a certain music that I can't listen to a second of. Yeah. It's just not for me. Well, you're not a shitty person, because I think a shitty person has the attitude of, like, well, you like this, and you're an idiot, so fuck you. I mean, I feel that way about Dodger fans, but I don't feel that way. Ooh.

What are you, Giants fans? It was nice of you guys to suit up. Yeah. Yeah. Full Dodger. And at least go to the World Series, unlike your fans who left in the seventh inning. But anyways. Wow. Are you a Giants fan?

I went to high school with Dave Rigetti. We can finish talking about my lifelong fanship of San Francisco, my hometown. Yeah, right, right. That's what I said. I had the starting lineup of Dave Rigetti when I was a kid. Because he pitched for the Yankees at one point, didn't he? Pitched a no-hitter rookie year, 4th of July, 1983. Yeah.

Yeah, it's true. I had these little figurines that were popular in the 80s of Dave Rigetti. Oh, that are like the sort of photorealistic ones, like the statuettes? I mean, kind of. Yeah, my Jerry Rice one looks like a fucking, I don't even know one. The eyes were too big. He had one huge eye. It was really disturbing.

Not real life. Not real life. But the poses were cool. Yeah, of course. Willie Randolph like fielding a grounder, which was cool. These are the 80s Yankees that I liked when I was six years old. All right, let's talk about Tetris real quick, Miles. Because this is something that has, it's definitely something I have gotten into

to a point at various points in my life where I close my eyes at night and see Tetris. Like, you know that feeling you get when, have you ever like gone skiing or like been on a boat? Or done a bunch of mushrooms. Yeah, or done a bunch of mushrooms. And then you start seeing. Skiing on a boat, mushrooms.

Mushrooms are free. The things where you, then once you go to bed at night, you feel like you're still doing the thing. I've had that with Tetris. When I play Guitar Hero or something like that too, or I'm looking at an old piano player. You're in The Matrix. Yeah. But this one is about flow states. And we've talked about flow states before, about just sort of generally activities that take a little bit of skill, require a lot of concentration. And when you engage in it, sort of time seems to melt because you're so engrossed in the activity. And like they call

this a flow state because your mind is just so in the zone and working on this task that your anxieties melt away, time melts away. And so they did a study where they were trying to see if Tetris could have some sort of effect or if that flow state had an effect on people who were in like sort of a state of anxiety. So the way they sort of did this study was they got like 300 college students and said that they were going to get like assessed on their attractiveness. So they'd go in and they're like, OK, we're going to assess your attractiveness. And then while they waited for their results, they had them play Tetris because they wanted to put these people in sort of an anxious state to see how it felt. And then they found that as these people who were waiting for uncertain or potentially life-altering news, that this flow-inducing game could help them cope. Now, it wasn't like that every single person was like, oh, my God, I feel amazing.

But they did find that the group that was playing Tetris in a way that put them in the flow state, they scored a measurable few points higher than everyone else in terms of positive feelings afterwards. Right. After they told them they were ugly? They could have just asked me instead of going through all that trouble, and I would have said the average brain does not like chaos.

Right. It's just that simple. Yeah, that's true. Could be. And then, so I think this is sort of part of a larger study about flow states sort of contributing to wellness. And they realized too that, you know, like people who sort of regularly engage in any kind of flow activity just sort of over time had better stress management skills, had more feelings of positivity. And they just felt that like Tetris was like an easy way to kind of achieve that. And there's a book, the Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the name of the neurologist. Yes. Who wrote the book Flow and Finding Flow, which are really great books about flow state. And you realize how you can get it from anything. Like he was sort of

going around talking to many people who had flow state. So some people can get it from just driving. Like some people love going for drives and it helps clear their minds. Another person was someone who like at a cannery, like just sort of testing the tops of lids to see if things were properly in there and could just tell from the tone, like what if he had to pull a can off a line. And that was like a flow state where this person was in it. And his sort of his overall sense of well-being was super high because every day he was just in this highly engaged state.

Wow. And they show that it's different for all people, and the sort of point was for everyone to sort of begin to identify what that could be for you. Like it could be rock climbing or anything or playing video games, but that it's important to sort of keep your head in that space. I got a good one. Clean your fucking house.

