The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 176 (Best of 5/17/21-5/21/21)

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 185 (5/17/21-5/21/21.) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking in a bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba and the piña colada from Puerto Rico.

Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. He tried to save everybody. With guns, in church, voila, you got straight away. They try to save everybody.

Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Captain's Log, Stardate 2024. We're floating somewhere in the cosmos, but we've lost our map. Yeah, because you refuse to ask for directions. It's Space Gem, there are no roads. Good point. So, where are we headed? Into the unknown, of course.

Join us on In Our Own World as we uncover hidden truths, navigate the depths of culture, identity, and the human spirit. With a hint of mischief. One episode at a time. Buckle up and listen to In Our Own World on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust us, it's out of this world. 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 laughstravaganza. Yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat unworthy by the brilliant the talented the legendary the new daily podcast host nikki glazer hi you guys so good to be here on another daily podcast. You guys inspired me to start my own, the Nicky Blazer podcast. And I'm, oh man, I'm, yeah, doing a daily podcast. And then also I've been doing a ton of other podcasts.

Like I'm podcasting like three or four times a day. It's all I do. And I love it. It's the best. But yeah, I'm having so much fun with mine. And as we were just talking off air, it's just so nice to have a job you don't dread.

And there's so many jobs I do that are just, it's obviously what I chose to do. But I don't think there's a single time I go on stage and I go, oh, I don't even know what I'm going to say. I don't want to do this. And then I grab the mic and I have fun.

The second I grab the mic and I get on stage, I have fun, but constant dread up until that moment. But I don't dread my own podcast at all. In fact, I do it four days a week, Monday through Thursday, the Nikki Glaser podcast, iHeartRadio, by Big Money Players. But I get sad Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's like too much of a break. I miss it. And that's not just me saying that to be like, I really do. I just feel like it's, yeah. Do you guys ever feel that way or do you need a break? I mean, we all need breaks, but.

Yeah. I definitely need a break by the end of the week. For sure. I enjoy my weekends. I think it was once we started doing a second episode every day, I was just like, I need... Wait. Yes. We do like a 15-minute trending episode. Right.

It's a lot. But I don't know because Jack and I, we saw each other physically for the first time over the weekend because we were doing a lesser award show than the one you were doing or maybe higher depending on where you're at. Let's be honest. I think they're same level. Really boil it down.

But like it was one of those moments where like, hey! It felt like a reunion scene at the end of a Fashion Furious movie or some shit. Because you guys don't see each other in person ever. You don't have to. This is the first time in over a year. What?

Yeah. oh my god vaccine observant i wasn't surprised how good the the solid hug jack gave me oh really shit my man came in for came from here yes came from deep within podcasting is hard though because i mean it's like a great job and it's i'm not complaining but it is you can't be on your phone you can't be doing other things it is you have to be focused you have to be present you have to be listening you have to be it's it's different than any other job i mean i feel like most people work nine to fives and maybe get the same amount of presence and like focus that we have in an hour of podcasting because i get off my phone i'm like oh that's the longest i've been away from my phone ever is what i podcast yeah it's like the it's the that's the longest I've been away from my phone ever is when I podcast.

It's like the way it used to be when you would go on a plane and they wouldn't have Wi-Fi now. Now you have no excuse to never be tethered to your phone, but podcasting is the only excuse I have now and sleeping. But even sleeping, it's like, wake up, bitch. Answer my text.

I'm blowing you up. What the fuck? Is everything okay? Yeah, I've just been asleep for four hours well the only reason i like if people want to get a hold of me when i'm sleeping i say call me because i always have my phone on silent but i always have um white noise going i think it was one of my underrateds last time i came on here as like a sleep mask and white noise to sleep so i wake up when someone calls because the white noise will just, it'll go to silence. So I get woken up by silence of the call.

So that's the only way I wake up when I sleep. When people are like, I didn't want to wake you up by texting you. And I'm like, who the hell is leaving their text alerts on when they're sleeping? That's a person you need to wake up. I don't get very many text messages like myself. Oh, you don't get many texts? And you just rub in your mitts. You're like, ooh. Whoa!

I wake everybody in my household up. I'm like, guys, I got a text! I got a text! Kids, get in here. Do you notice, though, that more people are using the voice memo option instead of texting? I have a couple people in my life who have been doing that, yeah.

Because they disappear, right? Yeah. I would say drug dealers were very early adopters of the voice message. Because you could get real graphic and say things that you wouldn't want in text form that you could do in the voice. Yes, like graphic about your drugs. Yeah. These drugs are so good. Real enough.

It's like, Oh, you want 3.5 grams? Yes. It's so much better than being like, can I get some sweaters from you or whatever? Like I used to just, in high school,

we used to say we were knitting sweaters and I, it just like why I thought my parents wouldn't catch on to the fact that i've never had an interest in like arts and crafts at all and that we would go knit sweaters in the car and drive around my subdivision for 15 minutes and come back with bloodshot eyes and no yarn or needles or sweater like it's just so dumb yeah but now i do feel like the voice mama thing i noticed it with like more famous people that I may be talking to as the same as drug dealers like don't want as much of a record

of a text screenshot so they said the voice memo but I like it so much more that's the difference between you and I you got famous friends I know drug dealers I mean barely well yeah I need more drug dealers in my life to be honest with you I'm tired of asking my dad if I could have some of his weed.

Now they're all on Signal. Oh, yeah, Signal. That's the one. And you get an alert when a friend joins Signal. If you're on Signal, you get alerts when your friends join it. You go, oh, someone just got a new drug dealer. That's what I always say. Yeah, it's like because you're not a journalist or activist or someone who needs cryptic.

You're into psilocybin now. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're trying a journalist or activist or someone who needs encrypted art. You're into psilocybin now. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're trying a new therapy. I just got an alert that the city of Dayton, Ohio joined Signal. I was like, okay. First of all, I didn't know they were one of my contacts. That's so weird. Wild.

I mean, Dayton, Ohio has had a drug dealer for a long time. Yeah. I don't think that's what's going on there. Right. They're just catching up to on there right um they're just catching up to the technology maybe they're having an affair with cleveland that could be it that could definitely could be it yeah cheating on cincinnati with cleveland yeah which yeah it's just like an administrator for the city is doing it for shady stuff not realizing it's sending out

words like the city of dayton has joined signal like oh Damn, I'm starting to wonder if my little sister's been using voice memos since they began. I'm wondering if maybe she's a drug dealer. She might be young. How old is she? She's only two years younger than me. Okay, but the younger kids use the voice memos too. I feel like that's a...

