The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 165 (Best of 3/1/21-3/5/21)

Episode Date: March 7, 2021

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 174 (3/1/21-3/5/21.) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informati...on.

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Starting point is 00:01:57 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment laugh-stravaganza. Yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist. We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by the hilarious, the talented, the brilliant Bridget. Tom. Hello. I'm so excited to be back again. So excited to have you always, Bridget. I saw the doc. I was like, and I was like, wait, that's Bridget. Yes. Oh, what a warm welcome.
Starting point is 00:02:45 Yeah. We always have a good time. You know, always. I feel like the last time when we were together, we were just the country was about to be in the grips of the pandemic. Correct. And it's kind of like things are wild out here. And it's already March. It is already March.
Starting point is 00:03:01 My birthday month. Hey. Okay. What day? March 14th., alright, Pi That's right, Pi Day Albert Einstein's birthday, Pi Day Yeah, Pisces
Starting point is 00:03:14 Did he do that on purpose? Yes Make his birthday on Pi Day? He's just that smart Some next level galaxy brain shit Simone Biles also. Steph Curry. That's a big day.
Starting point is 00:03:28 Damn. We're in good company. Wow. Rihanna is also a Pisces. Who? Rihanna? Rihanna is a Pisces. She wasn't born on my same birthday, but she's also a Pisces.
Starting point is 00:03:37 I mean, TikTok star Oscar Rosenstrom. Oh. Wait, really? Yes. Oscar? Your favorite. From TikTok? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:44 And your favorite Instagram star bryce rivera also bryce quincy jones too good god hold on no royalty yo quincy jones royalty my cocaine oh so you got man billy crystal i'm in good company has anybody ever ranked the best days like the best birthdays i mean obviously christmas being number one for our lord and savior jesus christ but uh otherwise like what what would the top birthdays be this would have to be like a top five yeah einstein steph curry simone biles quin Quincy Jones Bridget Todd Bridget Todd I mean, fucking Michael Caine What the fuck
Starting point is 00:04:29 Bryce Rivera, Oscar Rosenstrom I didn't know what you were saying until just now That you were saying Michael Caine I thought you were saying my cocaine Well, which is the joke of like The way that he says Yeah, exactly Got it
Starting point is 00:04:40 Very late As I am wont to do You didn't have your due today. Yeah, yeah. It does feel like, I really liked that joke from Rachel, though, because I feel like that is the perfect encapsulation of the pandemic. Boring as shit and passing by incredibly rapidly. I can't believe it's March already, and yet nothing has happened.
Starting point is 00:05:03 And yet everything has happened. What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? It's March already, and yet nothing has happened. And yet everything has happened. What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Well, real quick, before I forget, I just want to say happy birthday to my mom. It's March 4th. It's my mom's birthday. Her name is Penny. Happy birthday, Penny.
Starting point is 00:05:19 Happy birthday, Penny. Happy birthday, mom. Penny. She's 39. Wow. So happy birthday, mom. Okay okay so my internet search lately i mean i've been watching youtube um you know mostly to get through i mean just i mean well that's not really true because i watched a ton of youtube before the pandemic so i guess i just watched youtube to get through life but um i've been watching a lot of i mean i kind of ran i watched tons of
Starting point is 00:05:47 vintage 1980s wrestling so i search you know all the 1980s wrestling but i've seen like quite a bit of it um and uh so now i've been back on one of my old favorites which is the jfk assassination uh and since it's never going to be resolved it's one of those things you can just keep yeah going back to and it's got great characters and it's got great grainy interviews with people and you can hear all about phone booths and and phone books and all kinds of old things that don't exist anymore you can and you can hear mostly about my favorite guy badge man badge man oh shit and you okay because i was told that going into this that jack was some kind of a jfk when you started saying jfk jack started cracking his knuckles and rolling his neck like he's about to step in the octagon but yeah what's badge man okay well technically badge
Starting point is 00:06:42 man is not a really he's not a real thing but that doesn't stop me from watching right well no i'm actually giving that because i thought you were a real deal man i didn't mean to attack i didn't mean to attack oh you never heard of this made up thing i just said no it's like a it's a real thing that people talk about but i do not believe that there was a man with a badge on the grassy knoll but there was this guy who shot film from the other side not the zapruder side and i can't remember his name right now should have had it written down but anyway his name's like i don't know so he but he shot film from the other side when jfk was being shot so he got the grassy knoll in it but he was pretty far away so a bunch of like
Starting point is 00:07:28 1970s photo enlargers you know like these dudes with like enhance enhance yeah a bunch of guys analog version guys yeah a bunch of guys with magnifying glasses who were smoking looked really closely at these pictures and found what they think is a man wearing a badge, firing a gun. Now, the only problem with that, and I can see, but they have to really point it out and they don't, they're so convinced there's a man with a badge shooting a gun that they don't even point it out. They're just like, there he is.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Yeah. And you're looking at nothing. Right. And then finally they'll superimpose, like're like all right if you want proof here's a little superimposed outline of them since you're a beginner at looking at men firing guns i guess because it's right there you know what i mean like right oh oh you think it looks like a bush well it must be because you think everybody firing a gun looks like a bush right um that's a disorder you have but i guess if i have to i'll show you the outline of the man there it
Starting point is 00:08:26 i think it looks like a bush as in george hw bush who was in dallas that day right i have a three tramps tattoo and are the three tramps uh nixon george w george hw bush and uh lbj i'm i believe Bush and LBJ? I believe that. I mean, I really recreationally believe a lot of things. Recreationally believe. Recreational beliefs. I love that. I actually think the third tramp is a young Bill Paxton. A lot of people talk about how
Starting point is 00:08:57 strange it was that George H.W. Bush was there. Not many people realize a eight-year-old Bill paxton was just down the street and has been photographed uh on his dad's shoulders is that true yeah that's true george hw no bill he was growing up oh bill paxton oh yeah yeah no george hw was there behind the scenes coordinating the whole thing okay so bill paxton was on george hw bush's shoulder that's interesting so uh and he was full grown that's weird so bill paxton was on george hw bush's shoulder that's interesting
Starting point is 00:09:25 so uh and he was full grown that's weird because bill pax okay full grown bill paxton was on george hw bush's shoulders inside an overcoat and he was one of the tramps that is interesting yeah so the three tramps for people listening to daily zeitgeist they're these three guys that they think were undercover cia guys or else assassins that were dressed as hobos, like train, train hoppers. Right.