Oh. Yeah. Do the dishes. clean the counters yeah restructure your closet space yeah you will find nirvana right yeah there's nothing like that moment when you sit down though after you clean a bunch of shit and you're like holy shit yeah yeah i feel good a sense of accomplishment and removing clutter and chaos is ultimately what all humans are searching for but too fucking lazy to actually incorporate into their daily lives. Do you kind of yo-yo with your tidiness or are you sort of always on the ball? I love a clean counter.

Yeah. Yeah, and I don't— Oh, God, you must hate this studio. I don't—no, I'm okay around other people's non-clean counters. Right, sure, sure. And it's not really an OCD thing because I don't feel it in any other place in life like when I come in here. I hadn't even noticed clutter until you said something. And I still don't really see serious clutter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So in my own house, I just, I really do find myself regularly. You know, like it's a daily thing a daily thing that I like to remove chaos. There you go. Yeah, and not just in the house, but just in life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether it's cutting friends or quicksand.

That's another form of removing chaos. There you go. And puzzles are another thing that I know is making a big comeback and coloring books. Adult coloring books. So much they just mentioned it, I think, on SNL or something. Yeah, inside the lines and just, you know. It just popped up in, talking about those daily Zeitgeist. Yeah.

Kevin, you were talking about order, like being, and, you know, those are literally puzzles are like putting a picture in order. From chaos. Yeah, from chaos into order. And I agree. So like, I've had these moments where I've played even iPhone games that where I've been like, well, I just like three hours just disappeared like that. And like, I had no idea where it went and like, where am I? Yeah. Where are my kids? Sarah's left. She's left a note that she's gone to her mom's house. You're playing this game for five years. Yeah, but I don't know.

I do feel better after I've done that with something productive, like cleaning your house. Like I feel bad after I've spent a bunch of time just playing a game that hasn't done anything other than like just made time melt away. You might have felt better during those three hours when your brain drifted away. Right. But you're saying when you finished, there's a sense of guilt and, oh, no.

Well, then you've got to find something, either recontextualize your relationship with that game or find a thing that doesn't feel like empty calories. Right. Start cleaning. Yeah. No, I think cleaning is a great one. Get yourself a Swiffer wet jet.

Yeah. Boom. I feel a little bit like Click, the all-time great Adam Sandler. Yeah. No, I think cleaning is a great one. Get yourself a Swiffer wet jet. Yeah. Boom. Boom. I feel a little bit like Click, the all-time great Adam Sandler comedy. Classic. By the way, we'll talk tomorrow about the Adam Sandler. We didn't have time to get to it today, but the Adam Sandler Netflix special is wonderful. Something else.

I was there for some of the recording. Were you? Well, it took place at a friend's theater, the Dynasty Typewriter. Dynasty Typewriter, yeah. Hewriter he recorded I think four nights there we were there one night it was magical it's like going back 20 years

I felt like I was in high school again but alright we'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow but Kevin while we're on the subject of funny thank you first of all for being with us. And what can you tell our listeners? Usually we ask our guests for a tweet that they've been enjoying. But I want to ask you to talk a little bit about your new comedy podcast on the How Stuff Works Network, executive produced by one Chuck Bryant, who I know our audience loves. Tell us about it.

What it is. Well, if you've ever been to a great improv show, I say great because they're arguably very few things worse than attending a bad improv show. So I've been around the improv and sketch world a long time. I started out as a stand-up comedian. And so I've always been, I found more alive in a comedy situation and laughing involuntarily and uncontrollably when people were fast and fearless while improvising. I mean, I shared the stage in my early days with Robin Williams and doing that very thing, he, I, and Rick Overton. Rick Overton and I were the two brownies in Willow.

This way, not this way! So when we were shooting that, we were up in Northern California and we would get on stage with Robin and improvise stuff. And I always found myself sort of drifting upstage while Rick and Robin soared through the universe. And I was more witness than participant because they were both just so fucking fast. Right.