Texting is old, but I do a lot of the dictating of saying period, exclamation mark. I just started my period exclamation mark. But that's, that's a weird one because sometimes I will be using, leaving the voice memo and I say exclamation and I'm talking like a robot exclamation mark and I'm like, oh wait, no, I'm sending this as a, yeah. Right. like oh wait no i'm sending this as a yeah right my uh siri has i'm unimpressed with siri as of yet uh siri's ability to like just randomly drops in as like i'm sorry i don't know about that i was

i'm like what the fuck i've never i've never like gotten that when it was intended anyways i'm an old man uh let's talk about... I don't think Siri has ever brought me anything but consternation in my life. I need to shut it off. That little start thing, the little magic ball starts going. I hate

that on these iPhones... How many screenshots do you have of your home screen on your iPhone from trying to turn up or down the music and you have to get a grip on screenshots do you have of your home screen on your iPhone from trying to turn up or down the music and you have to get a grip on it so you have to press the other button. I have so many screenshots of my home screen.

It's so annoying. I feel like are the new phones, did they fix that? Are the new models? They had to have. I mean, that isn't a thing that happens to all of us. I think if anything, you just have to change how you take a screenshot to avoid that like in the definitely got like oh okay thank you yeah it got harder to take a screenshot with this latest update of the phone so uh i had to like yeah i was i'm on i just got the 12 but i jumped from like one with a button so i'm i'm way the fuck behind to now using my

face like the first day i like couldn't take a screenshot now i can't not take them so and that's the thing is like you learned sometimes it's like we get so mad at a design change and then we get used to it with it give it a day before you start tweeting about how it's now ruined. They know us so well. They're only optimizing everything for us to be on this thing longer. They know us better than we know ourselves.

Give it time and it will be intuitive within hours. I have to stop being mean to Siri when she interrupts. I have to stop being like, oh, Siri, shut up! Because my kids are learning it now uh they're like being mean to alexa now i'm like oh shit they're like it is so fun to yell at her i know and get your aggression out and just be like you dumb bitch i don't care about the weather like i like i get really mad it's probably projection it's not good uh i should change it to a man's voice to make it feel less uh you know alex shut the fuck up alex i already hate that version alexi i guess alex might be too common i don't know

what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are? Wow. I am obsessed with these Twitter accounts that just post a Google photo of every address in the city. So the one that I look at constantly is Every Lot LA, which is just a picture of every lot in LA. But there's also Every Lot Chicago, Every lot new york uh i follow them all wait i don't understand what what does it do it just posts it's just a bot and that is programmed to post a picture of like every address wanted it like a picture of every google maps shot of every building it's like every building in every city it's wild because like right now they're like on laurel canyon yeah yeah like in the valley and i'm like yo what the fuck yeah last night i was looking at it because they

are on victory boulevard and it's just like a stretch of victory boulevard i love so i was just like victory boulevard we love it i was just oh shit that's a victory right there about a north hollywood shootout yeah just the zone the zone that's like my old elementary school right there yeah and i just i love the account and uh i love that it's a bot because i just like well wait it posts every 20 minutes so i'll oh, man, only eight more minutes until we get another every lot post. Now, this is the sort of thing just thinking with my NFT brain here. You can pile all of those into a single file and then you can add an NFT and and sell that for i'd pay you can get 300k for that you know real estate speculation going on just pictures of real estate i mean yeah it's a fucking no-brainer molly i mean decentraland kind of like that uh this is dope though this

is really cool it's just weird it's like it's a bizarre account, you know, because this is essentially like if you've ever just they're just clipping out these street view things and giving you the address. But it is I find myself it's weird because the specific part of the city they're in right now is a part where I've I know very intimately. So they caught me at a good moment on every lot right now. We're in a good stretch. Yeah. It gives you a unfettered view of like even my memory. I like remember the stores that are open. I don't remember how many of the stores are boarded up, but it's like nine tenths boarded up stores on here.

Well, there's this right now where they're at, like in North Hollywood, it's this old business park that has just died. Actually, they shot the opening of, what's the Marvel movie? What was the thing? Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel. Miss Marvel. Where she touches down in that blockbuster. That's in that same business park, abandoned business park in North Hollywood where the Gold's Gym is

and all this other shit. And that thing has just been dying over the last 30 years. So it's kind of a bummer part of Hollywood that they're at right now. It rules. That's awesome. Also, the Sizzler, you might see that image. Yeah, I just saw the Sizzler. First Sizzler I ever went to.

Is that real? That one right there. Yep, yep. First Sizzler I ever went to. Sizzler Everwood. Is that really? That one right there. Yep. Yep.

Hell yeah. First Sizzler Everwood. Sizzler wasn't a big deal where I lived at the time that I first saw White Men Can't Jump. But when they, like, it was a legendary eating establishment in my mind because of that movie. Because of the we're going to Sizzler celebration. What is something you think is overrated?

Salad. Tuna salad? Chicken salad? Or are we talking about the leafy green? Just leaves. The leafy green? Because when you think about it, have you ever thought about salad? You hear about this, guys?

You thought about this? You guys seen this thing? It's just like it's lubricated leaves and hard bread. And I could have like softer bread and non-moist leaves. Wait, so hold on. You want to eat a dry leaf? Like your ideal meal is just a dry leaf? Katie is a rabbit.

People might not realize that. Katie is actually a rabbit. They might. Yeah. Katie is a rabbit. People might not realize that. Katie is actually a rabbit. Now, you put a leaf on a soft bread, right, with some chicken or something. A sandwich. Yeah, a sandwich. That's what I'm saying. Sandwiches are better than salads.

What are you doing? It's just lube leaves. Nobody wants it. It's a scam. I mean, do you like vegetables, though? Yeah. bleeps. Nobody wants it. It's a scam. Do you like vegetables though? If you're going to have your vegetable intake, you're like, eh. I'll just go raw with the veggie.

Just eat a raw vegetable. Bite into a big old bell pepper. You're eating a raw potato right now like an apple. That's recording. I find it's good for my digestion digestive health digestion yes digestion uh-huh as nobody says yeah i don't know salads are better for me than sandwiches and this might just be

in my old age like really comfortable comfortable, but I like this. I mean, they're being compared, right? That's true. I guess yes. I feel like there's got to be a new method though for salad eating. Maybe like a cone made out of lettuce and then you drizzle the inside with like vinaigrette

and then you fill it with croutons and toppings and eat it. They really did give up on presentation. It's just a pile. Right. Lazy. It sounds like you just want to eat a lettuce wrap anything. So lettuces are for wrapping.

Sounds like that's where we're landing. Lettuce as a wrap. Salads are a wrap. But usually lettuce wrap has like meat and stuff in it. I just want croutons wrapped in a wrap. Right, but usually lettuce wrap has like meat and stuff in it. I just want croutons wrapped in a lettuce. Okay. Yeah, then let's just, yeah.