Starting point is 00:09:49 And, and they, you know, so people like compare their silhouettes, there's pictures of them, but you know, so people think like Woody Harrelson's father, they think Woody Harrelson's father might be one of them because Woody
Starting point is 00:09:59 Harrelson's father claimed he shot JFK and he was a guy who, he was a hit man. Yeah. So anyway, it's just good stuff. And, and he was a guy who he was a hit man. Yeah. So anyway, it's just good stuff. And, uh, and,
Starting point is 00:10:07 uh, the three tramps for these guys that if you get into it, it's, it's pretty fun. And, uh, I mean, if,
Starting point is 00:10:13 if it's pretty fun, if, if, if, if let's say if JFK assassination was Woodstock 99, like the three tramps would be like corn. Uh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:24 So I'm going to get a three tramps tattoo i'm also getting a triple underpass tattoo and um uh the other thing was uh badge oh badge man yeah and i i kind of think that uh the funniest thing about badge man is that his head like he's not proportional. So even if he does look like a man with a badge on, his head would be like, yeah, two or three feet, like three feet tall. And his badge is maybe like,
Starting point is 00:10:52 his badge is maybe like a millimeter. The size of his torso. Like a millimeter big. And then his shoes are like 15 feet tall. So I mean, I'm just saying when you're looking at crimes, never underestimate the uh fuck uh i'm forgetting the word now coal gas study never underestimate the coal gas uh
Starting point is 00:11:16 never underestimate the mascot community is what i was gonna say yeah so badge man is this guy anyways you can look him up he's he's called badge man and he's not real and um but there's a lot of people who talk about him endlessly and i like watching it what is something from your search history so this is a little bit of a weird one but jack i think you might feel me on this because you are a fellow hooligan you listen to the podcast who weekly yeah yeah i do so they had an episode i think just the other day about lance bass in space oh really so if you haven't listened yet i haven't listened for a couple weeks okay the last thing i googled was a picture of lance bass
Starting point is 00:11:56 in space because do you remember how there was a whole thing about how lance bass was going to space lance bass from uh yeah yeah And the reason why he didn't go is because when he was undergoing, you know, all the tests or procedures or whatever to get him up there, he realized he had a medical condition that was fairly serious for which he needed surgery.
Starting point is 00:12:16 And so in a kind of way, this like saved his life. But because they had already done the funding and whatnot and the calibrations for the weight of going into space, they had to, they couldn't just not have him go because i guess the weight needs to be very precise so they replaced lance bass with a lance bass like shaped barrel they took up the same amount of
Starting point is 00:12:37 weight as actual lance bass okay yo so i had to go down a deep, I had to pause Who Weekly and go down a deep Google dive finding out more about this Lance Bass shaped barrel. Lance Bass is apparently, he's a friend of the network, a lovely guy. Oh. That has appeared on Will You Accept This Rose? Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:13:01 And it's just a great dude. Come on Zeitgeist, coward. Come on Zeitgeist coward come on Zeitgeist and yeah tell us more about your like your journey your would be journey to space like the closest thing to that one like where Homer goes to space
Starting point is 00:13:15 you know it was like Lance Bass and I'm like wow cool the last thing I remember was in the local LA Valley area he was causing waves because he was in a full he was trying to buy the Brady Bunch house and then lost to HGTV or something, and it was a big thing. And apparently, and this is not official, I may be telling tales out of school,
Starting point is 00:13:37 but Lance Bass and our iHeart podcast host, Maven, one of the greats, Arden Marine, were supposed to amazing race together as a duo this past year. But the pandemic pushed it back. Oh, my God. But hopefully the future. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Two of the great.
Starting point is 00:14:00 Arden, I will watch her do literally anything. Yeah. As long as it involves her interacting with people right right right and also like is she just gonna torture Lance I'm interested to see like when it gets you know because it gets tense sometimes on the amazing race oh yeah like what happens
Starting point is 00:14:16 you know what happens then because that's yeah I feel like on the amazing race when it was couples that you you were watching a couple a couple spiral into a divorce in real time it was like wow you you were watching a couple a couple spiral into a divorce in real time it was like wow they are really on the edge yeah it's like oh wow great they're using this across the world game show to reveal that they have no communication skills I was soft approached my well my wife was soft approached about doing Amazing Race the Amazing
Starting point is 00:14:42 Race because her sister was on survivor and they share a bunch of the same producers and uh my wife uh was on survivor for like the family challenge and the producers liked her enough that they were like hey what about what about this uh and then you showed up yeah they're she was like i don't i don't think we'd make it. No, she was in medical school. Also, I'm not. Better reason. I am the least built for reality television human being that I can imagine. The internal introverts don't do great on reality TV.
Starting point is 00:15:19 I'm sure they would have tested me right out of there. Yeah, the producers probably would have fucked with you to the point that it would have been like abuse. Because that's their job. It's like if someone's like, all right, we'll start fucking with them so they'll react on camera. Where they would have just like tried to set my wife up with somebody else who's cool. They're like, what do you think,
Starting point is 00:15:38 Jack? Magnus and your wife are hitting it off pretty well there. Jack crying in the confessional. Yeah, exactly. I don't understand. We have a whole future we're planning. She's up for Magnus.
Starting point is 00:15:52 Magnus. I would have to just take my hat off to somebody named Magnus. Yeah. What is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are or what you're up to? Well, I hope you guys can relate to this because it'll be more fun. But my most recent interesting one is CKY videos. Do you guys remember CKY? Hell yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:15 Hell yes. I have CKY2K, the DVD, somewhere in my garage right now. Bless you. Yeah, so we're working on an episode. And in case people don't know, I host a podcast called American Hysteria covers moral panics, conspiracy theories, urban legends, fantastical thinking, but through a lens of sort of cultural criticism and sociology and stuff. how does our culture produce these and then how do they affect the culture so anyway the way that cky um which were a series of skate videos um by the now famous jackass crew um that's the most simple way to put it but we're doing a episode about influencers right now and the culture of like branding people essentially um and immediately i was like what isn't like what's
Starting point is 00:17:07 an earlier influencer like pre-internet and i was like oh it's sponsored skating and you guys probably remember like how cool it was to be a sponsored skater in like the late 90s oh hell yeah that was like that was the twitter verified checkmark. It was like it opened way more doors. It was the value. Yeah, it was like. Right. And, you know, there weren't that many for a while. And then the kind of like influencer micro influencer thing happened. And so I've just been really diving into the the history of marketing skateboarding and the idea of like authenticity being so important in branding and how there was like kind of like back then there was nothing as authentic as being just like a fucking skateboarder you know because it was just middle fingers and weed and uh it was shoes
Starting point is 00:17:59 that would hide your weed yeah just the biggest. It's basically like the platform shoe of the masculine world. The pro platform. Yeah. The pro platform. But so that's kind of revealing about at least what I've been doing. And so I've just gotten to go back. And I was a skater in my day. And just to kind of go back and remember just like pushing, like having someone push someone in a shopping cart and launching them into a bush and just like pranks at the mall and how skate culture and prank culture kind of has led us to a really different thing.
