The Daily Zeitgeist - The Taco Bell ReTrenderment Home 7/9: Taco Bell Cantinas, Disney Strike, Mars Habitat, Gladiator 2, Texas Internet Outage

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

In this edition of The Taco Bell ReTrenderment Home, Miles and Bryan The Editor discuss Taco Bell's new retirement village for young people: The Cantinas, the incipient Disney cast member strike, the conclusion of the year-long Mars habitat experiment, the trailer for Gladiator 2: Chronic Shirtlessness, the Great Texas Internet Outage of 2024 and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What's going on the internet? And welcome to this afternoon edition of the Taco Bell Retrenderman Home. My name is Miles. I'm joined with brian the editor uh hi brian hi miles man we're here to tell people things are not tense i know some people think things are tense just because the way we're talking to each other things are not tense at all it's yeah why would you even think that oh wait it's not wednesday damn man i don't even look i have this typical this is the thing i don't know what day it is ever it's tuesday july 9th okay 2024 here are the things that are

trending as the title would allude to there has there is a new development in the world of taco bell they are they're launching a pop-up retirement home for young people. And presumably because eating Taco Bell for your whole life will make you prematurely feeble and incontinent. But for those of us that just want to be there for the vibes, myself included, they're calling it the cantinas. Like the fucking villages in Florida. And it's available to Taco Bell members or something, reward members over the age of 21. And there'll be like, you can have a stay. There'll be activities like golf, aerobics, pickleball, and early bird dinners where you can eat your quesadilla at 4.30. Yeah.

As someone who has briefly been retired or lived as a retired person what do you mean by that just unemployment uh no i just lived life real slow on a beach for a year you live around a bunch of old people not mass okay uh and uh it's i don't know how people live like that like rinse and repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over again it's wild how how quick the monotony sets in so i'm like well these people won't is there an age cap on this no they're not gonna experience it because i imagine you get a bunch of taco bell freak out people together the last thing they're not going to experience it because I imagine you get a bunch of Taco Bell freak out people together. The last thing they're doing is like, we should cut in early.

They're gonna be like, I'm fucking, I'm doing Molly at the pickleball court. And I got the three layer burrito in my hand. That's what that feels like. Yeah. Eating dinner at like four 30. Like I've,

I've done that. And it's, it's off. What the fuck do you do with the rest of your evening doing you better go to bed by seven better get your ass in bed by seven there's nothing else to do what are you a fucking tweaker because imagine going to bed at seven i mean look my my grandma when she was like a hundred she was going to bed at eight i get when you're like you're just but i'm like there's this when you're 100 how did how did how did we end up at this culture where the goal is to toil for your entire life and not have any fun and save all your money till

when you're old and you can't do shit yeah and then you just post i like i don't like after trying it i'm like why do people do this? Why is this the goal? And why is this, why do people look at this? You basically found yourself kind of accidentally living in a retirement community. Basically it was an accident. It wasn't on purpose.

I wouldn't like flexing. You're like, well, I had all this crypto. No, I was still working, but it's just like my life was energy. Yeah.

The pace. Yeah. It was very slow and it was a lot of old people around. It's it's like look i love all things taco bell and there's something like maybe pressing about this where obviously like everything's going to consolidate into like three companies and like conceivably we would be living in a taco bell retirement home well i mean we've all seen demolition man we know they're franchise franchise franchise wars we all know about the franchise wars.

God, that's so weird. That's probably the thing we're closest to in Demolition Man is the franchise wars. Of all the movies, I'm like... They had something. Marco Brambilla, bro. Yeah, the shells. The franchise wars. Yeah, I get it.

