The Daily Zeitgeist - Trend Stein 2/21: Ben Stein, Carnival, Ariana DeBose, Winter Storm, Bachelor

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

In this edition of Trend Stein, Jack and writer JM McNab discuss the old, sad heap that is Ben Stein,  pre-Lent carnivals abound, Ariana DeBose "doing her thing" at the BAFTAs, the wild weather across the US, and the Bachelor catching COVID!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I am Jack. That is J.M. McNabb, writer on The Daily Zeitgeist. What's going on? So much is going on, Jack. So much. I know. Well, Ben Stein's name is trending. I did have to do the young people check and ask super producer Becca and super producer Victor if they knew who Ben Stein was, they affirmed that they did thanks to Ferris Bueller. The lasting impact of the film Ferris Bueller. Ben Stein, still out here

occupying space in people's brains and trending on Twitter today for reasons that I would have assumed were death related. Yeah, me too. I thought he died, but no, he has, uh, he was complaining about pancake syrup.

Yeah, he had a hot, he had a hot one that he had to let go. Yeah. It's a, it's a video of him not looking great, looking a little bent over stoop. It's been, it's been a while since we've seen Ben Stein in the flesh and old age has not been kind to Ben. No,

I, I honestly, I thought he was about 108 years old and had to Google it. And he's only like 79. Yeah. Because you know, people trying to win your money just ages you. It's just up all night worried about all the people coming for his coin. But yeah. So he posted a video where he complained that his bottle of Aunt Jemima syrup used to feature,

quote, a large African-American woman chef. But due to the inherent racism of america's corporate culture uh he it seemed like he wanted to be like it features i think he says but now because of the racism it features a white person and then like noticed that it didn't and was like features i mean uh no person i mean nothing at all just a void um it's like should we do take two ben where you don't say it's a white person no just let's practice in the ancient art of improv uh and just kind of riffing up here but yeah i mean he got the camera up had the thought got the camera up and yeah it's a it it's an old take i would say that's one one way of putting it right yeah like it's just so like people were even pointing out online that like because now it's a the product's

a whole different name like for it to have been called antromima and have no logo at all and not have the new name which is like pearl mining milling company milling company yeah not mining they're not you don't get syrup from mining yeah but for for it to be that specific product like it would have had to be like a two-year-old bottle of syrup and again because everyone took his money 25 years ago he can't afford syrup anymore yeah so yeah very dated from a very specific period of time it's very curious why anyone still cares what what he has to say but i i do think like people probably generally you know they're aware of him from ferris bueller's day off maybe from his game show when ben stein's money which helped to launch the career of jimmy kimmel um right was a former nixon lackey and yeah uh is also like a deep right wing ideologue like a creationist yeah he made

like that whole documentary about like how they shouldn't teach evolution in school yeah remember yeah yeah and he's like he went to yale but somehow ended up as a as a creationist which i don't know because once again like it feels like maybe a lot of the mystique of these ivy league schools comes from the fact that they've just only given jobs to each other in the halls of power right for for the past two centuries and so we end up with ben stein letting the cat out of the bag maybe a little bit why you should not listen to every character actor from classic 80s comedies right and i have to remind myself of that all the time yeah he's skeptical like don't just believe what the principal from the breakfast club tells you. Yeah. And I have, I've fallen victim to that.

I've lost millions in Ponzi schemes to various police academy cast members. So yeah, it's, it's a dangerous world out there for those of us who were raised on 80s pop culture and just inherently trust it. It is Fat Tuesday. Carnival is happening in Brazil, one of the biggest parties in the world. This is a pre-Lenten festival celebrated around the world. Brazil, most famously Italy, Spain. New Orleans is, I guess, the Mardi Gras is a version of this. But yeah, it's time to pack in all the drinking and eating because we're all about to starve ourselves during Lent. Am I right? Everybody on the same page about that, right? That's just how I do it every week. i eat a bunch one day and drink a bunch and

then the next day i'm sober and i fast yeah yeah and i've had several heart attacks it's not good and it's really kind of out of sync with the way other people because you party your hardest on tuesday uh which is usually not the day everybody else reserves for partying hard but you just go all in on tuesday and then it's the day i used to party when like cds and dvds all came out on tuesday oh that was what a time to be alive when we just yeah yeah i remember this is kind of a tangent but i had a friend that worked in like the big, a big bookstore in Toronto, like one of the chain bookstores. And this was when Prince was living in Toronto. And,

uh, he used to come in every Tuesday with like his entourage and would just buy every single CD that came out that day. It didn't matter what it was, just everything that came into the store he bought. And, uh, yeah.