Do you put croutons? You sound like you're a big ton head. Do you put, that was not the best I could have done, but it is what I did. Do you put croutons in soup? I love a crouton in soup. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Croutons are the best.

I handmade some croutons last night by chopping bread up into cubes, but I kind of overdid the tons, so they were a little bit, you know, hard. Cinder blocks. Yeah. Yeah. Testing those teeth out.

Yeah. And what is something you think is underrated, Click? I'm going to sound so basic, but something I think is underrated is sleep. I love sleep. I really highly value it. And yet somehow I never prioritize it. Every single night I'm like, I could go to sleep now or I could just stay up watching some Netflix show that I actually don't care about. I just am not ready to face my demons and my subconscious.

And I think it's underrated. I actually heard someone say the other day that classic refrain of, I'll sleep when I'm dead. And I was like, no, honey, I'm sleeping when I'm alive. This is the joy of living is that we get to sleep yeah yeah i'll get to enjoy that shit when i'm dying it's not like you have a restful pre-death period no like that shit hurts yeah when you're about to die you man you tripping that whole time it's a head trip that whole time when you are truly on your deathbed i mean like watching that happen to a few family members, it can be peaceful,

but it's not a thing where you're like, damn, I'm just looking forward to sleep. No. It's like, was I a good parent to you? Whoa, whoa, shit. Hey, man. Let's talk about sleep. I was darting around.

So much wasted time. Right. I didn't project my past traumas onto you via your parents i'm like look just just rest up you good right right but yeah the sleep thing is you know the when i a few weeks ago we talked about this sort of phenomenon about how people are procrastinating with their sleep and like there's a few things some of it is like the idea of trying to regain moments from your day that you feel were lost through having to work or other things. So part of it is like this rebellious act before going to sleep of like, I'm going to look at my fucking phone because I don't I didn't have enough fucking time to do my shit today. And I'm going to watch, like in your case, a shitty Netflix show that you're not even sure why you're watching it.

Yeah, I'm an adult. Damn it. You're not even sure why you're watching it. Yeah, I'm an adult, damn it. The second I kind of realized about like sort of that phenomenon, I really try and keep the screen shit away towards the end. But it's tough sometimes because, you know, I'm also like a kid who would try to go to sleep with a TV on every now and then. Right. It does sort of lull me, for sure.

But it's also like I'm trying to, as you said, make that period of my day sacred in the sense that maybe I can find other times in my day to watch these television shows, some of which I do love and engage with. What if I can make my evening time about like reading before bed or journaling before bed or you know something that'll be stimulating in its own way and fulfilling and sort of fill the same need but won't be like blue light beaming straight into my eyeballs at midnight you know that's why i like sleep podcasts have been the thing i've been trying to replace in the like i'm kind of want some kind of stimulation information entertainment but like

not intense like watching comedy or whatever sports highlights or whatever because like the real the shit that's like half sleep hypnosis where it's just kind of a walking you through just checking in with your breathing and your body and then transitions into like the most dry like reading of like alice in wonderland i find myself being like oh shit here we go like it's so fun i put my airpods out my ears i'm like fuck them don't even let them charge i'm like i have to transition to sleep real quick and i can't like interrupt you have to catch it okay now put it in the case and charge i'm like no children's stories really do it for me man and wait like i i read my kids uh four bedtime stories and by number three i am like nodding um right i do drop a couple ambient before just to you know oh so it could be bad i don't know now children's literature the original ambient because

it's nonsense uh pretty boring but very uh you know unobtrusive i think also it's a good sign that i'm sleep deprived that whenever i just like sit down and read for 20 minutes straight i'm just like i can't i can't keep my fucking eyes open right yes yeah but my kids can and then they're in charge of the house for a couple hours while i'm asleep on their floor that's always my favorite is my friends with kids like seeing like a nanny cam footage of like one parent asleep like trying to read the kid a story and the kids just up, like taking the book from them and just like doing it themselves. I love it. The kids are partying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's also the time like sleeping adults. I learned the most about the human body in those times, like looking up my grandma's nose and shit or like just pulling on like my, my grandpa's

hairy ear or something like that. Like those are Like those are the moments you remember as a kid. Yeah, I used to when I was learning how to drive, my goal, my dad is a pilot and he's very like, he pilots whatever car he's in as well. You know, he's always like, your head's on a swivel. He's like swinging his head around. Oh no. Hey dad.

And he was always talking about how you like need to have your like slow what would he say slow down into a stop sign and then like accelerate through the turn like all of these things and so my goal was always when i had him in the passenger seat was to sort of like be such a smooth driver that he would nod off and he would fall asleep and he would sort of like nod out and then somehow while he's still asleep he'd be like you need to stop at that stop sign like oh god and then he'd like black him he has like one eye open so the side visible to you he's asleep but that other eye is like scanning the road right exactly his head's on a swivel wow i like that

he's giving you like real like racing stuff like you gotta hit the apex of the turn and then you decelerate into it then accelerate out and use you know the centripetal force to launch you out yes my dad is a capricorn He's like deep earth sign vibes. Everything about him is practical. He always wants to give like advice and tips. He can't just be like, this is a great day. He has to be like,

well, today is beautiful because, you know, like the clouds are this bad. The thing about barometric pressure that I think is really underrated or misunderstood, but you know, it's so funny. He, when you say like, my dad's a pilot, my almost thing was like, I'm guessing he's like all of my friends, pressure that i think is really underrated or misunderstood but you know it's so funny he when you say like my dad's a pilot my almost thing was like i'm guessing he's like all of my friends

parents or dad specifically who have like like a firefighter or like pilot they're all like these like wells of infinite like just wisdom sometimes you're not really even asking for it but it's not sometimes yeah okay so you're exactly like my friend my homegirl's dad who's a firefighter who just comes through be like man the sky hasn't looked like this in 300 years right like okay cool that's fucking cool i want to hear more about that so that's clearly me being a dad i'm like the sky doesn't look like what i'm completing two characters from my life robert the the proper fire chief will come he's the kind of dude who like he'll come to your house and be like whoa whoa whoa what's going on with that light socket hold on hold on hold on hold on

yeah oh see it sounded like it wasn't grounded i could hear it from here you're like yes thank you my parents so my parents are staying with me right now and they it's been great they're great with the kids the kids love hanging out with them but i'm seeing all like we've got plumbing issues going on that like i had just like it's like a fire alarm that's low on batteries that you just kind of silence with your brain yeah yeah i just got used to it but now i'm just like oh man i'm i'm slacking like my dad's like your pipes sure bang a lot what the hell is that like oh it's because i uh am not a good homeowner yeah see just got to follow through jack we've been talking about this son uh all right uh clary i do have to ask it did

your dad ever talk about encounters uh with uh unidentified flying objects the only time he's ever mentioned it was when we were this is incredibly misleading so i apologize but because i see you're getting excited no i mean either mean, either way, I think it'll either be, it'll pay off on the premise or it'll be a fantastic turn. So it's more like a cute, God, I feel like I've really set this up to fail. We were young and he came back. He flew for UPS for basically all my life

until last January, like the January of the pandemic, January 2020. And he was flying back from China or somewhere on Christmas Eve. And he came into our rooms and he was like, you have to go to bed now. Because as I was flying, I saw this,

this flashing red light out of the side of the plane. And we, we sped up so that we could, we could beat him here. Cause I think it was Santa. And my sister and I were like, oh my God, like ran to our rooms, like covered our heads.