So there's this place near where I live, the West Side Comedy Theater, off the Third Street Promenade. And there's great improv and sketch shows there and some stand-up shows as well. And so I started sort of collecting in my mind four or five of these brilliant improvisers and thinking what in terms I might do with them. And after experimenting in a couple of ways, I decided finally to be the puppet master of a podcast wherein five of them and I would sit around this very table, and I would have created twisted, weird scenarios previously, written them down, hand them out at the last second before we set out to bring these scenarios to life. And they're just thoroughbred phenoms at fast, fearless improvising. bred phenoms at fast fearless improvising and it's um i you know challenge or beg depending on the situation just give it a listen give give like 20 minutes of your life to an episode and and i you know i'm very very opinionated about what's funny and what isn't having spent my entire life since age 10 performing in front of people to elicit laughter. I directed a documentary that premiered at Sundance a few

years ago called Misery Loves Comedy, wherein I interviewed 60 annoyingly famous funny people with the thesis, do you have to be miserable to be funny? What did you find out? You don't. You have to have experienced misery. Any art, a painter, a writer, a novelist, a musician, a poet. You have to experience misery, but then you have to figure out a way to articulate it so that it's so personal, the audience is filled with empathy, or it's so universal. Even when Jerry Seinfeld talks about a sock missing from his dryer, that is a form of misery. Yeah. In that case, so universal that everyone goes, oh, shit, me too. So anyways, but really the bigger overview is I'm a really hard laugh.

It's very, very difficult. I've just seen too much. Right, right. So I guess I'm just trying to lend a little more credibility to these five performers are insanely funny, fast, and fearless. Yeah. So it's called Alchemy This. It's only been around for, I think, our third or fourth episode. Just drop.

It's every Thursday. Yeah, fourth episode. We just broke the top 200, which for a show that's only been around four weeks with just starting to get out and promote it you know initially it's just promoted on Twitter and whatnot and um just now getting around to uh to talk about it on other podcasts like yours and thanks for having me but alchemy this again I set up these scenarios, and these insanely talented people make funny shit up in the moment. And it is dark, weird, funny stuff. Yeah.

Totally. All right. Well, so what we're going to do is we're going to drop a trailer for the show at the end of this episode. So, guys, stick around to listen to the trailer for Alchemy This. I think one of them is the Where's Jesus? Nice. Yeah, and it also involves the third Thanksgiving. I thought it would be fun.

Starting to get old. Yeah, just to go back to the second or third one where, you know, the Native Americans or indigenous people were, you know, they're just starting to, oh, man, these people aren't going away. Right, right. They really think we want them. Yeah. And where can people find you other than Alchemy This? Do you have a Twitter handle?

Oh, so, you know, at Kevin Pollak on Twitter, super lame name for Instagram, KevinPollak123. And second season of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel drops December 5th. We just, as I said at the top, won a bunch of Emmys, including Best Show. First time at the big contest show called the Emmys. Right. And some Golden Globes, too.

Yeah, I won Golden Globes and Peabody Awards and all that. Yeah, that's awesome. It's the creators and showrunners and writers from gilmore girls and they just write brilliant dialogue and characters and there's no way to fuck this one up and people we use the word that you guys are named for um and if you can tap into the zeitgeist of what people are watching these days with i think 600 scripted shows now between all the various portals and streaming. I know. Yes, 600 scripted shows.

The fact that you can get anyone to talk about a show you're on is a miracle. I'm doing another episode of my chat show of this other podcast I've been doing. March will be 10 years old. Wow. March will be 10 years old. Wow. And I have Ben Lee, this great Australian musician, who has a couple songs in Lena Dunham's new show, Camping. And I was thinking as I was prepping for that,

because I'm on my way to do that after this, how many people are talking about Lena Dunham's new show? You know what I mean? Right. That's how loud the noise is now that every new show is trying to break through. Yes. There's no way to catch up, but people are super excited about a show. They can't wait for it to come back.

Another show on Amazon I'm an insane fan of that drops, I think, this weekend is called Patriot. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We've heard really great things about that, too. Love it to death. It's so good. It's like Wes Anderson and the Coen brothers got together and decided to do a dark, weird espionage show.

Right. That's hilarious. Yeah. Like a CIA hitman who loves folk music. Well, he's super depressed. Yeah. And starts writing songs about his missions. That sounds good.