Starting point is 00:18:36 But if you think about like the YouTube TikTok houses, like these sponsored skaters were just getting like hauled around the country and just being showered with cash, like $10,000 a month. And just, I don't know, it's so similar to these weird McMansions full of TikTokers. You know, it's just like with their Wranglers. Just crank out stuff for the kids to love for us. Yeah, and that's kind of what it was. It was like crank out videos, crank out the most incendiary. I mean, I was like, oh my God, the 90s were so bad. People cannot imagine. And, you know, it's not like I was perfect in 1999. So it's just sort of
Starting point is 00:19:14 like a really it's been just a really fun and fascinating dive back into this really offensive masculine culture that kind of is mirrored in like what like Logan Paul I would say is like some kind of continuation of of jackass and and skate pranks but that's been uh that's my big uh fun time lately is just watching old skate videos the CKY videos definitely had like a panic in like the Christian Catholic mother set you know because there was because there was like there was like pentagram iconography and some of the stuff and it stood for camp kill yourself yeah and like on top of it it was giving every idiot teenager like the idea to break their wrists
Starting point is 00:19:57 at a local parking lot in a shopping cart that you pushed off a loading dock with no sense of what gravity is no um so like yeah i remember people being like oh like like a cky team's like oh you have that like oh that's sick blah blah blah but yeah cky2k i still i still have that shit somewhere go back and watch it yeah because i was like yo mike valelli beats up three dudes in it outside of 7-eleven in this one yeah we're like what because it almost it was like almost, it was like YouTube on a mixtape. Where you got skating, you got pranks, maybe some weird toxic masculinity in the form of like misogynistic tropes
Starting point is 00:20:38 or whatever, like dick jokes and fighting. And gay jokes, lots of gay jokes lots of racism like stuff that you're like oh my god like right the stuff needs to put on the boards even like print on boards was just like oh yeah i remember there was like a chico benes deck that was like of a like a dude selling like oranges like out an off ramp or something out of a shopping cart and people like oh it's the sickest deck right now yeah it's just a really different it was a shock it was a really big shock culture time for sure yeah no absolutely well we have that but it's just transformed a lot so it was named after a band i guess and one of the the drummer for the band was jesse margera who is
Starting point is 00:21:22 i guess bam margera's older brother so it's. So it also has that sort of how a scene develops in a small town sort of vibe to it. Right. And then suddenly Johnny Knoxville's shooting himself in the chest, point blank range. I just watched a video of Johnny Knoxville just shooting himself in the chest. And he's like, yeah, I didn't know,
Starting point is 00:21:45 this is the cheapest bulletproof vest I could find. And she's like, what the fuck? What were we watching? And those guys, like Johnny Knoxville, was already part of that scene from the start? Or did he kind of jump on it once it? He wasn't part of the CKY, he came, CKY was its own thing and then it started
Starting point is 00:22:06 got it blended i don't know through who but yeah that's when i'm i don't know if that's when spike jones decided to marry the two groups together to make jackass but i know spike jones was the next level for everyone yeah he was like really responsible for like weaving in skate culture into like music videos like beastie boys and all kinds of everything he was doing, commercials and stuff, just weaving in skateboarding until it became this really common trend and it reached zoomies, essentially. Yeah. Authenticity is so important and yet they just pulled that in and made it inauthentic and yeah now we're posers yeah so i uh robert evans on a recent episode of uh bastards with jamie loftus about the manosphere uh and that sort of toxic masculinity sort of like the the alpha and now there's a sigma male and all that shit it's a
Starting point is 00:23:06 really good episode uh but they there's a theory they talk about that capitalism is basically a really smart um ai that has like basically reached the singularity because uh it just immediately incorporates and like always makes the the right move to counter whatever attacks it and incorporates it into its grid or logic, basically, which makes a lot of sense. Well, and you know, we're covering this in our episode coming up, but it's a lot of influencer marketing as we know it was actually designed by Freud's nephew. And it's very, yeah, I don't know if you guys know about him, Edward Bernays, but we're going to get into that. And it's just really Freudian, like the way that advertising evolved is super entwined with psychotherapy, which is just so creepy. Right. Because consumer culture, it insists on having unhappy people for it to thrive.
Starting point is 00:24:11 If you're fully realized and self-actualized, you might not need to reach for these products to be like this constant spend cycle of the advertiser dangling the thing and the lifestyle they think you want and say if you buy this then you could be this and i think that's the other part is like it also benefits you know uh this consumer culture capitalism to have as many unhappy people as well because you know happy people don't buy as much crap yeah and then the unhappy people create great art that they can then incorporate into the capitalist slipstream. Yeah. It's a great system they've designed or that's designed itself.
Starting point is 00:24:53 It's effective. Yeah. It certainly works. The other wild thing, a lot of people don't know this about Spike Jonze. I don't know if you've heard of the Spiegel catalog. He comes from this. His name is Sam Spiegel or whatever spiegel um and he changed it to jones because it was like a very very famous mail order catalog that was like you
Starting point is 00:25:13 know huge in like the early 20th century so you know gotta gotta change the name around so they don't know you you know you a rich boy spike right wow that's cool i didn't know that and isn't he with sofia coppola It's all wonderful. I love it. He was. His character, Giovanni Ribisi, in Lost in Translation, is his character. Real name Adam Spiegel. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:36 But that's interesting that he's been part of a marketing dynasty. I didn't know that. I'm going to have to weave that in. Thank you. Yeah. It's all nepotism and marketing, the two defining forces of America. All right, guys, let's take a quick break and we will 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.
Starting point is 00:26:09 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.
Starting point is 00:26:41 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. Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.
Starting point is 00:27:10 It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, Shatterproof and the Ad Council. 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.
Starting point is 00:27:46 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 starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So y'all, this is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on
Starting point is 00:28:23 with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nemany, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. of Historical Records, NIMINI, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Hey, y'all. Are you ready for an explosive new podcast that brings together hip-hop and history? My name is NIMINI, and I'm the host of Historical Records, a brand-new podcast for kids and families that proves, in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. The tip of the cap, there's another one gone.