The original unidentified flying object, you know? It was unidentified. He thinks it was Santa, but we don't know. We don't know. People think I'm in the bag for aliens. I am just as willing to believe that that white tic-tac is Santa. That is gift-delivering technology that we don't know about yo it could be alien life could be santa i don't

know yeah come on man could be literally anything yeah it could be amelia erhart you know what i mean i don't know that's where she's been yeah she was like oh man i'm gonna take off on their regular ass spacecraft i'm gonna switch it off for my turn-up spacecraft. Time is relative in space. Right. Yeah. Especially when you're moving that fast. Wait.

Don't worry. This isn't a science podcast. I think it's everywhere. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken.

We're in our own world, remember? Right, in our own world. We're two space cadets. And totally normal humans. Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot.

Especially when she's always right. Right. And if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey! Join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs

and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling.

It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring.

This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better.

With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch, is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way to disagree and still be in relationships with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here, and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues. The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, and my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat

and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. That's our job. We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast when it drops five times a week. If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues, then look no further than the show Straight From the Source at NFL Media.

Do it before it's too late. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And let's check in with the Ro the roe v wade supreme court story just because i feel like we've heard a number of times that like this is a possibility but this you know pending decision really seems like it is the the case we've been warned about the justices specifically chose a case that lower courts uh had mostly upheld precedent on so it basically means that like they're coming into an argument that seems

like it had been settled and they're starting some shit again so it's clear that they have something to say like they have they think there's work to be done on what I think most people thought was settled precedent. People are saying they wouldn't have done this unless a major kind of change was coming. And it's probably not going to be a change in the pro-choice direction. I don't think Amy Coney Barrett's going to be like we're just let's be a little bit more liberal on this she was famously tight-lipped in her you know when people were asking those questions because of this exact moment you know because what trump has put in a third of the supreme court now yeah and we are yeah we're looking at a this conservative majority that yeah is is the exact thing that people were fearing that of like what

a Trump administration looks like or what, you know, what this conservative, conservatives at the wheel gives you all these other justices. Right. But if you're, I mean, if you're fearing it, like, don't you want it sooner rather than later? For me, it's just like, all right, this is what's going to happen if there's, if he put all these people in the Supreme Court and we know this is coming down the pike at some point, like, let's go, because the sooner it happens and the sooner that they curtail Roe v. Wade, then the sooner people are going to realize that the only way to change that is to is to vote the way that is to is to kick people out of office. And like and or or create legislation or create a constitutional amendment like like it. I'd rather do that than just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I think, yeah, more than anything, it's just how, you know, American politics works. It has to get to that point for a plurality of people to be like, oh, fuck, we got to do something. Because before when everyone was like warning, like, no, this could be bad. Like, you kind of need to think about this now. Yeah, I think, Dan, that's what I don't know what else could happen for things to actually change. I think, Dan, I don't know what else could happen for things to actually change. But I mean, when you look at all the state houses across the country, I think far too many are willing to restrict access to these kinds of procedures than actually offer them to the constituents. So, yeah, it's a very dark time. Now, when you see the amount of people who are having to like navigate their murky laws to go out of state or find other ways to have this kind of access, just it's just a really bleak picture.

But, yeah, I mean, I don't know what this does to help force a conversation about like, well, if that's the case, what are we doing about Supreme Court justices and term limits? Are we expanding the courts now? Because I think maybe, you know, if this does happen, that makes all of those other conversations happen with a little more, you know, vigor. Yeah. They're saying it would revert at least 20 states to the pre-Roe days when basically rich women could get safe abortions and poor women could not. Right. So I guess my fear would be that, and I think this has borne out a lot in the past four years, that even with something horrible with legislation or from the Supreme Court, that people still don't do what they need to keep Roe in place, like according to polling. So this is straight up like activists, like just out of step with the rest of the country or with the majority of the country, I guess. So it would seem to be like this would be all the reason that the Democratic Party, the Joe Biden would need to be like, okay, this is the break glass in case of an emergency moment.

I can totally see that being the thing that like they drop a bombshell ruling and then that's when Biden like kind of gets moving on the Supreme Court kind of term limits or, you know, expanding the the court but we shall see yeah i mean there's also many states too that have like these trigger laws too that are saying like the second the supreme court makes a decision boom abortion is immediately illegal yeah you know many states are waiting for this yeah there's a few states um i don't know how many but there's

there's a few that have these like trigger laws in place in regards to roe and i think more than anything too it's going to force us to realize okay we only have each other to help out and i think that is going to lead to a lot of it's going to take a lot of person like people helping each other because once the states are just shuttering their doors on this now like we're like these activist groups and charities are going to have to do a lot of the work to be able to give people access to abortions and things like this so yeah a lot to come all right let's talk about the recount i mean we've all been kind of on the edge of our seat when are we gonna finally find out who won that fucking election guys yeah i mean you see the new ben garrison

cartoon oh i i wake up every morning it's the first thing i check is what would garrison drop latest stupid ass ben garrison cartoon is a it's a set of dominoes arizona michigan wisconsin new hampshire georgia and pennsylvania with joe biden looking scared as the last one and the arizona domino is falling first hopefully triggering the audit as they say and you have trump saying you lost domino joe i don't know what that means but okay well because joe uh in this comic is very literally his body is a domino at the end of a uh i'm stupid domino and joe rhyme which is pretty domino joe yeah yeah like that um so in maricopa county in arizona that's the scene of the like one of the most absolutely nonsensical attempts at overturning uh the election um if you remember this already

happened they did a hand recount i don't know if you remember this and then like courts were like yeah these allegations of fraud are like absolutely baseless like please get out of my face like it's this election has been certified but since the big lie the maga faithful have just been very eager to overturn the results so the republicans in the arizona senate subpoenaed the ballots and then they handed them over to a group of fucking idiot conspiracy theorists who are like, yeah, we'll get to the bottom. We'll find fraud. They're called, I'm not joking. Their fucking name is the Cyber Ninjas. And I just want to read a little bit about them. The company has no experience in elections and its CEO helped to spread the stop the steal conspiracy theories

