The Daily Zeitgeist - ValTrendZeits Day 2/14: Michigan, Alec Baldwin, Pharrell, The Takeout

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

In this edition of ValTrendsZeits Day, Jack and  TDZ writer JM McNab discuss the Michigan State University mass shooting, Alec Baldwin's cursed movie, Pharrell replacing Virgil Abloe at Louis Vuitton, and The Takeout's "Restaurants to Watch 2023"!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy'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. 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 Thursday. 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 Valtrenzites Day 2023, because we might have done that before. Also, it kind of sounds like

herpes medication. I feel like Valtrenzites. Anyways, I i'm jack and i'm thrilled to be joined by tdz writer extraordinaire jm mcnab hello thanks for having me oh my god thank you for being here jm you've really been writing a lot for the show since miles went out for a brief period um and yeah but thanks for doing that but your brain is just polluted with the trends of of what is happening in so many trends oh jesus but first i should wish you a happy valtron light's day oh thank you thank you for i am happy the thing you just said back to you. Unto you as well. All right. Uh, enough fucking around, uh,

horrifying news that is becoming very, I guess, common, um, or has been very common for a horrifyingly long time. Uh, there was a mass shooting at Michigan state university to, you know,

sad, uh, in progress story, but the 43 year old suspect was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Three students were killed, five were hurt. He had a three page document expressing his reasons for the attack and a number of additional locations in Lansing and Holt, Michigan, a bunch of other places. Yeah, it just seems like another person who should have had a gun. And his dad, I think, came out and was like, I've been trying to keep guns out of his hands for a long time,

and the system just doesn't allow it, and the United States doesn't allow it. Yeah, and he said he asked him if he had a gun, and he would say no, even though he clearly had a gun. Right. Yeah. Just awful. That's what we have to rely on in the United States. JM, you're not from the United States. What do you think? How are we doing? Are we killing it? Well, I mean, you know, there's a lot of guns here too.

In Canada there is? Yeah. I mean, it's not the same. It's not the same culture, but it seems like more and more. I think everything in Canada is kind of just like, we copy everything in the US. It's just delayed a little. And I think that's happening now with the bad things as well. What? It's not just culturally in terms of movies and TV. Gun ownership is just freedom, bro. What do you mean, bad things? Oh, okay. Yeah, it's just so appalling. And so it felt like reading the news today, maybe I'm wrong because I'm not watching TV or anything or cable news, but it felt like this one was really just kind of accepted or glossed over or, oh, this is just the thing that happens.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, okay. And just the numbness to something that should be, you know, a rare, awful, extraordinarily terrible event to have this just become a regular part of the news cycle is just so depressing. It is. is just so depressing. It is. Ted Cruz was so over it that this morning already,

he was dropping gems like this on Twitter. Ted Cruz, quote, roses are red, violets are blue. Biden wants to ban gas stoves and is allowing the Chinese to surveil us too. I mean, there's something the the pentameter of that that didn't quite work for me but uh well you've got to imagine it with like bongos in the background and like a san francisco coffee house in the 60s right yeah ted cruz vibes you know but does suggest that he's still doing his own tweeting,

which is amazing. Did he just like have that in his drafts? And I was like, well, it's too good not to send despite the tragedy. Yes. Too good. The, and also so good that it might distract people from the tragedy.

Just want to share a little bit of political joy with my followers. You know, he's smart. He's, uh, he's got a good, good ear for poetry, um,

and a keen sensitivity to the needs of the nation. So I like that. He combined the gas stove thing, which everyone kind of forgot about with the Chinese surveillance story. Yeah. I did it so smoothly and is allowing the Chinese to surveil on us to nailed it. Po story. Yeah. And did it so smoothly. And is allowing the Chinese to surveil on us too. Nailed it. Poet.

Truly. Let's see. So the Rust movie that most people know about because Alec Baldwin killed somebody with a gun that was supposed to be firing blanks and was firing not blanks. There are more articles about rust now since the tragedy than there were there wasn't a lot of hype no for for rust yes and they are now so you would think that

the fact that everybody knows about this would be a thing that makes them be like well that is a stain on all of our careers. Let's move along. All of us should change our names, move to new countries, and take up cobbling or something like that. However, instead, they're like, there's a lot of heat on this Rust project, so we're going to pick back up on the production in the spring.

Yeah, they're still going that's what that neil young song is about rust never sleeps it's about this production not shutting down i'm sure that is an amazing reference to a neil young fan or i just made it up because i know you're not a fan yeah yeah rust in the immortal words of the bard neil young uh russ never sleeps uh that's that's a cool cool little bit of poetry though russ never sleeps uh and yeah truly does not in this case um i did not realize this maybe could be a thing that i covered at the time on this show and just didn't enter my brain like 80 of the things

we cover on the show but uh that alec baldwin plays a character in the movie who is sentenced to hang for an accidental murder yeah he accidentally murdered somebody um and is being prosecuted for it is you know but it but it's like, it's a Western, right? Like it wasn't, he didn't shoot someone like while they were making like a kinescope or something. Right.

Yeah. But it's, I don't know. And also one headline put it, uh, to resume production in the spring with a new cinematographer, which is like very dark and grim, but also probably deserved of the,

of the production to do that. Um, to, to put it that way, because yeah, that, that must be happening. They must be hiring a new cinematographer,

uh, who I don't know where they're at in their career where they're like, cinematographer on rust. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Let's, let's give it a shot.

It does just seem like, why not? Why, where, where do we have to go from here that we need this movie so badly? I don't know. And who's going to go see it? Like,

are, does anyone want to go see this movie after the only thing we know about it? Is that something awful happened on it? I really think that don't worry, darling fucked us. I really, I really think the fact that don't worry darling fucked us i really i really think the fact that don't worry darling had a big opening weekend really sent the wrong message to hollywood that that was the harry styles olivia wild movie that upon seeing it is truly

not shit um it's not not it's not the worst thing i've ever seen but it's just like not good and i was surprised that it hit as hard as it did given that it was like this movie that feels like a prestige like oscar bait movie and then it came out and everyone was like oh it's not good it's not good nobody go but i think the accepted wisdom is that controversy got people interested. And so now they're going to just do shit like this, which is not great. That's not ideal, I would say. Right. There's just the behind-the-scenes stories generate interest, even if they're terrible.

I'm still not sure that's what happened like that i think don't worry darling had one of the like greatest good trailer to disappointing movie like ratios that i've seen like that trailer was intriguing like that trailer was awesome that was like a great work of art like that was just just a short film. I would have been like, hell yeah. But then once you had to hang a narrative on that trailer that went for an hour and a half, it was like,

this doesn't really make, yeah, it doesn't really work. It doesn't hang together, but yeah, I didn't even mind that movie. But I think if you go through, if you watch it in the mindset that it's kind of like a goofy,

uh, like nineties, outer limits kind of show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of like a goofy uh like 90s outer limits kind of yeah show yeah yeah yeah it's it's like a yeah it's kind of just a bit more you know frivolous than than maybe the trailer suggested but right right i didn't think it was terrible yeah also the town we we talked about the train derailment uh a late, but we talked about it yesterday. And, or I guess on this morning's episode, we talked about the train derailment. But one thing we didn't mention was that they filmed,

so White Noise, the Don DeLillo novel, that is everyone's like that. He predicted that this would happen, like a small town. There's a train derailment. There is an airborne cloud that like doesn't behave like a small town there's a train derailment there is an airborne cloud that like doesn't behave like a cloud should it just kind of hovers over the town and like starts following people around and shit and it's very strange which is kind of what we saw happening in ohio that they filmed the noah bomback film adaptation of that novel that just came out on Netflix last year in the

town where the train derailment just happened. And a lot of the people who are being displaced because of the train derailment are extras from the film adaptation that just happened. Like what the fuck is happening? I think it that uh it's like a goosebump story or something where noah bomback has some kind of cursed enchanted camera and whatever he films happens who knows how many divorces resulted as because he made squid in the whale like we should probably check to see if wherever he goes the thing that he makes in his movies happen there yeah this is just the biggest thing that he's made. Yeah. After that, we all just assumed that Jesse Eisenberg was the person who made the pink

Floyd album, the wall. And I really love that movie. And I think that joke was very funny, but not the joke. I just told the joke from the movie, by the way. I wasn't like,

and I think the joke I just told was very funny. Thank you. Good job. Me. Yeah. Very strange. I mean, movie by the way i wasn't like yeah and i think the joke i just told was very funny thank you good job me yeah very strange i mean it does feel like reality is glitching out as these things happen and there are ufos but i will get into why i don't think the ufos are uh alien in nature um and yeah in an article written by you on tomorrow's episode this story did remind me that i never watched the white noise movie i just it came out i didn't watch it and then i forgot about it completely until right now yeah i didn't watch the movie i do love the novel and i think i'm going to now reread the novel is it yeah i think i might reread it too i remember i

went to a book signing that don delLillo had a few years ago, and he was only signing his new book, and the guy in front of me brought white noise, and a handler came over. I was like, no, no, no, no. Get the fuck out of here, man. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny.

All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion

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And we're back. And let's see. Pharrell Williams will be Louis Vuitton's next men's creative director. So Pharrell Williams will be Louis Vuitton's next men's creative director. Yeah. So Pharrell Williams will succeed Virgil Abloh as Louis Vuitton's men's creative director, which this doesn't really mean a lot to me. Pharrell Williams.

So Virgil Abloh was known to me for making some of my favorite sneakers. The one piece of men's attire that I actually pay attention to. Pharrell Williams is mainly known to me for making great beats and wearing a funny hat. And being happy all the time. Yeah, and being happy all the time. But also the hat was like a little ahead of its time because like the stupid full brimmed hat wave came afterwards so maybe he is like way more fashion forward than i assumed but i don't know i think he's done other things too like i don't think

this is the first fashion job he's had i think he's he's had some other gigs oh yeah i think he did have a pair of sneakers that i like yeah i'll go there you go from adidas yeah they were like yeezy light like they were yeezys but a little less stupid looking and i did have those um yeah but i don't think yeah i don't think this is gonna affect my life too much either the the louis vuitton uh the next time event is there a louis vuitton store i don't even know i was gonna make a joke the next time i'm in the store but is is that a thing yeah dude okay the next time i'm in the louis restaurants to watch 2023 sometimes little behind, little behind the scenes, sometimes when we're doing trends,

I just go to thetakeout.com and I look at their front page and sometimes they have an article that I want to talk about. And today is one of those, one such day, 11 restaurant chains to watch in 2023. Number one on their list, 7-Eleven,

JM. Yes. Do you guys have 7-11 up there we do and i think they just like within the last year or so announced uh that they're gonna be doing this like having like little restaurant areas that are like licensed for alcohol so you can you know i'm sure they're booked up for valentine's day but uh you know you can go have dinner and a cocktail maybe and and you know watch people watch drunk teenagers you know buying chips yeah no yeah the article starts with this sentence if you don't think of 7-eleven as a restaurant you haven't been paying attention i don't been paying attention. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's why I don't think of 7-Eleven as a restaurant. The convenience store leader isn't just nipping at the heels of major fast food brands. It's surpassing them. Yeah. I mean,

I think, okay, fair. Fast food. If you don't think of it as a restaurant, you have standards. You haven't given up. Yes. i i do not have standards and yet here we are i did not think of 7-eleven as a restaurant until now i think of taco bell wendy's burger king sure but 7-eleven i always associated more with scratchers and getting jewel things there like like a jewel album from the 90s like no like the jewel cartridges the vape cartridges oh okay yeah and the big gulp you know which which is you know a food item another thing that they called out another restaurant to call uh that they called out you know the they've got chipotle uh they've got dave and busters which i'm excited to find out why i need to be paying

attention there fat burger um they also have fazoli's a restaurant that recently came up because i went to middle and high school in lexington kentucky where fazoli's originated originated. This is Italian food ellipses fast. And you can get drive-thru baked ziti. The baked ziti is good, but it's... I don't know. I was surprised. As I mentioned this, I was like, so shout out to Kentucky. Fazoli's is on the move. They are

everywhere throughout the South. So, I don't know. They opened a ghost kitchen serving chicken wings in Atlanta in 2020. So they're trying different things out. Keep your eye on Fazoli's. They also had like Jersey Mike. I don't know. These are all restaurants

that kind of run together for me otherwise. But Fazoli's, baby. It does feel like an idea that should work. Fast Italian food. Nobody else has tried it the breadsticks are solid little breadstick marinara you guys have fast italian chains where where you are we probably do we don't have fazoles uh i'd never heard of fazoles it looks it doesn't sound real or and the logo looks like it was yeah it's just a tomato yeah it looks like it looks like a fake restaurant created for like a garfield cartoon right or something to me but uh

i don't know we do have like there's like the pizza vending machines now where you can get like pizza made by a vending machine or something that's pretty fast i guess that is very fast do they have it like where you can drive up to it and not get out of your car when an order of pizza that then i don't think so i think you have through a pneumatic tube like one of the old timey banks you just get a pizza shot in into your car um all right well fortunately you were on this episode. So now, you know, Fazoli's is not a fake restaurant and is, in fact, one that you should be watching actively. I'm going to go watch it as soon as I scope out 7-Eleven and Dave and Buster's. Get some reservations. Okay. Yes. These are on the rise. JM, pleasure having you. Thank you for

joining. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? Oh, you can find me on Twitter. I'm at JM McNabb again. And that's pretty much it. JM McNabb again. A-J-A-G-A-I-N. Yes. Yes, exactly. All right. That is going to do it for us this afternoon. We're back tomorrow with the whole ass 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. 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

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