Starting point is 00:29:11 And the best part? I make this show entirely by myself. Impressive, right? Mm-hmm. Oh, OK, OK. Maybe I get a little bit of help from my sidekick, Tina the raccoon. Every week on Historical Records, join me, Nimminy. Okay, okay. Maybe I get a little bit of help from my sidekick, Tina the Raccoon. Every week on Historical Records, join me, Nimity, and Tina the Raccoon
Starting point is 00:29:32 as we learn about the unsung heroes of the past and turn their history into hip-hop. Listen to Historical Records starting on September 27th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And what is something you think is overrated? Well, this goes back to what we were talking about before, um brand activism is something i've been thinking about a lot and you know part of our episode focuses on the kendall jenner pepsi scandal um that we all remember i'm sure um but it got me thinking as i'm watching all of this stuff unfold
Starting point is 00:30:21 on twitter and for people who don't know uh i I am non-binary. I use they them pronouns. And so this week's been real fun for me. So but, you know, it's like watching watching things happen like the potato folks now who are not gendered. And, you know, that that whole thing of like, oh, well, like I mean, a lot of people were pissed off and thought it was, you know, super stupid and everything. But I think, you know, it's nice. It's nice. You know, but for me, it doesn't feel authentic necessarily. I know that 64, this is really important, I think, 64 percent of millennials and this is, you know, polls are weird, but this is sort of what companies are banking on is this particular study that says 64 percent of millennials will buy from brands that their values align. Right. So it's like there is a huge amount of money in in being part of movements the way pepsi tried to sort of exploit the black lives matter protests and everything um and i think what's so interesting is like i didn't ask for the potato heads to not have genders i mean what they're they're one potatoes two you can switch
Starting point is 00:31:40 their parts already so like you can put you can put the high heels on with the little bowler hat it doesn't matter but like i don't i don't think there was like an outcry from trans and non-binary people to do away with the genders of the potatoes um and yet now all of the hate is like falling back on like as if we demanded this and we're being totally unreasonable. So it's this like like they get to look good and then we get to like carry the brunt as ridiculous as that may be from whomever decides to think that that's a horrible or ridiculous or, you know, the left is going too far again thing. But it's like the left did did did we demand that or was that just an opportunity that they saw to market to? I think it's just it's open for attacks from the right and the, you know, the culture war context, because if you're progressive and you are actually caring about these things, you will say like, oh, that's a little that's regressive or that's aggressive to have this thing just sort of delineated as a binary or whatever. to have this thing just sort of delineated as a binary or whatever considering that progressive people say and on generally be like gender is a construct is everybody still with me okay so then
Starting point is 00:32:51 therefore let's look at these things but i think because they know that to be part of like progressive culture that it's like of course they wanted this because everything is gonna it's like look there's a difference between like yeah like talking about things on how to move forward and trying to paint someone as like a, you know, maybe there was someone who had a campaign against the potato heads, but there's certainly larger battles for me to pick than one of the fucking Hasbro. And also, a lot of trans people use Mr. or Mrs. It's not, it's such a strange, it's just and I mean obviously potatoes also don't inherently have genders. I think that they're like self
Starting point is 00:33:31 whatever, I don't know, science isn't my thing. Self tubing. Yeah, there you go. But you know and of course like another important thing is like I'm speaking for myself. I'm sure that there's lots of queer, you know, gender non-conforming people that think that that's wonderful. And it is.
Starting point is 00:33:46 I mean, it's great. But what's great about it is not Hasbro or whatever the company is. It's the fact that they're reflecting back to us our own culture through an unfortunate medium. OK, like this is the direction culture is going, even if it's messy and stupid and shitty and embarrassing. Right. Launches us into like the spotlight. I mean, we're going to talk about the Muppets and it's kind of, you know, it's like a similar type of thing. But, yeah, I think brand activism is, you know, I mean, it's overrated because a lot of, I think, more progressive sort of centrist might see that and think that that's just so wonderful, you know, whereas I'm seeing tweets that are just horrible about, you know,
Starting point is 00:34:33 and then Oreo's tweets, you know, trans people exist and it's like, oh, okay, thanks. Thank you, Oreo. Right. It's like Nabisco, what's your policy in terms of your employees if they needed life-affirming gender reassignment surgery do you do you kick in on that that's that's it you know like no there's no there's no paid leave or anything like that but the oreo well here that's the difference that wasn't nabisco saying that that was the cookie talking right you're gonna take that up with the cookie and i don't think the cookie has benefits or hr so i don't know i i feel like the it's interesting to view the potato head thing on a continuum with the pepsi ad because i feel like the pepsi ad was an example of the brand
Starting point is 00:35:19 trying to appeal to uh people who have progressive politics and it just like failed miserably because they first of all it was just poor like horribly handled but also uh it's just a more subtle thing to do that whereas the i i do wonder like i i would love to see a marketing material leak like they had with the logo design for pepsi where they were just like hosed for 20 million dollars by people who were just like throwing out uh who knew how to use photoshop yeah who knew how to use photoshop but i wonder if this is part of the calculus at this point that because the right is just so reliable in its outrage and you know exactly what is going to happen when you do something that is even remotely progressive in any way that the right is going there's going to
Starting point is 00:36:16 be an outrage uh that is incredibly reliable and that automatically pits you against so it's like a safer bet to do something that's designed to outrage the right and be safe as opposed to like trying to do whatever the fuck the pepsi ad was trying to do yeah i think there is or it's like it's just genius troll marketing it's like watch but nobody give a fuck about potato head we're gonna do this thing it's gonna outrage the right every news outlet's going to cover it. And without paying, now even people have heard, whoa, Hasbro is on the right side of the woke wars. Yeah. And that's all they had to do was just piss off the right.
Starting point is 00:36:56 And that also seems like a very feasible marketing plan to save money on your ad bucks. Because you see it done with other stuff too like i mean it's normally just like some sensational product they use to get blogs to be like oh my god a log that smells like beef but like with this shit they can get everywhere like just past the toy blogs or food blogs by making by entering the culture wars and be like and we're right and honestly the people on the right they just talk shit what i still see them drinking kruig and wearing nike so it's really just noise yeah i want i want somebody from the marketing world uh if anybody if any zygang works in marketing and knows like i bet there's a term for this, whatever is, like, basically right-wing troll dating. And it's going to be so euphemistic, right?
Starting point is 00:37:46 Oh, yeah. It'll be like, organic societal reconciliation strategies or something. So brutal. Oh. All right, let's talk about Q Shaman. Q Shaman. Q Shaman.
Starting point is 00:38:04 Shama, shama, shama, shama, shama, Q, Q, Q. Q Shaman. Qshaman. Qshaman. Shama, shama, shama, shama, shama, shama, q, q, q. He comes and goes, doesn't he? He does. As he pleases. I mean, his mom's main argument was the door was open. Yes. That's it. Because it got knocked in.
Starting point is 00:38:24 Right. I mean, how was he supposed to know the door is open they're just waiting for him to come uh so this makes these criminals so fucking lazy pisses me off the door was open the fuck that's his fucking excuse you think you can say that shit okay fine but you've been gassed up by society to lead you believe that that is a valid defense so clean i'll go off yeah it's like the affluenza defense but like just uh expanded to everyone uh right it's like a norman rockwell painting where it's like oh my child accidentally went into the doctor's office but it's like my baby accidentally stormed the Capitol. I'm sorry, sorry about this.
Starting point is 00:39:07 It's just a bit of Americana for you. So he is facing 20 years for his Senate prayer service, I think is how he would describe it. And CBS is giving him an interview to explain himself. This is why Trump's going to win next time. If Trump lives for four years, this kind of shit, because the media is already like,
Starting point is 00:39:28 Ooh, well, we can't lose the ratings of all the Trumpy stuff. What? Yeah. Let's take a second to humanize face paint screamer really quick. It's so great too, because of all the black lives matters activists,
Starting point is 00:39:38 they gave a full interviews to over the summer. So it's really great. Yeah. I remember when in the midst of it all, the amount of journalists that were in and amongst the activists and protesters asking what it was they were here fighting for versus going
Starting point is 00:39:52 700,000 yards away and going I think they're throwing firebombs now! Yeah. Oh, fuck off. Good to see both things are being given the same treatment. But see, but I'm saying these are the things too, back to the other thing that a lot of people are seeing just how fucking lame
Starting point is 00:40:06 even the media is with shit like that. And you're like, who the fuck are y'all anymore? Like, I don't even, like, fuck all this shit. Anyway, so CBS this morning running the sick ass interview
Starting point is 00:40:16 with Q Shaman. And the clip, you know, starts off being like, you know, fam, we think you attacked the nation and he's just going to go and let you know why this has all just been blown out of proportion. Your actions on January 6th were an attack on this country. Do you understand that?
Starting point is 00:40:34 No, they were not, ma'am. My actions were not an attack on this country. That is incorrect. That is inaccurate entirely. How would you describe them? My actions personally? On January 6th. My actions on January 6th, how would you describe them my actions personally on january 6th my actions on january 6th how would i describe them well i sing a song and that's a part of shamanism it's about um
Starting point is 00:40:54 creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber i also stop people from stealing and vandalizing that sacred space the senate okay i actually stopped somebody from stealing muffins out of the out of the break room i also stop stop the count if i was his lawyer i would say we've got thank you you see my client is an upstanding gentleman he's all he does is deal in vibrations and is a protector of loose muffins the defense rest he comes in with real with big sovereign citizen energy at first where like he sounds like one of those dudes who's like at the court being like you cannot tase me sir you cannot i am being detained against my will this is against the constitution and then like
Starting point is 00:41:37 gets tased and uh pisses himself um but then i i love, just straight up asking the question back to the questioner while you kind of, uh, stall for time, even though you've been in jail, you should have been able to prepare for a question of how would you describe what you were doing that day? That should be like, how would, how would I describe it? Who me? Are you talking? Who would I say that I did that day?
Starting point is 00:42:05 Let me just get this right. Describe? Like, is it in a description? Well, I woke up around like 8.30 in the morning. I did brush my teeth in the morning. I flossed as well. And my breakfast included like a banana. And then I took the, I looked at the Metro schedule.
Starting point is 00:42:18 Okay, hold on. I feel like you're dodging the question. How would you describe entering the Capitol violently screaming with a group of other insurrectionists? How would I describe entering? How would I describe it? With a nature of screaming? But you know what's funny? Then CBS lets him get away with that shit.
Starting point is 00:42:33 I know. How would you describe it? You act like you're talking to some political dissident somewhere. Yes. And let's get your side of the story. Show the footage. Be like, this is what you did. Also it's that day.
Starting point is 00:42:47 I remember watching, um, I was watching somebody that was streaming on Twitch. They were going to all a bunch of the, um, the Twitch streams from like the insurrectionists that were there. And that, and like after he would came,
Starting point is 00:42:57 he came outside and he was just like high fiving people and just having a fun time. And I'm like, this footage exists. Like if CBS, like if these like journalists like weren't as lazy as they were, they would go and like find the real footage exists like if cbs like if these like journalists like weren't as lazy as they were they would go and like find the real footage of like what these people were doing and be like hey here's actually a clip of you doing that here's all of this stuff
Starting point is 00:43:14 like put it in his face these people should have a book literally slammed in their fucking face it's insane that this is they're letting this happen then yeah new new term book stomped where the weight of the legal books uh just stomp your ass out uh for justice but you know this is america so uh who knows what will happen but the thing is you know everyone's like why would his lawyer let him do this before his trial this shit is so weird and the the lawyer's like we gotta let people see this guy you know what i mean and you know what they did exactly that right You know what I mean? And you know what? They did exactly that. Right.
Starting point is 00:43:45 You know what I mean? By not pressing him, by not just like rhetorically cornering him constantly being like, oh, so that's what you thought. Oh, interesting. Don't just let that shit rock like that. Right. Come on. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:57 You're a journalist. Push back on the truth. You know, you know, find find it. Right. The muffin stealing is good, though, because I mean, that that is one of the most important things to Americans is the prevention of muffin theft. So he's aligning himself with that. But yeah, Miles, to your point, the like that's just saying, well, America is a white supremacist country and he is a white person. So we will let them see him and that will make them like him better. Right. And that's what he said at the very end of his interview.
Starting point is 00:44:26 He said, see me, see me. I mean, unreal. He's like, I'm not a violent man. Unreal. Why are we human? You know, but this is it, y'all. This is it. We were held hostage by an improviser from Arizona.
Starting point is 00:44:43 Right. That's what's going on. And his mom is in there saying that he you know should open he deserves yeah the open door thing and just that he deserves another chance and i mean it's basically given yeah it's a like the his defense could have organized this interview right and all that does is arm stupid ass supporters of this guy. Really dumb talking points to then infect their groups with being like, well, you know, the door was open and it sounded like he was just there and he was praying like he wasn't one of the people like beat a cop. You know what I mean? And this is how this shit goes, because you just let that go uncontested and now oh for sure yeah they already believe in like false flag shit
Starting point is 00:45:30 so much to go they're just like no they left the door open they tried to trap us with this and this is like part of the great awakening and yeah yeah but then like yeah but then you show them clips where the people are like but it was me i am not antifa i am the one and like you had other people too like because this like that whole you know paid crisis actor shit was going on but then they juxtaposed that with so many people like I hate that people were trying to say what we did that day was BLM or
Starting point is 00:45:54 Antifa and shit has the it was the vibes your honor defense been used in a federal court before because the specific mention of like the vibrations and energy was pretty... I mean, that's key to his shamanism.
Starting point is 00:46:10 Right. Right, right, right. Yeah. I'm excited to see what crystals he brings into court with him. It's going to be interesting to see. His lawyer is a crystal. I hope that he wears his suit,
Starting point is 00:46:21 but also his buffalo helmet to the courtroom. Yeah. He probably will. He's an asshole an asshole unfortunately it's evidence i think oh yeah yeah i mean he could construct construct one what if he builds up one out of his prison toilet right the sink built into it all right this is an article from wired that i really liked. It's written by a guy named Cal Newport, who just released a book called A World Without Email. And he basically raises this overarching point that tech might not be might just be making us busier and not actually making us uh more productive right no i mean it's yeah it's who'd have thought for all the times you're like yeah man because look we all see shit and we see a technological advancement go oh wow that makes that thing so much easier actually thank you technology um and he's just kind of raising this point it's like we have to kind of
Starting point is 00:47:22 stop defaulting to being like all tech makes working so much easier and collaborating easier and therefore will be more productive when the data does not support that at all. He's talking about when the PC came out and began being worked or introduced into workplaces. People were like, wow, this thing there's this kind of a disconnect between like what's easy and like what's effective. It seems to actually like it sort of rearranges people's time in a way that causes more issues. That causes more issues. Like, so, for example, they did a study like back in the late 80s and 90s about these five major corporations that were replacing their typing pools, like where people were the typists to get you your documents and shit with word processors where people and then created a need for now more expensive, higher paid managers to keep the newly minted typists to keep churning out the work. So it really increased staffing costs by 15% with not even this, not a proportionate increase in output or productivity.
Starting point is 00:48:41 So now the focus is being put on this for, so for this writer talking about, you know, Slack and email is kind of like this whole new thing where, you know, this is a quote from him says in 2005, just based on numerous studies found in 2005, we were sending and receiving 50 emails a day. In 2006, it jumped to 69. By 2011, it was 90 90 today we send and receive an estimated 126 messages checking our inboxes once every six minutes on average so we're basically spending more time just talking about work and not having like the uninterrupted hours to do the work um so that's why they're like what we actually need to have a reckoning here because like gmail is now even finishing our sentences which seems convenient but like is that actually going to make me more efficient and it'll just give you allow you to get to the next email quicker
Starting point is 00:49:35 so that you're you know constantly distracted and i think the answer to this problem isn't easy even as uh the author of the opinion piece says it's not going to be easy, but we have to actually begin to slow down and begin to solve this issue because it's like this weird, this that's the productivity paradox, as it's called. Like, we don't know how much it's actually helping and points to like other industries where they have more of like a project, like project management protocols where teams spend less time talking what they're doing. And it's like check boxes and being like, these are my tasks. I have to get done tick tick tick tick tick i'm done i can check in when i'm done with my tasks versus like hey where's that test you know there's checking
Starting point is 00:50:12 in on this task and leave people to their own devices to just start work under uninterrupted but that only works for specific industries and i think it's this i think opinion piece raises like the larger question of how are we going to ourselves try and solve this problem by taking a moment to look at these inefficiencies? And also not giving us like any way of any time to think about whether like the overall like philosophical and ethical implications of the work we're doing. Like that's that feels like a huge chunk of what we're dealing with, like in a world where the problem is that we keep observing the same social injustices over and over and over. And nobody's ever doing anything about them. Like that, that feels super relevant that we're right. That we are.
Starting point is 00:51:14 And like, just that I feel like this expands to social media too. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, even the way you talk about too, it's just sort of like what the pandemic offered people societally,
Starting point is 00:51:25 societally for a moment where shit slowed down very quickly and now we had in one year increased class consciousness increased consciousness around white supremacy and things like that that i'm sure i mean like i don't think those things are unrelated, like, because we had the time to think, to see, to process versus like, I got to get this done. I got it. I know that shit happened. Oh, another unarmed person got killed, but I got to send these emails. Oh, my boss hit me up on Slack. I got to get like, yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:56 Where do you find the time to say, wow, how do I solve? Like, I'm seeing people who are hungry in my neighborhood. Like, what am I? What's going on? How do how do we are there things I can put my energy towards? i solved like i'm seeing people who are hungry in my neighborhood like what am i how what what's going on how do how do we are there things i can put my energy towards on the flip side of that though that's probably how q anon started too you know people had this like gap they needed to fill you know and like like you know soccer moms at home clicking around on the internet looking for something to kind of validate their feelings you know and then that's when they go start going down
Starting point is 00:52:23 these like internet rabbit holes and i think that's how that picked up so much steam and got mainstreamed so quickly so i do think there's like a dark side to it as well oh yeah i don't think anything is absolutely good or bad but yeah i think but overall uh i think we would greatly benefit at least in the context of i mean shit you know we i'm glad people woke the fuck up even slightly but at what cost the other thing though with our workplaces now is how are we like we have to like kind of think about what this whole way of work like what our whole mode of working is and is it doesn't make sense to do this thing of like everyone is interconnected at the exact same time and we can start firing off
Starting point is 00:53:05 messages to each other without overloading our own circuits and capacity to just do like focused you know work whatever our jobs are or even like all these like unnecessary zoom meetings about other meetings and like you said it's all just meta think kind of about talking about working instead of actually doing something you have to like talk about it first and then kind of agree and you could have just done all that in the first place or had it be like one email instead of a hour you know waste of time zoom call yeah because they talk about even just like how certain activities in the beginning with like a computer were more efficient but just it creates more work right so like if you if you're like there was a you were running a business instead
Starting point is 00:53:43 of having an accountant update your ledgers that were on paper, a business owner is like, well, I got QuickBooks now. I got a spreadsheet now. I can do this. And yes, they may be- I can do this just a little bit worse than my accountant.
Starting point is 00:53:54 Exactly. Which is fine. I get it. It might be easier than this paper book that you have to work through. But practically, business owners now just have less time to do the other things. That might be more important because they're like, well,
Starting point is 00:54:07 since it's easier, I can take this on. And what we're doing is we're being like, well, that's easier. I can take that on. I can take it on. And then we're really, we're becoming more and more unbalanced. Yeah. I think this is part of the overall issue that like, we'll be continuously documenting of just, uh, overall, like kind kind of broad but invisible social issues that are giving us the a lot of the issues that we're having right now 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,
Starting point is 00:54:51 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.
Starting point is 00:55:21 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 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know
Starting point is 00:55:55 that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.
Starting point is 00:56:25 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.
Starting point is 00:56:43 Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So y'all, this is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right.
Starting point is 00:57:10 A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nemany, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Are you ready for an explosive new podcast that brings together hip hop and history? My name is Nemanee, and I'm the host of Historical Records, a brand new podcast for kids and families that proves in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone.