in the run up to the Capitol riot. It is now in possession of maricopa's ballots and voting equipment so they're there being like we're gonna figure it out we'll get to the bottom of this do we have experience no but we do have experience in baseless conspiracy theories so as you can imagine uh because we know what happened and there is no fraud they have found absolutely fuck all and because it's so poorly, like they were using this like county, uh, like convention center to do the audit and stuff. They had to pack up their shit and pause the operation because it was, they were fucking up so bad. It was taking way longer than they thought it would, that it was interfering with the

county's high school graduations that they held in that building. So they're like, guys, you got to pack this shit up. We got some graduations coming in, man. I know this is a fun time for you but we gotta stop so now it's gotten to the point where even the republicans in arizona are just over it because it's been such a clown show that they're like begging them to stop which is kind of odd. So what is the big news that is causing the Ben Garrison comic? Like, why are they so certain that this is... Was that an old comic? No, I'm pretty sure it's from the last few days.

It's because he thinks... It's because he's not in the group that thinks this is stupid or a joke. It's that he thinks... They have things like they were looking for like bamboo fibers to prove like things were coming from china and shit and using like and using like uv purple lights on ballots and people like forensically what are you are you even doing and they're like oh we're checking for stuff they're like what though oh you'll you'll find out it's like dude this is all just it's all performative it's all nonsense so the republicans started like you know asking the senate president karen fan like to

please end this you like you started this shit please end it and the board of the board of supervisors in maricopa county were like really fucking pissed one uh state republicans calling the process quote a spectacle that is harming all of us uh this is from the board of supervisors and mind you this board of supervisors is four republicans and the fifth is a democrat so this is this board of supervisors is 80 percent republicans uh from arizona they said it's time to make a choice to defend the constitution and the republic we stand together to defend the constitution and the republic in our opposition to the big lie we ask everyone to join us in standing for the truth.

Our state has become a laughingstock. Worse, this quote-unquote audit is encouraging our citizens to distrust elections, which weakens our democratic republic. You have rented out the once good name of the Arizona State Senate to grifters and con artists who are fundraising hard-earned money from our fellow citizens, even as your contractors parade around the Coliseum hunting for bamboo and something they call kinematic artifacts while shining purple lights for effect. None of these things are done in a serious audit. I'm very curious what kinematic artifacts. Yeah, I'm Googling. Yeah.

I'm very curious what kinematic artifacts. Yeah, I'm Googling. Yeah. It sounds like a good thing. Like, you don't want to ask to sound stupid, but you're like, what is... Is that something to do with actor Joel Kinnaman? Shiny thing. Kinnaman. Yeah, it's Joel Kinnaman.

Strong refraction of waves in the migration velocity model introduces kinematic artifacts, coherent events not corresponding to actual reflections. Okay. model introduces kinematic artifacts coherent events not corresponding to actual reflections okay they just wanted to like get that yeah that UV light on there because that right that makes them feel like they're in CSI they've done this thing where like it's so confusing I've given up trying to understand what they're saying and

but it's the bottom line is the audit is nonsense and what you're doing is nonsense and it's ran by the cyber ninjas. We sound like the fucking bad guys from like surf ninjas or some shit. But other than being like kind of kicked out of the building because of the high school graduations and being like shouted down by their own party. Like, is there is this progressing in some way? own party like is there is this progressing in some way like what is giving uh the people who are on the side of these people like hope nothing i mean like their response to them it's just to

that is being like oh here they go they're afraid of what we might find right like but you haven't found anything and you're not going to because a you're looking for something that isn't there and b you're not even trained to even understand what you're looking at aside from just like this very narrow motivation to be like we're gonna find chinese bamboo fibers on these ballots or some shit but it's working they're they're making money yeah absolutely and i think it's only it it it's another indication. I think this like sort of strongly worded attempt at stopping it from the Republicans, from the Board of Supervisors. Right.

That how deeply fractured, like, just like the Republican Party is now. Like where some people are like, I think we can get a hold. They're like, nope, there goes the party. Off it goes with the cyber ninjas. Yeah. Wow. can get a they're like nope there goes the party off it goes with the cyber ninjas yeah wow by the way ben garrison great example of like the lower standards of anybody like for culture that is created by anybody who's on the side of this because they just like will take what they can get the shadow work on the on this oh wow like when you look at so the the idea is that these dominoes are supposed to spell out

the word audit in shadows but that he has made literally no attempt to uh make it seem like that is even conceivably uh possible that would have took too much time he just he just wrote audit looks good though trump always looks good yeah it looks like richie rich he's his uh his suit is like kind of straining at the like kind of groin region which i'm assuming is not by accident like he's yeah man like ben may have his own visions of what's underneath there tell us what do you see there tell us more about and what do you see there yeah all right let's talk about the insurrectionists there's a bipartisan effort to look at the january 6th attack and it's running into opposition from

gop leadership basically who'd have thought who'd have thought? Who'd have thought? Minority leader Kevin McCarthy specifically is out here being like, oh, it's too short-sighted and it doesn't look at all of the political violence that has occurred in the United States. In other words, they don't want an investigation into an event that perhaps some of their own members had a hand in. If you remember, Kevin McCarthy was on the phone with Donald Trump when the attack was happening. So I have a feeling, yeah, that guy doesn't want to have to sit in front of anything and explain anything to anyone about what was said or not said. But he now is saying, quote, the renewed focus by Democrats to now stand up an additional commission ignores the political

violence that has struck american cities that's talking about the blm protests a republican congressional baseball practice that was the steve scalise thing from 2017 and most recently the deadly attack on capitol police in april where that guy ran into some of the officers near the capitol now those are not comparable events and i understand and that those we those have been investigated and people understand what happened there. This, on the other hand, has a lot of moving parts where there's law enforcement, military involvement, back, broaden it to the point to be able to raise their talking points. Like other proposals from the Republicans are, well, can we talk about Antifa? We got to put Antifa in there and we got to put the BLM protests in there as well, just to, I think, create this sort of mass spectacle of like, look, everyone's doing it, folks. So how can we really consider ourselves safe? So yes, that's the current state of this effort to figure out what happened. Yeah, and I mean, Antifa was involved

in the storming of the Capitol, if my sources are correct. If your favorite parlor accounts are to be believed. And the other problem with this effort is Your favorite parlor accounts are to be believed. And the other problem with this effort is John Katko, who is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, who's the Republican giving it this bipartisan support. He voted to impeach Trump. So that's already, I think, a bad sign for how much Republican support it's going to get because this guy was being like, no, no, I don't know. I'm voting to impeach. I don't know what everyone else is talking about. So that's already raising question marks on top of the fact that once it gets out of the House,

it has to go to the Senate. And then we'll see what kind of will there is to either completely water it down, amend it so it really is like about just whatever they wanted whatever else they need it to be about but i think such as the it's the all too familiar theme recently right uh all right let's take one more break and we'll come back and talk about some bullshit all right uh it's now time for the story we've all been waiting for. Cicadas. We knew Brood. What I had been calling Brood X but apparently it's Brood 10. They're coming out into the world

and... Oh, it's Brood 10? Yeah, I know, man. Oh, I'm so 90s range. I'm like, Brood X! I've been calling it Brood X. Fuck yeah. No, this it Brood X. Fuck yeah. No, this is Brood X. Fuck what you heard. Well, NPR's calling it Brood 10.

Oh, screw NPR. NPR also called him Malcolm 10, so that might be... The 10 games. So, these cicadas are coming out, and they are on their way out as they get closer to

like sexual maturity which is when they come out their body gives off some sort of chemical marker that then causes this fungus to like mature rapidly as they're coming through the ground, it infects them. Their insides basically get replaced with what appears to be like an eraser, like a pencil eraser that's just absolutely packed with spores of this fungus. And

it is full of amphetamines and psilocybin. And they spend the whole time that they're out just high out of their minds, incredibly horny and just trying to mate with anything that moves and therefore spreading the fungus around to other cicadas. It's wild. Katie, can you explain that? Well, I actually just did a podcast on Creature Feature with Mer Wilson about brood acts recently. And yeah, it's really interesting. My sister-in-law just sent me this article this

morning. I guess everyone knows that I would want to hear about this and talk about it. Fungus are one of the few sort of like dangers to cicadas as they are underground and await their emergence after 17 years of developing underground. So their life cycle is basically they lay eggs, the eggs fall down onto the ground and the larva goes and burrows underground. They take 17 years to mature. And then after those 17 years, they all simultaneously emerge and start fucking each other. And then this cycle begins again.

But these fungi will infect the cicadas while they're underground. And then as they come up, you know, they then like, as they make that final molt. Into their adult forms. The fungus causes their butts to fall off. Yeah.

And then it replaces that entire area. Where their genitals. And the rear end of their abdomen. Would be with like this weird like. White chalky packed in spores. Just like Jack said. And it releases a. uh the wait how do they fuck if they got no butt they can't but they try but they try and that way so that how do they how do they procreate for the next cycle they don't they don't there's not it's not like the

whole population has the the infection it's just a small number of them oh gotcha so some are freaky no but i mean there are there are so there are there are so many cicadas there's like hundreds and hundreds of like i actually think like millions of cicadas that come out because her majesty she's from the dc maryland area yeah and she was saying earlier how people are already wrapping their trees and shit like to prepare for this because they don't want their trees to become like cicada fuck parties and things like that and oh i thought they were wrapping them in like something romantic just to put the cicadas aromatic aromatherapy set and some tasty lubes no i just like they're trying to protect their property it's just wild to me like because like being being in Japan all the time as a kid, cicadas are just a very normal part of like the summer soundscape.

Like, in fact, something's wrong if I don't hear cicadas, you know, screaming. Yeah, that's when the aliens have come. Right. But this is funny. Like to now when over here we have this one, it's like every 17 years, it's like the fucking pestilence. Well, it's more than every 17 years because there are multiple species and multiple groups of these cicadas. So you will have even the one group. So like this brood X will only emerge every 17 years. But there's like another group of cicadas that are slightly out of sync with that one so

you get every few years you get a giant amount of cicadas coming out is it geographic like is there like brood x like takes over the east coast and then brood whatever the fuck i mean it's not that huge of like a geographical chunk but certainly like there's you'll have maybe cicadas in like this area and then there's uh ones in this area but also like there's you'll have maybe cicadas in like this area and then there's uh ones in this area but also if there are different species those can those can um differ they can be in the same region but yeah no i mean i don't think it's like uh you do get that regional difference in terms of which are emerging at what time but it's not like not like on the west coast we get it every 10 years.

And then on the East Coast, they get it every seven. It's much more diversified than that. One question I had, because this just raises something that I think is interesting about drug use in general, is that when we take drugs, it's not like the powder from the ecstasy we take is going into our brain and like the little powder molecules are like going in there it's like it's causing your brain to make

its own drugs right like that's what that's what this fungus does is it causes the cicadas to make psilocybin and amphetamines. And they basically are pumped full of those, but it's by their own body. So it just made me wonder, are there examples throughout human history where they think, oh, that was probably a massive wave of some infection that made everybody start start tripping for like for an entire summer or something. on rye which when cooked into bread and ingested uh can cause all sorts of health problems but also

has uh hallucinogenic uh effects and so that's been speculated to be behind some of the salem witch trials of those girls like accusing their neighbors of being witches and like they believed what they were seeing yeah and uh justin producer Justin, just pointed out that this is something I had heard about. I had never heard it attributed to a fungus. But the dancing plague, the thing where people couldn't stop dancing and some of them danced until they died. People believe that was caused by a fungal infection. So that sounds very similar, actually. Danced until their butts fell off. Right. Because if they're eating this rye fungus and it produces this ergotamine and then that ingestion of it can cause hallucinations. And in terms of medical conditions, though, there are medical conditions where you can make yourself get drunk not drinking any alcohol it's called auto brewery syndrome or gut fermentation syndrome so ethanol is actually produced by fermentation by fungi or bacteria in the gi system and you don't have to drink anything you know you just eat normally and then you have this abnormal gut

bacteria or yeast or fungi that is creating basically beer. And then you get drunk. Your stomach turns into a pruno bag from prison where whatever you eat is now like, dude, that's booze now. How many times have people like gotten duis and be like i swear i didn't drink anything you can't you could get out of a dui if you have this medical condition i think i've actually read a case of that like someone hey pulled over i'm not even drunk sauce for just give me. I'm telling you, I got a brewer's stomach.

What? All right. All right. What the fuck are you talking about? You're driving a fucking school bus, man. I mean, there's got to be a lawyer who specializes in that. Who's just like, I will get you out of a D-line. He likes to pull rabbits out of a hat and he only takes on cases where he knows.

It's like, oh, yeah, you do have auto brewery syndrome. Okay, I'll take this case. Do you or someone you love have auto brewery syndrome? You may get money in a settlement. Yeah. But we need you to get pulled over for a DUI first. Yeah. So this is all sorts of straight.

One thing that I will just note, in case anyone's getting any big ideas about going out and eating any cicadas they see with their asses blown off by a plug of spores. So the scientists are saying in this NPR article, there's always a risk in eating cicadas pumped filled with amphetamines. That was just a Great understatement. That was just one of a thousand compounds we found in the cicadas, and we don't know what those other compounds are capable of doing to humans.

I'm sorry, man. This is going to be the new Tide Pods. Well, but people already eat cicadas during these mass cicada blooms. Like, they put them on ice cream. Before the trippy ass spores? Yeah, they don't... I think it ice cream before the trippy ass spores yeah they don't i think it's uh irrelevant to the trippy ass spores it's just like oh this is a fun event like a local ice cream store may like put candied cicadas sure sure but i'm talking about like me if i'm 17 right

now and i'm reading that their butts are filled with psilocybin and amphetamines i'm like bro we gotta see if that shit happens. Of course. I mean, it's like psilocybin is the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms, but I think you'd be safer off doing psychedelic mushrooms. Yeah, but again, this is for idiot kids. I'm putting myself in an idiot kid mode, and I'm hearing there's free drugs in these cicada assholes. My friend from Dayton, when I moved to Lexington, Kentucky, he came down to visit me. We were good friends, but not such good friends.

I was just a little like, wow, he wants to stay for a week and then made us go out into horse fields and look for psilocybin mushrooms under shit piles in horse and cow fields uh kids will do anything to get high is my don't scientists say don't because we never ate them i wouldn't let them eat any of the any of the you don't the thing is i don't think you want to just eat a mystery mushroom no probably not good for you i mean like what i was talking about that rye ergot um not only could it cause hallucinogenic effects but ergotism with repeated ingestion of it uh which uh could cause

gangrene and convulsions so people's like skin and digits falling off and convulsions so i don't know yeah i don't know what we know about this, but fungus, but I wouldn't mess around with it personally. Kids do not smoke cicada ass this summer. Is that even a combination like that people do? Like I know that MDMA and amphetamines is ecstasy, but like is mushrooms and amphetamines like a combo that.

That's not, that's not a, that's not one you really want to be like, yo, I'm going to beam up and have a full-on... Right. It's like, okay. I'll be in space and have an anxiety attack. Right.

They seem incongruous. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break and we will be right back. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling.

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

Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask

as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right, in our own world. We're two space cadets.

And totally normal humans. Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right.

Right, and if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey, join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast.

As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way

to disagree and still be in a relationship with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Fantasy football fans the nfl season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues the best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the nfl fantasy football podcast come hang out with me marcus grant and my pal michael f florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup.

That's our job. We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast when it drops five times a week. If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues, then look no further than the show Straight From the Source at NFL Media.

Do it before it's too late. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. all right we hear a lot about ai technology being incorporated into law enforcement into i think uh medicine and you always hear like promises of how ai is going to change entertainment somebody kind of put together an interesting proof of concept on the music front that miles you're into.

Right. I just, I always, you know, the, when, when you're talking about, Oh,

Netflix, like they can use algorithms to kind of figure out what a hit show is going to be. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. We'll talk about that next. Or things like that,

or like, you know, maybe the racist police recognition, facial recognition software isn't as good. I like the lower stakes kind of AI stories. You know, like when they say, we fed this machine all this 90s pop music and then this is what it spit out. So, and this has been a trend that's been going on for a while. But this one is kind of interesting just because of how contrasting the two inputs are. They basically got this ai they said

look we want to see if we can do the spice girls wannabe but in the form of a nine inch nails track and i was like that seems like a stretch and i don't know how the fuck a machine is gonna get like take if you want to be my lover with like, I want to desecrate you like that. I don't know how to do it, but they did. And I just want to play a really quick clip of this because it it's kind of believable. okay not a perfect downward spiral recreation and in fact it to me it sounds more like scream by janet and michael but it's just weird again because it's nailing these certain textures like it knows what the weird chaotic synth guitar part is and they get trent's voice right but then i think the funk part of wannabe kind of mess with either way you get this like weird it sounds like music from like

demolition man like you know i was just gonna listen to you know i mean it sounds exactly like music from a movie set in the 90s like when you go to a party or something and there's a band playing at the party that's what they would have been playing yeah or like in the matrix when like he's following the white rabbit to that club like this is the shit that would have been playing in that freaky ass club there are some stakes there it's like the you're in the club the band is playing and you're looking across and you like clock the person you're chasing and then they start running right now what oh shit okay oh now there's a shootout in the with the green liquid spilled uh she was

bringing a bottle of green to somebody yeah hey man and you bump into someone hey man watch where you're going right they're always so rude in those clubs. Hey, what's the big idea, man? When you watch the special features, you're like, that was actually the producer, Jim Bowles. Right, right. That character. It's like, whoa. And he was just partying right there.

Yeah, he was in the way. And we just kept that. But just to say that it it's getting because before you would get these weird ass non-musical things things are getting a little bit better to the point where you know give it a few more thousands of hours of music and check back in with us but i also want to talk about an even freakier ai thing that is occurring which is i don't even know well wait before you say that because i do have to i feel like people will which is, I don't even know. Well, wait, before you say that, because I do have to, I feel like people will drag me if I don't.

As a Spice Girls fundamentalist, I believe that that song is blasphemous and should never be played again. Spice Girls music is pure and perfect and should never be touched by humans or certainly not machines. I will say, I officially thought that that sucked. I thought it was worse than any Spice Girls song in any Nine Inch Nails song. Oh, no, no, no. It's not.

Not that it's... But I'm saying it's getting there. All that to say, that's in service of this next thing, which is the freaky, fucked up part of AI, which is on its way to... At first, you're like, ah, man,'s kind of sucks now it's like oh fuck x territory yeah so yes you know best oh i'm just back to your point about

wannabe you're saying that it should never be defiled in such a way as it was rather than wannabe is outside of what you believe to be canon for Spice Girls. You're saying, how dare you put your dirty hands algorithm on that thing. Exactly. Okay. Point taken and recorded. Just for the record. Yes, absolutely. That is recorded.