And they have to break in and stop him when he performs live. Right. Anyway, it's amazing because you're also seeing him having to navigate like lying about having an expertise in a field that he clearly knows nothing about. And just struggling with all that. I had Kurtwood Smith on the chat show,

the guy that plays basically the villain from the corporation that makes the piping. Yeah, yeah. And talking about it. That was a good episode of the chat show recently. Anywho, those are the things I guess I would plug. All right. Well, thank you for being with us.

Miles, where can people find you, follow you? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at milesofgray, G-R-A-Y. And a tweet that I like comes from at Rain Guardians, Lizzie McGuire hate account is the display name. And it's just basically a screen grab of like a YouTube thumbnail for like it has a woman in a nun's habit. And it says 1300s AD ASMR. Nun takes care of you in bed. And then in parentheses, you have the plague.

That's so great. that's so great it's the idea of you have the plague ASMR video but it makes your spine tingle yeah it gets your scalp tingling yeah yeah yeah scalp tweet I enjoy Jensen Karp retweeted

Tommy Lauren who tweeted let's be clear I'm not with Taylor and I'm not with Kanye I'm not for celebrities that pop off of shit they don't understand, period. And Jensen Karp tweeted, I have bad news for you regarding the president, which it's just so, I mean, he didn't even need to tweet that. It's just crazy that she tweeted that. And then Aparna Nansharla tweeted,

I wish you could mark obsessive negative thoughts as spam, which I liked and identified with. You can follow me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can follow us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website, dailyzeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes.

Footnote. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as the song we write out on Miles Wolf's song. This is a track from sudan archives uh which is actually an la based uh like a violinist vocalist uh on stone's throw and her music's just really interesting has all kinds of like african influence and just from her experience as a violinist vocalist this track is called non for sale Sale. N-O-N-T for Sale.

And again, just great vocals, great style. And yeah, just enjoy this from Sudan Archives. All right, we're going to ride out on that. And then we'll have a special preview of the Alchemy This trailer. We will be back tomorrow because it is a daily podcast. We'll talk to you guys then. Bye. I need to be free. Time to spread my wings. I don't like leeches. All that nonsense.

Go and get back with ya. Don't got time for snitches. You're pulling me down. Thought you was my sister. My strings propagate through space and time. Here and there at the same time. Handing bitches in basic rhyme. You ain't gotta be mad. Welcome back to Alchemy This. I'm your host, Kevin Pollak. Yes, that Kevin Pollak.

What's that? Yes, I know. I said I was ready to buy the car. I'm just not. Sweet listeners, over the years, I've been crazy lucky to see my fair share of true alchemy. By definition, alchemy is, quote, when a person creates something through a seemingly magical process. And you lovely dingleberries, like I said, I've been witness to the stuff on several occasions. An example, you ask? Okay. When separated, only 50% of Sonny and Cher had undeniable talent. Speaking of which, not too long ago, while having my conscious scraped and rinsed,

the idea hit me. What if I brought together the right creative people and asked them to make shit up based on my own twisted, demented ideas, then offered a podcast of this seemingly magical process. And I could call it, Alchemy, Why Can't You Be More Like Your Brother? Well, after a bit of title tinkering, I'm so very proud to welcome you, dear friends, to another episode of Alchemy This. Take a photo.

I'm going to get a photo of this. Hey, get away. Get back away, please. You see the tape? No photos. No photos, okay? What do you see? What do you like? What do you like?

What do you don't like about this? I don't like anything about it, Peterson. All right. Well, I'll tell you what I noticed right away. Cigarette still lit. Yeah. That's strange. Peterson, you've got a Holmesian eye for detail.

Well, I studied under the grade. Sherlock Holmes? Nope. You. Oh. Oh, that was my cigarette. Can I have that back? I misunderstood. I thought it was in the...