RIP. Yeah. There are stories about that with directors and movie stars and stuff out in LA. That used to just be a real status symbol. It's like you would buy all the DVDs when they came out. And now look at us. But Fat Tuesday, get ready to put some ash on your forehead. Catholics, uh, the,

the day that put ourselves out there to be, you know, marked for death by the CIA. Uh, if the Kennedy assassination is any indication, wait, what? I'm just saying that they're not fond of Catholics.

Jeff was the first Catholic president. My, my people are, uh, you know, always on the lookout. as a producer, Brian just said don't get me started on this uh ariana debose uh academy award winner for her role in west side story super talented artist, hosted the 76th annual BAFTAs and started the show with a song that celebrated the various nominees.

And like, I'm trying to picture in my mind, like compare it to like the Billy Crystal songs, you know, when he would just come out and sing a song at the beginning of the Oscars back when he hosted the Oscars. And like, instead of jokes,

it was just like references to the movies yeah like that's kind of what it feels like but even more like it almost feels more like a like rap song that your hr department would make for a training video right that level of just like this rhymes with this and it is what we're talking about. You know, like just like going through a list and finding words that rhyme. And here we go on to the next one. And people are disagreeing about whether it's camp or whether it's cringe on the internet. I am reserving judgment for, I need to study it further. But Jam, do you have a position?

Is it cringe? Is it camp? i think it's closer to camp i yeah because there's something about it like i've probably watched it 30 times by now because i yeah there's it's it's both objectively bad and completely rewatchable and also like there's something to it that is fascinating the world but it's also not good i i think part of it may be like the reason why no one's totally sure what to call it is like she is super talented you know was working with not great material uh you know like billy crystal is not a super talented you know singer and dancer so those were just you know silly like Billy Crystal is not a super talented, you know, singer and dancer. So those were just,

you know, silly where this is like, you know, she's committing to something that is stupid and probably shouldn't have been done. It's also like weird that she was hosting at all. Like it's always a bad idea when you're like a hot young talent and you host an award show.

Like it, it didn't work the one time that it happened in my lifetime with like james franco and anne hathaway oh god people saw it i would not compare this to that at all no like no but just in terms of a career decision i i would actually probably like defend this a bit more than like some of the people on the internet like yeah i was it was pretty dumb but also like yeah i grew up with billy crystal which was real bad really bad and then also i think what also did this uh the bit no service was the way it was edited because like she's singing and like i guess i'll call it rapping but rapping like all of these names and

they do the award show thing where they cut to that actor to like get their reaction, but she's listing them off so quickly. They're having a cut to people so fast. It's like the whole thing just felt really jarring. Yeah. I mean, I think the cringiest part of it is the part that isn't being shared online as

much, which is at the end of like rattling off all the actors and directors names uh they start singing we are family i don't know if you got that far in the i didn't know yeah like that seems like okay i i don't know if I can defend this anymore. Yeah, it's pretty rough. But the rest of it was just, I don't know. Also, the BAFTAs threw Ariana DeBose and her team under the bus and said it was their idea and not the BAFTAs, which I always, like the producers of award shows feel like they need to get over themselves.

I think just generally, they should be like, yeah, it's stupid, but it's an award show and protect their talent. But this reminds me of when the Grammys threw Frank Ocean under the bus and were like, he doesn't cooperate with our vision. The Grammys award producers are very self-serious and take their craft of award show production very seriously. And just be like, yeah, we do a stupid thing and this one didn't land, but we'll try again next year, I guess.