The Punch Up the Jam episode about wannabe is great because they take all the stems and all the different... And you really get a new appreciation for what a good song that is. Oh, who didn't fucking love that song? I remember, I just... Because we like to pivot to go on tangents on this show. for what a good song that is oh i who didn't fucking love that song i remember i just you know because we like to pivot to go on tangents on this show i remember so vividly when that

shit came out i was working on a school project at my friend michael kim's house and his mom brought so much fucking taco bell like into like his room to help us finish this project i had never seen a parent bring this much fast food and put it in front of kids before and we were playing wannabe on a loop and i'll never forget that day uh michael kim i hope you're good i hope your mother agnes or i think that was her name i hope she's good too shout out agnes shout out agnes kim but this one so we're talking now deepfakes another version of using this ai to you know make it seem like someone is doing something they're not. First, we saw in like really problematic celebrity faked porn and shit like that. And then people talked about how there's also technology to take the voice and then be able to map some get someone's voice to say anything you want. Well, there's a new company now that is essentially able to begin dubbing films, but using deep fakes to do it. And I know that sounds kind of weird, but I'm just going to play you a clip of how this kind of operates. foreign language films we're used to like dubbed films or subtitles right the dub will just be like the old kung fu movie joke where like the mouth is moving and then the dialogue comes out

completely mismatched they're saying the dub is usually so bad yeah so this one they're saying nah fuck that we'll get these people to speak whatever language you want now so behold this freaky technological advancement. So that was a few good men in French. The mouth movements, not super stellar, but they're matching. And it's not to the point where you're like, oh, this is completely taking it out. And I also just want to play this part shook me to my core because they had fucking Forrest Gump speaking Japanese in this clip. So I know it's hard to see.

We'll put the link in the footnotes. But we are approaching this future now where this company is saying we don't have to do reshoots. You don't have to do reshoots? You don't have to do subtitles. We can map the animated mouth movements to whatever language and even use the tone of voice to get these actors to speak in any language that you so see fit. I just want to play this part. This is De Niro, I think, speaking German. Where are you? Herbass. With some of the most famous and criminal families in this city in connection and... Oh, yeah, they got... so they use the person's actual voice too okay yeah that is kind of freaky

then interpolate create synthesize them speaking in other languages because their whole the whole the rest of this company is like d, you lose the dramatic performance because the facial expressions aren't timed with the delivery of the lines. They can give kind of a disjointed interpretation of what you're seeing. I mean, it's kind of, this is clearly a double-edged sword because you can see the good that it could do. And you could also, again, we've always known deep fakes were going to be a problem since like the first sort of clips came out and now that we're like here it has some actors like i'm not really feeling this like manipulation of my face to do this other stuff yeah i was already feeling like my job was in danger when the pandemic hit and i was like huh do i have any useful skills in an apocalypse beyond like keeping you entertained and like, look over here.

Don't look at the burning fires all around us. And now this is very much like, oh, right. And we also don't need you at all. We could just completely create a performance based on images that we already have. They're like, oh, we're doing new Soul Bomb episodes based off the existing audio we already have from the podcast. And have me saying crazy shit. Honestly, as long as I'm getting paid,

you know, I'll take it. But now they're all about how delicious bug paste is. I love that bug paste. Gatorade bug paste. Yeah. But the other thing is like, I don't know you know part of me likes watching foreign language

films because part of the fun is hearing a language you don't understand and hearing the nuances and language too so it's like but then there are also times like when I was watching Lupin on Netflix when I was like fuck maybe I'll go to the dubbed version like

but I also like to hear but so i can see sometimes how maybe i'd be like yeah fuck it i guess i'd go with the dubbed version tonight but i don't know i tried to watch um that german show dark i i did watch the first season fully dubbed and i was like it's fine i guess the's fine, but the performances are kind of shitty. And then I just like changed over to subtitles. I was like, oh, these are great performances. It's just like the voice actors have an impossible job. And like they're not the quality of actor that the actual performers are.

So it's just, yeah, it sucks. I will say I've heard the French dub of my character in Love, Simon. And I was hoping it would sound like me speaking French, but like a native speaker. When I speak French, it sounds like a child who is obviously not French. But it sounded like a French woman. And I was like, huh, okay, this is interesting. It's like somewhere in the realm of what my voice sort of sounds like,

but it also fully sounds like a woman. And like, what are you trying to say here, France? Right, right, right, exactly. Like, hmm. What is your understanding of gender identity and performance, France? France. Oh, I want to posit this question to this group because just on the topic of algorithms mish-mashing shit together and then being like yeah we can do this

seeing the wacky nine inch nails wannabe and then this thing i'm really curious i would really be interested to see like a fully produced algorithmically created film that was like only based off of like 90s actions action films and comedies just to see what kind of chaotic fucking nightmare this ai thinks is like what we were trying to say through storytelling at the time and i feel like it would be just this, I don't know, like a weird, like, like a mushroom trip because part of it is this,

you know, synthesis of like actual human expression and ideas. But then what this machine is then saying, believing what we're trying to do with it. I've always just been a big, you know, supporter believer in wanting to see a project like that. I know that

there's there was that company that basically was feeding plots into algorithms and i think it was doing it more reactively it was like right you would send a script they would input all the details from the script into their algorithm they had a couple early hits and then they were like okay based off those early hits we're gonna like really invest we're gonna like buy this small studio and they like immediately ate shit and went out of business this is for like this is like for an elon musk type idiot who has a bunch of money to piss away and it's like i give earth meme movie based on algorithms because i feel like if it was really taking like weird toxic messaging we had it would be like the asshole asshole man wins would be like the name of the film basically asshole man wins who would

be who would be the star of that i'm thinking it would be like wesley snipes and slash stallone or something it's like it's wesley snipes it's the cast of demolition man plus tom cruise yeah they're in a movie yeah right that we already talked about plus tom cruise face plus will smith face right well i mean that's now you're talking about like the best cast of any movie well no but i'm saying it would blend all these together maybe like an ethnically ambiguous character oh okay dick who was like so their masculinity was so toxic it was like a power it turns out you know what i mean like i'm just curious because like it's these like other things that i'm curious how much ai picks up on and being like that's the subtext of this is actually this

i mean that's most clint eastwood characters isn't it the like toxic masculinity yeah is a power becomes a superpower that's why asshole man wins too is the film even this thought experiment miles is the first step towards the machines taking over why do we care what they think about uh wait no sorry machines i love you right i do feel like anytime i'm on the record i need to make sure they know that i am on their side right and i also don't think we need to tempt them i mean podcasts seem like a very good import for the machines to be taking in because there's so much content there like there's more hours of podcasting than there have been in the history of the human species for sure

so just algorithmically like taking all those things in and then spitting out like i don't know where we'll be replaced soon it's my fear biggest fear. And I feel very similarly about thinking about them and talking about them as I do about the NSA or the FBI, where you're like, you're probably not listening to what I'm saying. But just in case, I always feel the need to remind Alexa that I am not a terrorist. Robot. Robot. Robot. Right. Making sure your name is on the protective scrolls. Yes, please. Make it clear. When they rip the roofs off of our homes and like, you were down with us.

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

How do you feel about this, kids? 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 and prints. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm also Lacey Lamar. Just kidding. I'm Amber Revin.

Okay, everybody. We have exciting news to share. We're back with Season 2 of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. This season, we make new friends, deep dive into my steamy DMs, answer your listener questions and more. The more is punch each other. Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just listen, OK? Or Lacey gets it. Do it. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles,

two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson, 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-ette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts.