The Daily Zeitgeist - The Last Trend On The Left 10/31: Halloween, Brazil, Julia Roberts, Mountain Dew, Affirmative Action

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

In this edition of The Last Trend On The Left, Jack, Miles and special guest Soren Bowie discuss Halloween 2022, the results of the Brazilian presidential election, Julia Roberts' connection to MLK, a review of the new Mountain Dew, and the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in affirmative action case!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even Lucha Libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream 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?

It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer this season on the new podcast Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy's sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities.

This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hello the internet and welcome to this episode of the last trend on the left it's halloween baby it is spooky it is spooky climax season climax of spooky season not spooky climax spooky climb no no it is it is that too that too uh miles you're miles i'm jack and we are thrilled to be doing our third seat sticking around because

we were told it's a trend episode a trend episode with a third person uh i was told he's gonna be in a halloween costume by super producer on a hose d.a dude she pump faked the shit out of me she says someone's gonna be on the costume i put i threw a wig on and an ethnically ambiguous t-shirt or on a hose. Dude, she pump faked the shit out of me. She says, I put, I threw a wig on and an ethnically ambiguous T-shirt and then all to find out she knew, she knew how to fucking fool us.

She said, and you better be dressed. And I was like, you're right. Now I got to go look through the interactions that we have, but I'm pretty confident. It's wholly possible that Anna,

without you saying that, she goes, and Soren said this, she'd be like, watch these motherfuckers show up in a costume. It's Soren Bowie! Sorry, all I have to say is Soren, Soren, Soren! Just happy to be here on this spooky day. The spookiest of days.

One of my favorite Halloween sound effects. It's so easy. So fun to do. The she-she-she-ah-ah-ah? The she-she-she-ha-ha- effects. It's so easy. So fun to do. Is she, she, she, ah, ah, ah? Yeah. She, she, she, ah, ah, ah. Yeah, for sure. Man, somebody the other day wrote on Twitter,

they did the snoring sound effect as honk shoe. And I love it. I think about it all the time. Honk shoe, honk shoe. Yeah. Honk shoe, me, me, me, me, me, me. Yeah. Well, Soren is dressed as Soren for halloween which is actually very

appropriate acclaimed television writer soren yes i have a green goblin costume put the mask on jack all right so hold on one second let me oh my god jack what the fuck is that so this is the green goblin mask that came with my Green Goblin body sock. And I'll wear it in the episode photo, the selfie, if people want to go look on Instagram or Twitter to see what it... You can probably hear my lips being pressed down. So I assumed that there was some mechanism involved with this. It's just like one of those heads of a body sock. You know, if you've ever seen one of the people

in the monochrome body sock thing where they're just all green. Yeah, yeah. I assumed that there was something like they had a thinner material where the eyes go that helped you see through it. That appears not to be the case.

I can't see anything. It's clear to me that it's completely uniform in there because it's on crooked right now and you have no idea. Are you a cyclops? The wild thing is you have it so rotated, you look like a cyclops. I have no way

of knowing that. It's okay. It's okay. You look fine. You look fine. Anyways, I'm taking it off. It's spooky season. We're about to go trick-or-treating. I'm going to go to my kid's school, do a little Halloween celebration. We're going to go trick-or-treating.

So my wife is Spider-Man. I am Green Goblin. My other son is Batman. And then my other son, after my wife had ordered her Spider-Man costume, was like, I'm Spider-Man too. So we have two Spider-Men and that's just how

it's going to be. But it is the year that the Spider-Man with the multi-Spider-Men came out. So I think we can, or they can point at each other and it can be a meme costume, which are fun um but what are we seeing out there in the hollow in the world oh halloween costumes i don't know i've seen it there's a lot of like meme ones that that work to varying effects i think my favorite meme one is nicole kidman from the amc intro like that. That would get me. If I saw that in the wild, I would be going wild for it. The thing I like is that when Kim Kardashian went to Tracy Ellis's Ross

birthday party over the weekend, she went as mystique from the X-Men and Tracy Ellis Ross like, this is just my 50th birthday girl. This is not a costume party. She showed up painstakingly painted, but head to toe. Yeah. Blewed up from the shoes up and just hey you know it happens uh p diddy as the joker was also really weird too