Prescient. Prescient. Next thing that's trending disneyland now it turns out that the largest bargaining unit of disney workers in california that means everybody custodians ride operators you selling merch popcorn whatever no that's a different union technically just so you know that is a different union they are actually in uh they union they voted to unionize with actors equity association back in may so the performers goofy also under that bargaining unit any character okay or someone who dances in the parades uh-huh also donald duck union eligible huh and mini two okay all right let's go through the whole roster like an asshole you're like bringing up like ancillary characters the crows from dumbo

they're like well uh they weren't the best but what about those racist bears yeah were they racist oh in uh song of the song yeah splash mountain i i my shorthand for that is just calling it splash mountain i have to always remember it's called song of the south i call them the splash brothers this bargaining unit they announced today that a strike authorization vote is scheduled for disneyland cast members and the results are expected to be announced by july 20th um this is 14 000 workers at disneyland this is disneyland california adventure downtown disney the disney hotels uh they've been in negotiations since april asking what basically what all workers have been asking

for since the dawn of capitalism but especially in our hot union labor summers of recent memory fair wages you know uh fair attendance policy seniority increases um safe parks for cast members and guests that one's a little bit like whoa you're advocating for the guests now as a union like these places need to be safe for the guests too um wow what's happening with the guests well right now i mean the thing that they've definitely filed unfair labor practices is things like they can't wear like their union pins at work or they're being intimidated like very normal you know clamping down on uh uh workplace unionizing kind of stuff um but uh this is what the uh one of the spokespeople from the bargaining committee

had said quote we won't accept less than what we deserve because we know our value to Disney. The theme parks profits come from our hard work, making a trip to Disneyland, a magical experience for guests by undermining our rights. Disney has only made harder our fight to help our guests and keep our park safe, which is why we are compelled to take a vote next week on whether to authorize a strike after our contract expired with this strike authorization

vote. We will ensure Disney hears Disneyland's cast members voices. Damn. They, I don't think you can handle a fucking strike that you'd like that, that, that shit runs on fucking cast member labor. So,

uh, yeah, I'd imagine this will be solved quickly. I don't think Disneyland is that gangster with it. I know Disney, Disney as a company is quite, uh, cheap,

but I guess, I don't know. I mean, you're just going to get a bunch of, you're going to get a bunch of scabs in to bring the magic. I mean, they probably would, but damn,

that would be fucking wild to say like, you need an entire hotel staff. You need an entire people to run downtown Disney. Like, and it's not like a factory or something it's like there's a way to do things like you can't be like oh yeah where'd you work before it's like oh i was uh scabbing at the john deere factory it's like great well you're in charge of doing rise of the resistance um and launching all the rides safely and uh yeah and yeah anyway not pay your workers you're making money ruining the magic which is i assume a skill well it's just grim to think of like how expensive disneyland is and how much people still like covet like the disneyland family trip is sort of like the place

like the way to spend all of your hard-earned money and then just having that with the backdrop of uh just like this kind of unfair labor uh is very american um so again much success to uh the disney workers rising bargaining committee uh i hope you get what you are owed and you get a fair contract all right let's take a break we'll come right back to talk about some other stuff right after this. 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?

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No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right. In our own world, we're two space cadets. And totally normal humans. Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter,

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available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. to avoid any black holes most of the time and we're back back um nasa i want to talk about nasa we're going to talk about gladiator 2 don't worry brian we are going to talk about gladiator the trailer uh but i did want to talk about this because i know you're you're a man of science uh you like you like science stuff and i do too i like space stuff and i don't know if you remember like a little over a year ago nasa was like we are looking for people to pretend they're on mars for a fucking year straight no

contact you are in this fucking simulated mars base because we need to understand what will happen to the human brain the human body with certain effects so it was called the crew health and performance exploration analog it just ended and this was where four crew members i believe it's an engineer an emergency room doctor a nurse and i believe another chief scientist i believe i may have messed up one of those roles anyway they live in a quote 3d printed habitat with a 1200 square foot mars-like sandbox where they'll perform simulated missions it's the longest analog that nasa has ever attempted i was like okay but like it's not space like so you're not going to get that part

and then as i read more about it it i understand what they're saying they needed nasa basically wanted to learn how to establish possible conditions for future Mars operations. And also, wait, where is the quote I was looking for? Also investigate how factors like diet available to astronauts might affect their immune systems and how isolation might affect their health as well. And controlling the crew's diets, environment, and activities, the research team can understand how all these different factors affect each other i turned uh it didn't end with them killing each other um which is absolutely tight so where did they where did they um they had to simulate a barren wasteland where did they uh where did this experiment take place oh and in houston texas baby oh that makes that's wow what a great space center well

they're not even outside though if you look like that that barren wasteland of mars is like a completely controlled tented with like printed on graphics to give you the feeling of mars or someone's weird apartment with a lot of sand on the floor who's really into a mars aesthetic it's just somebody somebody who has like seven cats and they they just don't know how to keep that shit clean yeah it's litter all over the floor damn bro it's fishy in here what the fuck is going on uh but yeah they it ended it sounded like it was great uh the doctor that was part of the mission said that flew by fast um another one of the uh participants who was like the scientist said it's like wow just hello quote it's actually just so wonderful to

be able to say hello to you all so they came out uh all right the thing i didn't know was that like the other part is that to simulate it their only contact with the outside world was through like a 22 minute delayed like comms unit which makes sense because that's how long it would take to transmit the messages but i was like oh that's do you have a conversation then like what's the if you just probably have to get it all out in one go and then wait it's probably more like email like you can't just be like what's up yeah you can't just be flippant with your nothing nothing chilling on mars i'm waiting for them to respond hopefully they think that's cool um so yeah i don't but much success to figuring out

how to live on mars will it work i don't know yeah we won't see it but fine i mean yeah this is a very important thing that you have to sort of understand and lock down for long-term space flight is are these motherfuckers gonna get space madness and kill each other yeah that's a very big concern before you even get to the physics of being in space getting getting ship there it's like can we lock four people in a tin can and shit's gonna be chill but it's like isn't it hard when you know it's like bro if i really wanted to get like if i was really starting to bug out they would probably let me out you know i'm like the mission's a failure they're like no you're gonna have to deal with someone's violent outrages because they've they've

they've succumbed to the experiment it'd be funny if somebody did get space madness in houston and they're just like they're like hey man sorry man just deal with it man that's just murdered everybody with a murdered everybody with a space axe yeah it becomes like the new stanford prison experiment yeah there's some shit like mars analog and you're like dude that's not we had to stop it after 14 days um but yeah cool uh i would you do something like i mean i love the movie when i was younger yeah when i was younger i might have been interested in something like this yeah but i'm i'm a creature of habit yeah and unless they're gonna let me bring my steam deck

and some weed to mars like i'm really not interested i mean they're like they have weed on mars it's kind of it's kind of booty the weed kind of it sucks but it's there yeah the meanwhile they're like uh you know uh engineer brian we needed you to sort out how to grow crops on mars and and it looks like you're curing a bunch of cannabis it's like yeah got a pretty good yield like three pounds off of these plants so yeah we'll be good for a little bit. Should last me a while. Next up, Gladiator 2. Gladiator 2 colon chronic shirtlessness.

Chronic shirtlessness and screaming. The trailer, it's mostly shirtless dudes that are either bloodied or sweaty. Just going, yeah! With fucking epic trailer music behind and as we know shirtless dudes sweating and yelling is a draw for dudes a lot of dudes yeah that's like, hold on. The beauty standard for men is enforced entirely by men. Yeah, right, right. Women are very forgiving with looks. Dude, you better look like joked Maximus mixed with fucking Leonidas, dude.

Or get the fuck out, you soy sponge man. Yeah, so all the ancient Rome, ancient Greek dudes. yeah so all the ancient rome ancient greek dudes uh all the uh you know like i picture a lot of joe rogan fans going to see this oh yeah yeah i mean look i'm no joe rogan fan but i'm a this looks like a fucking spectacle it looks like gladiator with way more money and there were some pretty gigantic battle scenes this looks like some pretty gigantic battle scenes i don't think this is going to be good but you got denzel washington yeah that's the one thing where i'm like yes my white man be my instrument i'm like i just fuck with denzel because he's he's gotten to a well what's okay here's here's a question miles has denzel ever acted not like denzel no he's like i put him in the category of movie star

like i know i know he's a good actor but when you look at him in movies he just he's he's never his character like i don't know the name no it's just any of the characters that he plays it's just Denzel in a costume. Any of the characters that he plays, it's just Denzel. Glory is Denzel in a Union Civil War outfit. Yeah, Virtuosity is... Flight is Denzel in a pilot uniform. Virtuosity, he's like a cop fighting Russell Crowe. Virtuosity. Huh. Interesting.