Oh, no. I left it there. Oh. Yeah. Like a holder. You thought the dead guy's two fingers would help hold your cigarette. Well, I was taken aback by the whole thing. I wasn't thinking clearly. Tell us your name again, please. Oh, Turla. And you're the waitress. Well, I am also the floor manager, but Oh, Turla. And you're the waitress? Well, I am also

the floor manager, but yes. Turla. How do you spell it? T-U-R-L-A-H. Okay. The traditional way. Yes. Okay. Correct. I'm very shaken. And do you remember this particular patron from inside the diner earlier? You know, I do remember that because I, as a floor manager, I'm very adept at remembering people's faces, remembering our interactions. He wanted his eggs over easy. I said, that's not going to be a problem. Unfortunately, it was a problem.

So he's having eggs late at night. That's correct. We serve breakfast all day. It's a great menu. Protein is good for you, you know. You said it ended up being a problem, the eggs that you ordered. Well, yes, not my problem, but Frank in the kitchen, he doesn't fucking understand things.

So I said over easy and he fucked it up. Frank, you want to answer to that? Yeah, but, you know, it's... Oh, my God. No, hold on a second. Let me speak for myself here for a second. Okay, no, you can speak for yourself. I just want to warn them. They have made the biggest fucking mistake of their lives.

Do not get your notepads out for this, detective. You're going to want to take some of these notes down, all right? First off, if you guys are ever hungry late night, come over to my house. What would be your house? Come over to my house. He does not have a house. He does not have a house.

All right, all right, all right. That's an overstatement. Do you rent? Kind of, kind of. I move around, you know what I mean? You're between situations right now. Yeah, a little bit. Kinda. I move around. You know what I mean? You're between situations right now. Yeah, a little bit. Between a lot of situations. You know what I mean? I don't feel we're getting a straight answer

from you, Frank. Come on, man. Let me just tell you what you mean. Are you the cook here? Yeah. Okay, and so when the eggs were ordered, what was the problem? Well, number one is... I'm very interested to hear this. Thank you, detective. I've been asking him that as well. My question is always like, over what? You know what I'm saying? It's like, over easy. It's like, alright, but like, over what? You know what I'm saying? It's like, over easy. He's like, alright, but

over what? You know what I mean? Well, over easy is the answer. Peterson, can I talk to you by the dumpster for a second? Sure. Excuse us. I like Frank for this. You do? You like Frank for this? So far. Okay. I feel it's a little early.

Look, I know it's early, but I get hunches. You know me and my hunches. You learned under me, my friend. You trained under me. But there's a couple of other fellas out there that I'd like to ask a couple questions. How many times have my hunches paid off? I'm gonna write down it's Frank. Or how many times have we

at least framed someone based on a hunch that I had? I don't know who would want to say that so loud. Excuse me? Excuse me? Yes. Officers. Yes. Hi, my name is. Detective. Detective?

We're both detectives. My name is Bobby. This is my twin brother, Robbie. Hi. We saw some things. But we're not supposed to be here. We can't be here. Bobby and Robbie, those are both derivative of the name Robert.

So we are both named Robert? Well, I was. They weren't expecting twins, so they only had one name prepared. But we saw things, but we can't really tell you, because we're not supposed to be out so late. No, this is way past our curfew. Yeah, I got the time of death at 4 a.m.,

so my first question would be, what were you two kids doing? Eating. Eating, eating, eating. Only eating? Just eating food in our mouths. In the diner? Outside. Yeah, well, outside the diner, but it was... Uh-huh. Which one's Bobby?

I'm Robbie. Okay. I'm Bobby. Sure. I don't think that's what you said at first. Are these guys giving you problems? Excuse me, are they giving you problems, these kids? Turla, do you remember these two? Oh, yes, I remember them. Hello, Robert. Yeah, they've been outside scrounging.

They're always scrounging. By that, of course, you mean? Scrounging. You know, they're scrounging. They're both little scroungers. We ain't got a good home life. No, not as good as you. Oh, well, I'm very, very sad to hear that.

None of us have a good home life. Can we all agree? Peterson, can I talk to you about the dumpster hear that. None of us have a good home life. Can we all agree? Peterson, can I talk to you about a dumb thing for a second? Excuse us. Excuse us. Absolutely. I like Robbie for this. What do you think?

I'm writing it down. Okay, write it down. I'm not sure which one is Robbie, but I like Robbie for this. It's definitely not Bobby. We can rule him out. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country

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