yeah the other thing the one thing i do want to point out is in japan we have this thing called jimmy like halloween jimmy means like super normal super dull super like just boring not exciting and there's a tradition of just going as like really specific jimmy like moments like normal shit from our lives and i just want to go through a couple of them um this one is a woman holding like an atm thing and she her costume is shop attendant trying really hard to look away as you enter your pin number it's really good just holding it uh another one is left the apartment right at the same time as the next door neighbor and ran back inside to wait until they leave it's just a guy waiting by a door

listening um this is another one where is it where is it oh this is like super japanese it says next in line to offer incense at the funeral but unsure of the custom so trying to peek at the person in front so like when you go to offer a thing like there's a way where you're like do these like little pinches and hold them in front of your head and like throw this like it's a whole process and if you're rusty on your shit you will be looking ahead they're like how many are they doing how many okay okay i'll be all right i'll be ready for that uh and another one that's is didn't really want anything from ikea but my friend insisted on driving us there and it's a person with an ikea bag but just got like one little thing yeah just like a little

stuffed animal yeah so i i i love uh just these hyper specific uh you know halloween costumes so jeannie yeah those are jeannie genie hendrix all right well let us know what your costumes were what the best thing you saw was we're about to get a thousand trick-or-treaters at my house so i'll i'll come with my zeitgeist report so we're in every every year we get a thousand trick-or-treaters and i make all my decisions about what pop what's trending in popular culture based on uh what everyone shows up as you're like guys the republicans are gonna take the house and the senate based on the costumes i saw tonight that's a good way to keep your finger on the pulse that's right yeah the kids are the ones

who are in touch hey i knew the joker was gonna be a big hit before uh well i guess everyone knew the big hit yeah do you believe it no yeah yeah you know i Joker was going to be a big hit. Yeah, do you believe it? No. Yeah. Yeah. I think the sequel might be a hit too. I don't know. I'm going out on a limb. All right.

In the world of news, Lula won in Brazil. The world exhaled. Very big for climate, human rights. He defeated Bolsonaro, who was openly a fascist. It was a leftist populist leader versus a rightist populist fascist leader. And it was super

fucking narrow. Probably not helped by the fact that Bolsonaro had a lot of pro-Bolsonaro police forces out trying to prevent people from getting to the polls in major cities where he was unpopular. Yeah. I mean, they pulled it off. The one thing that's interesting is like all the reports that Bolsonaro just shut himself away, like in a room after it didn't take any calls and like just turned off the lights and people

were like, what the fuck is going on in there yeah which doesn't make me confident no no no no what the fuck is he doing right now not talking to anybody because he hasn't conceded yeah everyone is just sitting back being like he's gonna pull a trump right he's definitely gonna pull a trump uh that kind of feels like like that is what they're calling it the trump playbook but yeah um his supporters are crying though in the streets yeah so you know you hate to see that hate to see that hate to see people on board with fascism crying huh yeah yeah all right julia roberts mlk is trending did you see the clip no i didn't i didn't okay so julia roberts like in september did a talk with gail king and Gayle King clearly did her homework because I got to say, and you actually have a connection to, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King and the King family.

And she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. And she's like, right. That like they paid for your hospital bill when you were born. So she's like, like well so what happened so apparently um her family was like unable to pay the hospital bill when she was born and Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid for the bill and they're like so Gayle King's like uh so what was he just going by and like throwing cash out of the hospital or something and it turns out that her mother her family ran a drama school in Atlanta andanta and coretta scott king was

trying to find a place for the kids to get into drama because they really wanted to but because of racism nobody was taking black children but her mother did and since then they had a connection with the king family so when it came to this moment they were like oh yeah we got you we got you that's how julia roberts going with i know exactly because at first it felt like this sounds like the most fucked up backwards privilege shit ever it's like and dr marley the king paid my bills i don't know why cool guy even where it was like she really wanted to get her kids in and uh the only way to do that was to help pay for this baby no so a kindness was done prior to that from from her family so i i like the first time i heard it