Starting point is 00:57:48 The tip of the cap, there's another one gone. And the best part? I make this show entirely by myself. Impressive, right? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. Okay. Maybe I get a little bit of help from my sidekick, Tina
Starting point is 00:58:04 the Raccoon. Every week on Historical Records, join me, Nimity, and Tina the Raccoon as we learn about the unsung heroes of the past and turn their history into hip-hop. Listen to Historical Records starting on September 27th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. All right, let's talk about this McDonald's minimum wage talking point, because it's actually kind of an interesting story that I think dives into one of the big problems of the United States. So AOC brought it up in a recent tweet pointing out that McDonald's workers in Denmark make $22 an hour plus six weeks of paid vacation. Yeah. But how much is a Big Mac?
Starting point is 00:58:58 Six grand? Yeah. So this is a big talking point for one of the conservative rebuttals is, well, that's great because the Big Mac actually costs $5.15 over there and it's $4.80 in the U.S. This is based on something The Economist does that's just like a silly infographic. They don't really take it that seriously from 2014 and if you actually looked at look at the updated data uh the big mac costs like a dollar more in the u.s um so their big mic drop thing actually is the opposite a big drop right there's also um they they're pointing out that Denmark doesn't have a minimum wage. And so, I mean, they're the ones who are, you know, making it like making that argument. That's not AOC wasn't like their minimum wage is twenty two dollars. She said that that's what they make.
Starting point is 00:59:58 And the reason they're able to do that without a federally mandated minimum wage is that they have unions and unions actually work on behalf of the workers typically trade unions work to keep wages above 20 dollars um but there's no federal wage um so usa today was like so uh three pinocchios for aoc um but uh so american society uh fast food employees make an average of 890 an hour uh half of them rely on some form of public assistance um and over and the reason that we don't have that is we we just don't have union support um and so the the way that this actually came about the 22 dollars uh mcdonald's showed up in denmark and was like uh we're not gonna like deal with these unions fuck a union um and so the unions went to work uh find out phase yeah the find out phase they they did the fuck around part
Starting point is 01:01:05 uh there were strikes boycotts leaflet campaigns newspaper coverage and daily demonstrations outside of mcdonald's restaurants um construction workers refused to build any new mcdonald's brewery workers wouldn't deliver beer uh because you beer in McDonald's over there, which is awesome. And Danish graphic artists refused to work on McDonald's advertisements and instead made counter advertisements, including one that became iconic of a dog taking a piss on the Golden Arches. And so they eventually were like, all right, I guess we'll do we'll be part of the we'll let our employees be part of the union. And that's how. Like, that's that's the only way that corporations are brought in line with like collectivism, their workers fairly. Yeah, there's just fuck.
Starting point is 01:02:07 I mean, yeah, it's that simple you know what i mean like this country's just been on a steady path of just taking apart dismantling unions and the ability for you know collective bargaining and trying to advocate advocate for the workers to advocate for themselves collectively to get the outcomes that they would want like wages that be like i have one job and that's fucking tight uh and i have vacation and i can be a parent versus you know what we have now which is saying like hey guys i get it you're a franchisee you want to make money like this is the like you can you got to pay him at least this much and then it's up to you right oh yeah i mean we've we've got Delia Parton doing five to nine as a follow-up to her nine to five. Just work 12 hours a day because that's what you need to do to be able to actually live in this country.
Starting point is 01:02:54 Yeah. Disgusting. It started with the 40s right-to-work laws that gave states the power to determine whether workers can be required to join a labor union. that gave states the power to determine whether workers can be required to join a labor union. Then McDonald's has aggressively prevented attempts to unionize in the U.S. In 2019, several workers were fired for trying to unionize. They appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, and the National Labor Relations board sided with mcdonald's
Starting point is 01:03:34 so the the things they did to uh crush unionization was uh using employees as moles in meetings uh circulating names of possible pro-union employees and coaching franchisees on how to avoid hiring people who might organize a workplace um which is illegal but it doesn't didn't stop them from doing it um yeah start start shedding dollars like that paying people yeah but i mean corporate espionage like all that shit is real like that's corporations uh the devil works hard corporations work harder like they will find a way to you know a spy to you know make it so that people don't feel comfortable uh taking collective action yeah which i think and then so people don't feel comfortable like just in america in general the tone is we don't want people to feel comfortable getting in touch with their power as a collective no we're so the lack of education around unions and like
Starting point is 01:04:30 the history of of the labor movement in general is just i mean it's it's pathetic how little we're taught in school or in any formal formal way about it i think the closest they'll maybe talk about like collectivism like in other books will be like the fucking Reddit GameStop Robin Hood fucking crunch. Right. And just keep it limited to that. Like, see what happened there. But I don't think it's happened in any other ways.
Starting point is 01:04:53 I mean, I literally remember being in school and then being like, Eugene Debs also ran for president and then he was put in jail. But what did he do there? Keep going. Why? But then this other guy won instead. It's fine.
Starting point is 01:05:05 And that guy just stayed in jail for a long time. And he was powerful, so he's more interesting. Yeah, exactly. And I just remember being like, wait, who? What happened to that guy? Right. Wait, is Labor Day like about giving birth or something? I don't get it.
Starting point is 01:05:20 Yeah. Okay, cool. Back in L.A., we call it Flavor Day, where you go to 31 Flavors and get any ice cream you want, y'all. Can we rebrand Labor Day? Not. I feel uncomfortable. Flavor, Flavor Day. 31 Flavors Day.
Starting point is 01:05:39 Labor, Lab. Where's Labor Lab? Yes. The new fucking mascot for fucking unions. Socialist Flavor Flabe. I love this. Labor Labe. Maybe this is how we reach the kids.
Starting point is 01:05:53 Did we just create a TikTok character? Yeah. Kids, remember Public Enemy? Oh, yeah, no. That's too old. Remember the 2005 dating show Flavor of Love on VH1? You guys remember Flavor of Love, right? Who's with me?
Starting point is 01:06:09 All right, Chris, what is something you think is overrated? True crime, which is so funny considering what I was just talking about. I listen to so much fucking true crime, and this is a somewhat serious point. true crime. And this is somewhat, somewhat serious point. 500,000 people have died from this pandemic and nobody cares. And, and a lot of people don't even think anybody died because they didn't see
Starting point is 01:06:35 every single dead body in the morgue or whatever did they need now to believe people died. And, uh, I think true crime has to have something to do with it. I mean, I hike and listen to the most horrendous stories possible, and they don't bother me at all because they've replaced, like,
Starting point is 01:06:54 I listen to them the same way I listened to, like, top 40 AM music when I was growing up. It's just, like, one horrible story after another, and, you know, sometimes you skip ahead because it's not gruesome enough or whatever. Oh, whatever. Oh, no. They just kill them normal. Oh, no.
Starting point is 01:07:12 Oh, no, no. I want to hear something exotic. Oh, you're the missionary style? I'm trying to have some fun. Spice it up for me. I love the juxtaposition of you chris going on a like a restorative walk through nature and if blaring through your skull are just the descriptions of heinous crimes and murder right i don't think i'm the only one and you're like yeah no i mean because
Starting point is 01:07:36 no it's it's no i mean look we we we work in podcasting we know firsthand how the genre like it performs people love fucking true crime and yes there's a lot of things it's very double-edged sword because a lot of times you're like these are real people too and like you know for some people like a whole show made up like just focused on like this terrible thing that happened in their families kind of fucked up but it's only one person and most people don't know them so let's get down and then we also see it too in like the shows that we like like we are i don't know like i mean do you do you think personally you're desensitized from the amount of true crime that you listen to well that's what i'm starting to think i mean i think like i feel like there's a certain segment of the population that thinks like they're not gonna die or something like
Starting point is 01:08:23 somehow there's some percentage of us that aren't gonna die and we're just like oh yeah that loser who died right like you know what i mean like like oh what a loser oh what a loser they've ruined the economy by dying or whatever this motherfucker died yeah like we all like like loser yeah party foul uh they just had a a sketch on snl or like a a song parody that was murder show that was about like uh it starts off with the girl's like husband being like all right i gotta go out and like do something she's like all right i'm just gonna like stay home and hang out and then just like the whole song's about her watching just gruesome-ass murders. But I think people... Yeah, I mean... Yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:08 The most of entertainment is now... I mean, I don't know if you guys watched that Night Stalker documentary. It was really bad. I'm down for whatever true crime, usually. And that was just a terrible documentary. Wow. It's basically the interview with... Did you see it?
Starting point is 01:09:22 No. Just an interview with one policeman the whole time no just an interview with like one policeman like the whole time and he's not a nice guy and he keeps trying to make himself the hero of the story and anyway it's it's just disheartening weird it's just narciss he's a narcissist just narcissist um interviewing other narcissists but anyway the point is for me is like i think that death is i mean i I don't want to talk about death. I didn't come on the show to talk about death, but I do think that there's something really
Starting point is 01:09:51 weird going on. Like not just a little weird, not just like, oh man, people don't care about 500,000 people dead. Like it's, it's truly mind boggling and really, really worth investigating because it is not normal. It is not normal it is not normal a culture that lets 500 000 people die and just keeps talking about businesses opening is a culture that has been completely um brainwashed by this this this american idea that like you just do business and and then everything else uh falls into place
Starting point is 01:10:26 somehow and and and and including like not dying because dying is never discussed people don't like to talk about it at all even though everyone does it and it's one of the best i mean it's one of the two main things that happens to you in the world you get born and then you die and to not ever address it is so lame and i don't mean it's just plain lame our culture is so lame it's just like what we're gonna do tiktok videos and then just like one day you turn off and all your relatives are like well i guess she's a loser like oh wow oh i guess we thought she was cool i used to like those videos she made but then she died so i guess she was like weak or not a good capitalist or something. I've never thought about it like that,
Starting point is 01:11:08 but being born and dying are definitely top two things that happened to you in a lifetime. And like it says on the gravestones of like modern idiots, like you can't do TikToks anymore. TikToks went downhill. That's what it says on the grave the uh yeah i mean i've mentioned this before but uh the weimar republic like right before the rise of nazism was uh massively into true crime and like kind of invented the uh idea of a true crime obsession
Starting point is 01:11:40 so i don't i don't think you're totally off that there's like some connection between uh the the sickness of a culture and its obsession with true crime like death yeah death is not like you know death isn't ideally death would not be violent it's not supposed to be entertainment i mean i understand i love true crime so i'm not saying that i'm just i'm just yeah noticing in myself right that if you listen to enough gore it just starts to feel like i don't know death just somehow becomes more abstract and more like a a piece of entertainment or something that's other i can't quite put my finger on it but all i know is death should be this awesome thing where you possibly turn into who knows like a fucking star or something i mean hell yeah casper yeah jason boar he's yeah and you're out in the fucking universe just going like booyah maybe that's all you do like you're just a star with like a big speaker yeah baby there's a
Starting point is 01:12:38 booyah and they don't know because they can't hear way out there the hub yeah yeah does and you're like i used to be hooked on true crime. Now I'm a star. Fuck yeah. And now I'm like, booyah! Booyah! And I'm nude. Booyah! But I mean, yeah, like, you know,
Starting point is 01:12:53 a lot of the research around true crime and like, especially I remember like SVU, a lot of people were like, why are women so into SVU more than men? And like these really dark tales of crime. And like some level is like that people like to it's like about survival is what they found like some people want to hear about it because in some way they feel like it can arm them against something befalling them in some way like on some level
Starting point is 01:13:15 but also like to your point about our mortality like i think if you're also in denial about it you may be more interested in preventing it vis-a-vis listening to true crime and it like sort of really begins to like obscure this relationship to death because i think especially in the west it's like a very it's a we we look at it very strangely like it's like oh this person died and now all of us two are hurting or whatever but we seldom is it like you know in eastern cultures where it's like more like oh yeah like it's just our physical we're just transitioning from physical to non-physical but like this fear of it i think yeah drives so much other exciting yeah death doesn't have to i
Starting point is 01:13:54 mean it's not just like the end of being able to buy shoes like that's the way that is a big part of it but americans look at it like, wow, when I'm dead, I'm not going to ever be able to shop online. Right. Yeah, it's FOMO of life. That's just such a lame way to look at it. And then they're going to end up being stars, and because they weren't thinking about death correctly,
Starting point is 01:14:16 they're not going to get to yell anything. They're just going to be a star, nude, hanging there. And I'm going to be right next to them going, booyah! Booyah! Should have embraced death. Booyah! Yeah have embraced death i had a healthier attitude about death and you have to listen to it but um that's ridiculous so the uh i like that as a i think you just invented a new uh concept of the afterlife that i think a lot of people could get behind i would like to be able to say,
Starting point is 01:14:46 booyah, or I know that's right. I know that's right! I know that's right! That star's badass. You kind of need a cool star near you so you can say that after they say something cool. I know that's right. After they say anything.
Starting point is 01:15:00 I know that's right works after anything. That's the best thing about it. Hot enough for you? I know that's right. It anything. That's the best thing about it. Hot enough for you? I know that's right. You say that again. Oh, did you not hear me? Is it too hot? Alright, that's
Starting point is 01:15:16 going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like the show. It means the world to Miles. He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to you Monday. Bye. Thank you. How do you feel about biscuits?
Starting point is 01:16:26 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. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture.
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Starting point is 01:17:48 Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to do your homework. The best way to do that homework is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, as well as my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the insight you need to set the best lineups each week. For a smart, fun, and entertaining path to league domination, the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast
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