He's a good cop. And Maximus? But in Training Day, he's a bad cop. Bad cop, because he wears a beanie. He got a little scully on, so you don't know what he's up to and he smokes cigarettes yeah um so there he is gladiator 2 gotta see it should love it really scott just go rest on your laurels man what are you doing i honestly it's funny i really stopped checking in with really scott after gladiator and it's funny like hearing you after prometheus that movie was so baffling why don't they just make the aliens come to earth am i the only one waiting for the aliens and alien to come to earth i want to see little xenomorphs

running around a cul-de-sac that's what kind of made jurassic world the sequel wild when that t-rex was busting up san diego yeah i'm like dude they keep making the same essentially the same movie and i'm like dude you originated this shit and you're just you're just rehashing old shit i don't get it that's where everyone's resting on their their laurels as it were um but anyway gladiator 2 uh shirtless boogaloo coming to a theater soon uh and then finally texas spectrum is trending because spectrum the second i believe the second largest provider for internet in the state of texas uh as of this recording the entire internet in the state from spectrum has gone out like their service has gone out yeah you get better internet on mars actually probably yeah i mean shit i'll take a 22 minute delay yeah it's like even if it

is something uh because it is at least it's delayed it means it's working uh but yeah uh this is obviously fallout from hurricane barrel um and yeah i hope i hope i need that i mean people have cell phones so i guess they can kind of do something they won't be totally bored a lot of the memes that people are like posting they're like it's like uh what's that what's that show little house on the prairie like they're like wow texas right now everybody's in the in the pre-internet world i think it'll be okay but yeah spectrum this is what happens when it's like you only got two fucking companies everywhere you go to do shit um yeah it's pretty it's pretty wild how long this is

been allowed to go on yeah we have this ridiculous duopoly like i like how one guy said i just had a doctor's appointment but they couldn't bill me because their spectrum internet is down oh no they'll figure that part out they're like yeah don't worry we're still going to make sure you pay us that money um even though our internet's down we'll do it on paper um so anyway those are the things that are trending oh but quickly will you watch gladiator two just on the record uh that is something i'm gonna skip in the theater and i will snatch it out of the air yep i get that that one scene though when they were filling up the coliseum with water and then doing like ship battles that

felt that was cool to my like kid brain i was like dude it's like a big bathtub and then but people then they put sharks in it where'd they get sharks don't don't fucking you don't gotta worry about that baby is gladiator this show these are roman sharks that were chilling and don't fucking you don't gotta worry about that baby is gladiator this show these are roman sharks that were chilling and don't worry about what kind of irrigation system they had to flood the fucking base of the coliseum to turn it into some kind of ocean simulator yeah yeah i think i'm gonna i think i'm gonna just wait on this one and you're gonna watch it wait till i text you and i go bro this shit the first scene because you know the first thing's gonna be fucking stupid it's gonna be some kind it's gonna be an absolute fucking spectacle not to again not that it's the movie's gonna be good

but you're like damn that's a fuck i spent a lot of money on this i will i will admit it does look pretty wild like there's a lot of shit going on like there was a like is there a maximus exhibit at the museum because at one point there's like oh this is maximus's shit and it was like mounted on a wall like he was like like michael jordan or some shit like a goat you know what i mean i was like a little shrine yeah i missed that part but um i was really more i was like oh and sell like i just love that he didn't even attempt a goofy accent. They just gave him a Caesar and a couple of earrings and a tunic. He looked like a dude from Brooklyn.

And he sounded like he was from Philly. He somehow has a cigarette that's even pre-cigarette era. Like modern day cigarette. He's got a lucky strike. Yeah. Just one behind his ear. Someone posted like a thing of him that said,

my gladiator. And it's like, yeah, that's pretty much what we are going to see. But one of our great actors. All right. Anyway, that's going to do it for us. We will be back tomorrow

with a brand new episode. So until then, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Wear a mask. Get the vaccine. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we'll be back to talk about all kinds of shit tomorrow.

Later. Bye. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Check out our recent episode with Latin Grammy winner, author,

and TV personality, Chiquis, about raising her younger siblings after the death of her mother, singer Jenny Rivera. I would do it over and over again. All of that has molded me to become the woman that I am today. Like, I wouldn't change anything. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app,y's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.