like this is this gonna either be some weird shit like or gonna make sense and luckily yes as the story evolves you're like oh i see i see what happened that's wild that that's not a thing that she has publicized before. Yeah. I mean, part of me was like, what is she doing with her activism? Is she paying it forward? Maybe not. I don't know. A little murky there. Yeah. Wikipedia page under philanthropy. There was this other debate where they're like, well, you know, she could be doing it, giving anonymous donations. Because, you know, so-and-so gives anonymously too. I'm like, yeah,

they'd give anonymously quote unquote, but still tell people they do that. So their name might not be there, but it's known that they do that. So she could be, she can not be all that to say, I got no problems with Julia Roberts, but glad to see that,

you know, her family was, was, was doing something right. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back.

There is a new voodoo flavor of Mountain Dew. I have it here. I'm going to taste test it and I guess give you my guess. I don't know. We'll be right back. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.

President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. These are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.

This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of... It's right here in black and white in print. A 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. 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. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment.

Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos!

Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. yeah indubitably indubitably sir um no i i mean it's something that i'm not embarrassed by i don't think my wife feels super great when i'm drinking dew at like a party where other people are having like white wine but it's it's who i am it's like a secret of the use green that yeah it's right it's the only thing it can be is Mountain Dew. Yeah, exactly.

I like that the idea of feeling like, oh, we're drinking. What is he? What is that? Older man drinking over there. Hey, you knew I grew up in Kentucky when you married me. You know, like that Rocky IV scene. Hey, I'm drinking it out of a wine glass to fit in. What the fuck?

Isn't that okay? God. It's classy that way. I can't win. the bubbles tickle my nose as you're smelling it like it's just fizzing as you spin the glass oh fuck okay so he's opening the new mountain dew voodoo d-e-w and i do want to say this is a prompt on the website it says back by popular demand. It's back. Blah, blah, blah. It says, the limited time

unidentified new flavor will leave you screaming for an answer to what the flavor could be. And so they say, what's your guess? Are you screaming for an answer? I'm not screaming, necessarily. Maybe my heart and soul are screaming for an answer. It's definitely challenging.

So last year was Fruit Candy Chews, which is pretty vague. I think it's Starburst basically, but they didn't want to officially license Starburst or something. This year feels like it has notes of ginger beer, but also

kind of a fruitier finish. So I'm trying to think of what that could be. Is there a burn to it? Is there that ginger burn? No, it's like that's what it sends you down that direction that this might have a ginger beer burn, but then it has more of a fruity finish, which is

interesting. So more ginger ale than ginger beer. What if it was just ginger ale? They're like, these fucking idiots are so hopped up they're so dew-brained if we just change the color and put a weird label on it they're gonna be like ginger snaps yeah we can convince people to drink ginger ale anywhere other than on a plane or when they're sick it's a whole untapped market. The fact that fruit candy was last year's is sending me down. It could be a fruit candy

flavor, but I guess all Mountain Dews could be fruit candy. They all kind of taste like candy. That's for sure. There's also some citrusy adjacents. Is it reminiscent of anything? It's not like a breakfast cereal. That's an interesting idea.

Maybe it's like fruity pebbles or something. On Twitter, people's guesses are Swedish fish. Swedish fish. That might be it. Really? That's pretty good. Yeah, it does taste a little Swedish fishy. Another one said black cherry vanilla.

Another person said it feels like it descends from the red, white, and blue bomb popsicle. Oh. Okay. Yeah, I could see that. Those are all... Yeah, I think Swedish fish... Sour Patch Kids is another one.

I couldn't tell if Fruit Candy Chews was sending me the direction of chewy fruit candy, but I kept thinking of Twizzlers, but I was like, it's not Twizzlers because Twizzlers are like more of a dull sweetness and this is like a little bit sharper and more kind of puckery sweetness well shout out Kayla

Bailey on Twitter because she's like I know a Swedish fish flavored soda when I taste one yeah and definitely a better execution of a Swedish fish highlighted like crossover if it is that because the Swedish fish Oreos were one of the first things we ever reviewed on this podcast and that was a that was a problem this is just like we're

seeing as i look at these tweets like the last days of innocent twitter like this black woman was one saying like i know swedish fish flavored so do i taste one this random white dude in the replies who's like his avatar is like taking a photo like real like and i'm a photographer this guy's like that's what I thought too. Had one yesterday. They don't follow each other. They were just cruising the hashtag. He's picking her up. Three years from now, we're going to see their wedding pictures.