To be like, hey, that wasn't our idea. Yeah, exactly. It's so silly. The other thing is I i watch all the you know like i watch the oscars and stuff and it's there's so many goofy bits that don't land it's like this is not even the worst of the bunch yeah as super producer brian put it trade shows are supposed to be cringe and that's what these all are whether they want to be like dressed up as like hollywood's night of bright stars or you you know, the night that Hollywood stars shine the brightest. It's just people what you're talking about. BAFTA is the thing that you're so eager to get away from you.

That's called 4D chess. And it's the only reason I've ever watched the BAFTAs other than that one. Uh, I think it was like Kanye performance with the flamethrowers. That was pretty dope. Um, but yeah, anyways,

let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Anyways, let's take a quick break. 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. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other,

a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

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I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control. I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is, then this is the show for you. We're your host, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio. We're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast, Señora Sex Ed. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and we're back and uh so there's a lot of wild weather happening tornado

winter storm on the east coast in new york new jersey this week those aren't supposed to happen near one another um strange weather coming to california um so i don't know just uh weird times yeah it's crazy i heard uh two women on the bus the other day and one of them was like oh he has like climate change, it's so crazy. We don't have spring anymore. We don't have spring or proper winters. And she was like, and we haven't since the 70s. And I was like, what? I've never experienced a real spring in my lifetime.

Yeah. Oh, man. Spring used to be amazing man you just yeah yeah i missed it yeah and finally uh the the bachelor finally caught covid we've been waiting for it to happen for a while apparently the bachelor like has to basically create a nba bubble like what the nba did with the bubble like they they just do that every season to try and prevent a covet outbreak but zach tested positive for covet forcing um you know just a lot of awkward you know a rose ceremony via ipad i believe or a virtual cocktail party via ipad i don't watch the fucking bachelor you guys but it's in case that isn't obvious but do you watch the bachelor jam no no i've seen it but i don't watch it regularly i think the the like bubble like nba bubble thing they did like when covet

started because they were like you know like everything's shutting down like whole industries are collapsing like health care workers are exhausted we really need to like pare down and make sure we get the bachelor made because the world will grind to a halt if if the bachelor stops so that's when they and they were right we needed that shit we needed that we needed the last dance we needed tiger king yeah so okay so apparently this one yeah was the had them in the bahamas london so they're they're just traveling all over the place and caught covid like uh like one is want to do if traveling all over the place yeah it seemed kind of inevitable but and it is i guess i don't know how these production schedules work like you would think

they could just wait till he didn't have covet right to finish it but instead they're yeah they did it all virtually they had like a zoom rose ceremony the zoom rose ceremony actually so producer brian is pointing out that because like the end of the bachelor announces the next bachelorette and it's sort of this inextricable cycle, like you, you can't delay it. Right. You would have to like actually stop the calendar. Like you were just,

the date would be the same for like a couple of weeks in a row. If you just delayed the bachelor, uh, like the, the actual calendar, all of the dates that we're working with, they would just stop february 21st until they were able to make new episodes that makes sense yeah so it's just a never-ending chain of the bachelor it's like we don't recognize this but christmas thanksgiving and new year's are all determined by when The Bachelor comes out and has its finale.

That explains why I buy all of my family roses. Single roses for Christmas. Alright, well, we're all hoping Zach feels better even though he caught COVID probably like four or five months ago now or I don't know how long it takes him to turn this shit around.

I don't know. Alright it takes them to turn this shit around, but I don't know. All right. Thank you, JM. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? Oh, you can find me on Twitter at JM McNabb again. All right. Those are some of the things that are trending on this Tuesday, February 21st. We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get the vaccine. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow.

Bye. 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. 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. Captain's Log, Stardate 2024. We're floating somewhere in the cosmos, but we've lost our map.

Yeah, because you refused to ask for directions. It's Space Gem, there are no roads. Good point. So, where are we headed? Into the unknown, of course. Join us on In Our Own World as we uncover hidden truths navigate the depths of culture

identity and the human spirit with a hint of mischief one episode at a time buckle up and listen to In Our Own World on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

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