Right. If you've got that early taste, could it be Sour Patch Kids? Those have a very Swedish fish. It's more Swedish fish than Sour Patch Kids, I would say. Could you really as a self-respecting

company, PepsiCo, could you do fruit candy chews and then Sour Patch Kids the next year? No, but I am curious how they're going to label it. If it is Swedish Fish, what are they going to call it? Scandinavian Swimmers.

We did Red Fruit Chews this time. It's probably not going to call it? Because they can't call it Scandinavian Swimmers. We did Red Fruit Chews this time. Yeah. It's probably not going to be that. I wonder if it is like a ginger beer type thing. But they wouldn't call it ginger beer, right? It is really. Because that's kind of niche. So they would probably have to call it ginger ale,

which would be so weird. This one's Sprite. This week's mystery flavor flavor we did a sprite this year what do you think this is our take a sprite anyways i just drank half a bottle of mountain dew and we'll be crashing like right when my kids are hitting their sugar dude all right hurry up we got to get through the stories before you crash dude yeah it's it's really a clock my miles knows it's a very short countdown. You got 20 seconds.

And I don't want your kids to have it. Yeah, I don't want to have another bunk Halloween where you have another dew crash. All right, affirmative action trending because enough right-wing donors have invested in making this a case that the Supreme Court thinks they need to try. Because it's reverse racism, I tell you.

Looks like they're set to gut this you know massively successful social policy and like you said enough backing from donors that it made its way to the supreme court the argument that's being made there's a couple but one of them is that it's negatively impacting aapi students which there is an argument for that absolutely but the lack of space to enroll those students isn't because of like black kids or brown kids an affirmative action it's the wacky admissions policies of places like fucking harvard that keep thousands of spots open for aldcs aldcs are athletes legacies uh people on the dean's list and then children of faculty, they make about 5% of applicants,

but 30% of the admitted class miles, how'd they get on the Dean's list? It must be through academic achievement. Let me just look this up. Oh no. It's actually frequently on there because of family donations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, this is, I mean, it's just, it's just wild to see this happening. But yeah, like the other thing with Harvard, the admissions rate is about 45% compared to the normal rate of less than 5%. That's for ALDS.

Yeah, yeah. ALDS too. Yeah. ALDC. Wait, why is that? You can just be like legacy? Like it's just nepotism is like the best reason to get to go to college?

Yeah. Yes. That's straight up. Like they don't even, but I guess, I guess they created a fun acronym that makes it sound like something else, but yeah, it's just legacy.

It's just legacy. Athletes legacies, those on the Dean's list because their family gave a bunch of money and then children of the faculty. So those ALDCs constitute 5% of applicants, 30% of the admitted class. Just ruminate on that. And again, while they like completely hijacked a group of people who are like raising a real

concern about like the wacky admissions problems that exist in schools that exacerbate, you know, inequality and things like that. And there's like, you know what, let's go really narrow, use this case to blow the whole thing up. And it's just a really, again, like everything we're seeing through the Supreme Court. It's not because of one aggrieved person taking a stand. It's because of just a massive operation of people who are

like, nope, trying to make sure everyone's in as much pain as we can sanction legally as possible. Yeah. All right. Well, those are some of the things that are trending on this Monday, October 31st, 2022. Happy Halloween, everybody.

Soren Bui, thank you so much for joining us. The rare guest on a trending. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Soren underscore LTD. You can follow our podcast that I do with Daniel O'Brien at Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. You just watch American Dad. Yeah, yeah. Amazing.

All right. That's going to do it for us. Back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get the vaccine. Get the flu shot. Get that by family, fam.

Flu season is out here. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to y'all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine,

and even lucha libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy's sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities.

This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the 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? It's right here in black and white in print.

It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI.

Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts.