The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 197 (Best of 10/11/21-10/15/21)

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 206 (10/11/21-10/15/21) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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. 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. 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. Tried to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts.

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 uh non-stop infotainment laugh stravaganza uh yeah so without further ado here is the weekly zeitgeist please welcome the brilliant the talented amin ismail what's that? Wow What an intro That's how you say it in Who's Afraid of Eamon

Did I fuck up your last name? There's no correct way to say it It's more like a vibe You just gotta feel it I've had to say that a few times before It's more like a vibe yeah i'm so tired of telling people my name is amen like matt damon i'm just like say whatever you want i don't care yeah you can have it i don't have i don't need it back or the fact that you have to

evoke matt damon as part of your self-identifying process like matt damon but i did fuck it up last time, right? But you're saying it's okay either way, right? I mean, again, if you want to do it like the Arabic way, it's got to be like, amen Ismail. But who's going to sing it like that? You just got to be like, amen, amen, amen. Amen, amen.

Matt Damon, Matt Damon, Matt Damon. Matt Damon. Amen. Yeah. Take me to church. Don't call me Heyman. That. Hey, man. Yeah. Take me to church. Don't call me hey, man. That's the only thing. Right.

The guitar center tried to pull that joke on me, and I almost left out. Oh, no. I was like, you know what? Matter of fact, return these strings for me. Return them. I'm done. These Ernie Balls, man? These are good strings, man.

You sure? All right. I asked for the super slinky, man. Get the head. Oh, my bad. Okay, I'll go back there. I'll go back there. I'll go back there. I'll get the right strings.

Man, so what's good with you? Where are you at? Where are you? It looks like you're traveling, you know? Yeah, I'm out in the land, dude. I'm secretly doing my work from Puerto Rico. Don't tell my editors. No, I won't.

Please, when you find this out, don't snitch tag anybody at Slate because nobody knows. We were just talking about one of the articles. I forget who wrote it over at Slate about the tall Zoom energy piece. And I was curious, is that something you've noticed too? Like, have you met new coworkers and people think you are taller or less tall? Or what's your vibe? I haven't been back to an office since then. I'm trying to hold out for as long as possible.

See, I was never a fan of like office culture. I know some people have started going back already. I'm fine with just the messages and the emails. I don't need to see you, you know? So I like leaning into the mystery. It's like a shorter is height. I don't need to know how tall you are. And for all I know, you could be six foot, five foot.

I just don't want to go back to the office. I mean, I was always commuting from New Jersey into New York. And so our subway is different than you guys' subway. You know, we have the real freaks of the subway on our subway. So I'm like, I don't know. People actually want to start conversations with you where I get off. No thanks. I mean, that's easy for you to say you have tall zoom energy i mean look at you your presence is overpowering so it's easy for you but you know for some of the secret is to not stack your laptop and like keep it as low as possible it gets like that myspace angle right oh yeah just so yeah it's always from that perspective you want the chin yeah right right well that's good how how is uh puerto rico what, that's good. How is Puerto Rico?

What's good in Puerto Rico? I mean, I would recommend the shrimp empanadas. I was really, really into tostones, you know. I've tried the mofongo, but honestly, it's not better than it is in the Bronx. So, you know, you got to come with the expectation that you're just going to like a tropical Bronx. That's how you really get to enjoy Puerto Rico. Otherwise, you're just going to be setting yourself up for sort of like an American Florida fusion. It doesn't feel like you've left the country in a weird way.

But at the same time, everything is just delicious. And they have those Coca-Colas here with the real sugar. I don't know if you guys do a lot of traveling, but the Coca-Cola's where we are. We call it Mexican Coke out here. Yeah. Because it's typically the ones that they import in the glass bottle from Mexico. Because anything that's bottled up here is all corn syrup for that ass. No, no, no.

I can't handle that, honestly. It gets my throat off, like weirdly lubricated. The Spr sprite with sugar i will obey my thirst every fucking time if there's sugar in it i'm always impressed by sprite anytime i like i almost never drink it but when i do i'm always like damn oh this is fucking good i get it with gas over here with this. Yeah. What is it? Lemon limoness? Yeah. That's limon.

Limon. Wasn't that the thing they called it? Yeah, yeah. What is something from your search history? I recently searched kidney donor bad art friend. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? The New York Times art piece that everyone loves? Yes. Have you guys already

talked about that on your show? No, no, actually. I've been getting yelled at from Her Majesty and my partner because she was like, I need to talk to you about it. You're going to love it. I'm like, I know. It's a long read and I have to do some other stuff, but I will. Yeah. So I forget what day specifically it came out in the New York Times, but I just started seeing all these people tweeting about kidneys and bad art friend and who is the bad art friend, which I believe was the title of it. And I'm like, how long can I persist in not knowing what this is about? or obviously not the whole internet, but all the, you know, in the stuff I follow when it seems that everyone's talking about something, I sort of enjoy that moment where it's like, I know this is going to be dumb and I don't yet know what it is. Like I am, I have blissful ignorance, but then, you know, I'm like, okay, fine. I can't take it. So I looked it up and I ended up reading

the story. It is very long, but well, some people have said to me, like, it's not worth it. They're both repugnant. You don't need to read it. But I was happy that I read it. I imagine this is what Her Majesty has been saying to you. But it is interesting. It's one of those stories that stays with you. So I actually do recommend reading it and then having a conversation about it, which I haven't.

I need to call up your lady because I haven't really had a chance to talk about it with anyone. Oh, so, yeah, without I'll just be like, hey, the homie Allison wants to talk to you. So, yeah, right now, right now, right now, right now I'm on a plane. Do you know, does she have an opinion about which one is the bad friend? No, because she wanted to save that discourse. When I read it, she didn't want to sully my perception of what she's like. We just have to talk about this. I'm like, yes. Fuck. Okay.

It's well written and well crafted in that there's sort of a bit of a new info comes out near the very end, which potentially colors how you'll see it. I see. So that might be what she's hiding. There was a tweet last week that captured the feeling, though, by at SassyBlackDiva. She said, I hate when you have to read an article to understand Twitter discourse. Like, why are y'all assigning a bitch a homework? I just want to party. Yes!

Because that's it. And that's how I felt, too. I'm like, fuck, alright. Like, I will read the assignment so I can talk about it. Miles, we have our assignment for tomorrow's episode. We'll read that, our friend. Can you give us the broad strokes just to entice?

This is an also interesting exercise to try and have someone describe it to you the way they think it should be described without selling your perception of it. Yeah. Okay. So it is about two female writers. They had both been in a lot of writing programs, and that is how they met each other. One of them is Asian American. One of them is white and grew up more economically disadvantaged, I'd say. So the white one, and I know it sounds like race is a part of the story, though. So anyway, she donates a kidney like site, like she doesn't know who's

going to receive it. She donates it. She starts talking about it on social media and she gets upset that the other writer hasn't like acknowledged. She's been talking about it on social media and she feels like the other one, like, did you even know

that I, you know, donated my kidney? And then it turns out that the other one writes a story about a character that donates her kidney and the one who donated her kidney feels like she had inspired that story. And so then it's sort of this question of if you write a story about like who owns that story? And then the one who wrote it says the story is really about like white savior complex. And I feel like I did a terrible job explaining.

This is the difference. This is why that's why it's hard to describe it because it's the, I think the most version that everyone's like, you just have to read it, but just know it's about two people and you're like, are they being petty? I don't know. You got to read it. And then you'll, you'll begin to sort of understand more. Like it's about two people and you're like are they being petty i don't know you got to read it and

then you'll you'll begin to sort of understand more like it's it was weird because her majesty she was like i don't want there's so many good lines she's like i don't even want to spoil yeah and i was like right i mean it's it's ultimately like the it's it is it's about female i i think it is about female friendship and it's about a communication breakdown. The one who donated her kidney begins to act in ways that I think are quite petty. Like she starts to everywhere that the one who wrote the story is trying to publish the story. She like starts contacting them, accusing her of plagiarism. I mean, it's crazy.

It's got like levels. But there's other but then there's stuff that, like they both do not come off well. Right. I'll just put it that way. And this is written by Robert Kolker. Yes. I'm assuming that is not. So is there a relation between the person who's writing the story and the two friends?

I don't think so. And so the two friends named Sonia Larson is the one who wrote about the kidney donation. Dawn Dorland is the one who donated her kidney. Sonia Larson is a bit more accomplished as a writer. And it's become a public feud because she was trying to publish it. And that's why it's a story because it does feel like the sort of drama you would see on Facebook and not in the pages of The New York Times. Right. I don't know exactly how it came to the attention of The Times. I know that John Dorland had been trying to get the story published for a while, but that's not that's what sort of said as an aside. Like, oh, and by the way, she had been trying to get this published.

Right. Oh, her story about feeling that she was wronged by yes the writing okay and then uh last question which one like i i don't know which of those is the bad art friend that's that's that is do you read eye of the beholder got it. Because I was just picturing somebody who was like bad at art as a friend. No, right. Making you be like, hey. You handed me this doodle, you bad art friend. Right. Exactly.

I thought it was when I was first asked by her, I said, oh, did you read it? I was like, is this about like friends you have whose art sucks, but you support them and like you'll never tell them that the art is bad. And you're like, oh my God, yes. Love to see your growth as a creator. Can we go? Let's get out of here. Bad improv friend. Yeah, exactly. The specific line, I believe it comes because Sonia says that Dawn is being a bad art friend because she's not a good art friend would never stand in the way of someone else's storytelling.

So now I have two reading assignments. So I have the New York Times article about this and then I have to read the short story. Correct. I don't know that the short story. If it's as relevant. I know people. I don't know. People have not done that as part of the assignment. Got it. Yeah. OK i know people okay i don't know people have not

done that as part of the assignment got it yeah okay that's extra credit that'd be extra credit okay that i do not do extra credit so that's great i don't do extra credit because i will just i will just hound the professor during office hours and demand they change my grade did that ever work for you no i never did that shit because i thought that was the like just so fucking whack to be like you didn't do the work and now you're complaining about how the shit was too hard and i'm like no no no just be like me cheat off your classmates keep your head low take that c and then you're good you cheated off your classmates to get a c oh yeah classmates i mean well i mean this like i'm talking about the lowest energy like allison to say there were some lecture classes that i don't know if i was physically there i apparently

i was according to the sign-in sheet but you know we all did college records indicate yeah yeah i think especially when i was like this is a fucking scam y'all made me do all this in high school for what for what the worst grade i ever got in college i got a d on a group project paper that where we were like basically it was a class that like the professor never changed the tests oh yeah so it's just like yeah so you just always had the answers to all the tests and i had just completely written the test off and then we got a D on the thing. It's not good. I used to make money like that in high school.

We had our AP European history teacher, old dude, senile, bro. He didn't change shit. And I'd be like, yo, we got a pop quiz, bro. I got the answers right here for five. Were you outside the classroom? No, people knew where to find me. The trench coat.

People knew where to find me by the flagpole. You know what I mean? During the question, I, people knew where to find me. The trench coat? People knew where to find me by the flagpole. You know what I mean? During the session, I was there. Serving fucking papers and tests. There you go. I was always busy. What is something you think is overrated, Ellery? So, I have two.

I said sweater weather, kind of overrated. It's good for a week. And then I'm like, I'm not into it. And then really original Halloween costumes, I think, are overrated because they're fun. Really original? Really original ones. All that effort you put into it. Yes.

Here's exactly what I think about it. Because good ones are really good. But some of them are too niche, which means you're explaining yourself all night. And then we need to normalize lazy Halloweenlloween costumes yeah we're all busy i don't want to buy a bunch of stuff you're never gonna wear any of that shit again no no absolutely not i mean i like the last time i really did it up for halloween i like my friend who has like a costume house i was like can i borrow like a holster and like that was it and then i was like this is too much this is too much effort i remember when i could just put on a basketball uniform and just say i'm i'm basketball guy give me some candy

yeah the halloween costume industry so long way of getting to agreeing with you but i had recently heard from somebody like that their friend is like this billionaire who just looks at various industries and is like oh that is a thing that is like 40 years old that nobody's refreshed so they're the person behind the brand method because they looked at like those like soap and like the shit that you buy in the uh like houseware section of grocery store and was like this all looks like shit and looks like it was designed in the 70s and so ever since they told me that i've been trying to think of like what is the other thing that is that and like halloween costumes fucking suck man they're like

so bad like halloween costume stores like what why is that that we that they seem to be more creative because i feel like we're kind of a lot of people like we get pigeonholed into like monsters heroes sexy stuff and like memes and you should just be able to be like super esoteric with it like maybe like to the point where you know you're saying ellery like if it's niche fuck explaining it to somebody it's like it's halloween you know whatever the fuck i want to if i want to wear three sets of pajamas all at once i'm gonna do that your pajamas sam i do think it's one of the few industries where you really bump up against ip so like you're like we've all seen those tweets that are like instead of

wednesday adams it's like monday jones or something like that right yeah uh blake from workaholics was talking about on uh their show this is important that he found a costume that was his like a wig and a like tie that like his uniform from workaholics and it was like lazy stoner guy from work yeah blork lazy stoner guy from working that's an office job so funny it'd be awful if they just like roasted you just being like ugly frizzy haired it's like right fuck right yeah look it's blork from job addicts i mean that's what they should do absolutely i think maybe that's just funnier is getting wild like dancing the fine line of getting so close yeah like no this is blork from job addicts i'm like you know who's's Blake from Workaholics?

Maybe we need to sue them. Wait, the sweater weather thing, though. Explain. Because aren't you from the Northeast? Aren't you from New York? I am. Good memory. Yeah. And even there, like, I sort of miss seasons, but there's nothing as uncomfortable to me as being cold.

And then also I'll argue that like sweater weather fall weather you need like a sweater in the morning by afternoon it's 75 degrees yeah and all those layers don't make sense and then as soon as the sun goes down it's like 40 right and so it's like you're experiencing like three different outfit needs in one day yeah especially in los angeles for sure trying to dress a kid for school like on like my son went to school today in like a heavy sweater and shorts because i was just like i don't fucking know and that's what it'll be gone by the afternoon and you'll never see it again it'll just get pulled off at school plus like in high school like junior high stuff

i never brought a jacket to school unless it was raining i wore a hoodie at most to never wear a jacket that's such a teenage thing like in my life yeah just being stupid because you're like whatever like the morning will be cold and then you'll get in the class and then by nutrition it's more bearable and plus like i would always forget my jackets in class and then yeah how many carry. Yeah. What are you a white kid from Massachusetts? The cold doesn't bother me. Wait, the cold is just a state of mind. I'm talking about when he's 68.

Yeah. They, they will walk outside in shorts and a t-shirt and be like, nah, dude, this is nothing. And mass it's like, we're in New york we're like probably the same latitude johnny what is something you think is underrated i think definitely you know that song by madonna material girl

yeah have you listened to it in the last however often amount of time like critically i mean i feel like a passive and i'm always going and that's yeah yeah it's the uh i listen to it i keep i go back to all the time because like the instruments on that song they're just ridiculous it's like before there was any type of like MIDI. It's all real instruments, all being played by real musicians live in the studio. But it sounds, oh man, just the sound of it. It's like.

Right. I didn't realize that's all live. It's definitely live. It's like real studs in there with their fucking synths just going nuts. Like that sound like that. There's also all these weird artifacts in there. It sounds like an Arthur Russell song or something It's weird little like sprinklings of kind of spacey echo stuff and you don't hear it You kind of hear it, but like you just listen to the song you're enjoying it But then it's like it's just I don't know it's something about that song. It's just so

To me. I just love i love listening to it i'll like slow it down because even even the drum fills some of the drum fills are kind of uh they're syncopated in a weird way almost like they're off time a bit it's like a like a weird transitional drum fill in there i listen to over and over again it's so it's a weird thing because you have this huge pop song, but also it's underpinned by this really heavy, cool instrumental track that I think is, it gets lost because it's, because it's a pop song and because the vocals are there. It doesn't make it bad.

It just means like, wow, it's just like an actual, everything's there. I mean, the drama just came through with the facts, factual update. That's all Nile Rodgers production.

What else did Nile Rodgers do? Dude, he's chic. You know, he's done fucking like so many. Just look at his discography. Coming Out by Diana Ross, which served as the backbone for a moment. We were talking about earlier. Is that the Mason Puffy song? Yeah. Tell me who's hot. Who's not?

That song? H-A-W-A-I. Who copped the blue drop? Who just got rocked? I mean, who knows? Things like La Freak. Freak out! That shit is tight. All that Chic stuff is just incredible.

Yeah. That stuff. Chic is chic stuff is just incredible. Yeah. That stuff. Chic is also underrated as hell as a band. Their stuff is just ridiculous. There's this one Carly Simon track that now why this track? Why? Shout out to Nick Stumpf, OG producer. Yeah, because we were just going off about Nile Rodgers.

He does this Carly Simon's track called Why? And it's so, like, funky. If you like a little bit of syncopation, listen to the eight-minute track. There's an eight-minute version of it that is so fucking too much, but I love it. I love the extended versions of stuff. Yeah.

We were just talking, because the same DJ Dramos was rocking a No Way Out t-shirt this morning. So we had a prolonged Puffy conversation about that. About that moment when Puff Daddy was going through like a bond phase. Yeah. And had a fragrance out where he... I just remember that when I lived in New York City, there were a lot of print ads like all over like the subways and stuff of him riding a jet ski in a tuxedo.

And and then and then they're like the TV ads of that also had him doing that. But they showed the part where he was like wading through the ocean, which was like the part that I was like, you don't you don don't want to show that because that's the, that's the reason. But I guess he just didn't give a fuck. Did he get onto a helicopter off of the helicopter in that commercial? Yeah. I think he caught a helicopter, right? Okay.

Did a rope ladder come down or something? It's that little cop. You're the kind that's like, it sounds like the, yeah, yeah. The kind that you launched from your yacht. Yeah.

Right. A Robinson. Right. Right. Right. I mean, if you also think about it, just to get back to Puff Daddy, right? Because also Let's Dance by David Bowie, another Nile Rodgers production, another track used by Puff Daddy.

You know what I mean? I didn't know all this stuff. I'm just coming in, coming in blind. Just, just into the song. You heard something. You heard something, Johnny. Yeah, I'm into production. I like production a lot.

The older I get, the more I'm just like, I'm here for the production alone. Right. As Brody Stevens once said, what does he say? Agree with me on cadence alone. That's pretty good. All right.

Well, anything else to talk about with with puffy with puff no i was just thinking of that that just made me think of michael jordan cologne because when i used to buy celebrity colognes did you ever have michael jordan cologne by bj i didn't i was always trying to have the have the complete collection of polo scents. Oh, wow. Polo sport, polo regular. There's also one called Polo Crest, I think, or some crap. It was limited.

So you were young polo, huh? Well, my friend Jonathan was into polo, so I was de facto also into polo. Oh, by osmosis. Yeah, you had the same. Yeah, right. And you're like, secretly, I'm so allergic, mom. When I spray it on. There was also one called Cigar Aficionado. Cigar Aficionado came out with a fragrance that we all wanted to get for some reason.

Because it's like, ooh, cigars. Cigars. Wait, what? The magazine smell like you've been smoking cigars? It had a fragrance. And you know what? I'm going to say it. I think it was probably actually really good.

Yeah. what i'm gonna say i think it was probably actually really good yeah i mean there's a there's a thing that you want cigars to taste like based on the smell and maybe that's what they captured with that as opposed to what it's actually like to smoke a cigar which tastes like ash and then you smell like ash right and then you have the smell oh god that's so rough. Yeah. When I was going through middle school, I got deep into cool water, and I never recovered. Are you kidding me? Me too, man. I remember when my friend Steve, somehow his mom got the hookup for the samples. Yeah.

He brought a ton of them to school. It was a big deal. It was like all there early, crowding around Steve. He's got him every handed everyone a cool water sample and that middle school it smelled the cool water for the next week right yeah yeah i only ever had the samples but i i was able to you know ride ride samples all the way through because my friend lived right next to I think it was like a JCPenney or a Macy's maybe. Mine was by a May Company or Robinson's May

later on it would become. But I'm just snagging Nautica competition samples. That was a big one too. I mean, it's basically cool water, right? A little bit classier, you know, classier. Oh, it's classier. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Meet me with your Tommy Hill figure jacket at the quad. We'll battle. See, that would classier you know classier you know oh it's classier oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah meet me

with your tommy hillfiger jacket that's a quad we'll battle see that would actually be a good pairing for those shoes a nice big blocky oversized retro tommy hillfiger jacket with those giant black sketchers oh yeah yeah yeah it's a good good combo and just fucked up jeans like that are fucked at the hems by like by your feet because they're dragging so much. Yes. But they're baggy, baby. And I know you said no pants with those shoes, but that's what I'm thinking. I could do that.

Or maybe some very tight, way too long hemmed jean shorts. Look like little tubes. Yeah. Jean Capri pants. Wow. Straight leg Jean Capri. Straight leg. Jean Cap little tubes. Yeah. Jean Capri pants. Straight leg Jean Capri pants. Straight leg. Yeah. With that Tommy jacket drenched in cool water. Yes.

Done. All right. We have figured out your new look. That's a vibe right there. Mr. 2098. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. 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.

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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. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or, 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. All right, let's talk about Amazon. They were close to building a warehouse facility in El Cajon, and then they found out about a law that San Diego County was implementing that basically makes it so that you have to pay your workers a livable wage, essentially. Yeah. Based on union wages. Uh-oh.

Oh. There goes the fucking cost and also somebody taking off in a penis shaped rocket what prevailing union wages so yeah also 56 hours of annual sick leave for work. Just, you know, the basics, humane working conditions with paying wages that are life sustaining and not subsistence wages. And that's what Amazon's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're actually going to cancel this. And but here's the thing. Their spokesperson and all of their what they're talking about, they'll never admit that it's because of this. They said, oh, well, we have decided not to pursue the site at El Cajon, we continue to assess opportunities to invest and grow across the region. We appreciate the time and attention committed by the city of San Diego, as well as local community leaders and officials. Amazon is a dynamic business and we are constantly exploring new locations. We weigh a variety of factors when deciding where to develop future sites to best

serve our customers. And it's common for us to explore multiple locations simultaneously and adjust based on our operational needs, which is to pay people fuck all. Yeah. We enjoyed meeting with you, but after talking with corporate, we've decided to go a different direction. We'll definitely keep you in mind, though. Good luck in the future. That's what it feels like. Right, right, right.

Oh, I mean, we'll definitely keep you in mind that was haunting that that was an amazing ability to slip into hr speak that was me applying for jobs in 2007 yeah every time there's this book good to great about companies that like beat stock market expectations consistently over decades. And it has this like central principle called the hedgehog principle, where every company that thrives as hard as Amazon has for like the past 30 years has like one thing that they do better than anyone else in the world. And they just repeatedly double down on that thing over and over. And for Amazon, that thing is extracting inhumane amounts of work out of people while paying them low wages and then hiding that process from the consumer so that it seems like it's just a fucking magic trick. Like they're able to perform miracles where you click a button and the thing arrives at your house to the degree that I feel like it has changed how we think of the time space continuum. Like I was, I was in the woods over the weekend. Can't, can't go camping

without bragging about it. Cause I built a fire like a, yeah, like a real manly man. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Uh, anyways, my five-year-old was, as I was fucking up dinner, you know, hot dogs and mac and cheese over a campfire. Mac and cheese apparently shouldn't have little black things in it. And he was like, hey, let's just order sushi and have it appear out in the woods. Amazon has, you know, it's not like Amazon is our food delivery service. Right. But I feel like just generally it has created a reality where things can be ordered on your phone and magically appear. And so I had to explain to him, well, there's actually people who do that work and would have to drive all the way out here. And it's just not possible. all the way out here and like it's just not possible but yeah the the fact that it's not just magically appearing that people are doing backbreaking work to make these things appear and being paid poorly is that's the thing that they figured out right my kids have the same well

not owen so much he's only two but elliot who's four is all about but can we buy it on your phone can we buy it on your computer yeah that is where everything comes can't we summon it yes yeah it's literally like a magic trick like just yeah yeah why doesn't it just come out of your phone when i order something and it takes you know 10 days or something i'm always stunned by this because i am also so used to just clicking something and then you know before right when you navigate away from that page, there's already an email thanking you for your order. And then it arrives in a couple of days. I mean, it is.

And I think that it's so convenient that we all choose to ignore the reality of how it's happening. It's, you know, it's sort of like buying a piece of chicken. I don't want to think about that there was a head attached to this. I'd rather just push that out of my head. Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of their model is to break the social contract

but hide that from people so that you don't have to think about it. Or that it's like, hey, they're breaking the social contract but hide that from people so that you don't have to think about it or just or that it's like hey i mean they're breaking the social contract but like i got this fucking waterproof bluetooth speaker in fucking like 18 hours though right yeah yeah if same day delivery right and it's also caused me to like realize to like to actually try and challenge myself to not rely on like that instant gratification aspect, especially like with consumer goods. Like I'll try and go to a store if I can just to kind of remind myself that there is this like there's a process to things still because when it gets so obscured versus like click, click, click, click, click, it's here. When it gets so obscured versus like click, click, click, click, click, bing, it's here. I find myself getting a little more like impatient.

Like, you know, especially like when I was like trying to get stuff for like a move or something, like having to order things and do all this other kind of stuff. I just became more and more impatient because I lost touch with like the former reality, which used to be like, all right, we got to get in the car and go to the store to get this stuff today. Right. But, you know, but it has made things easier for other people so to each their own but i'm i can see it being a slippery slope for me yeah we are back and forth between like never using amazon and then like occasionally using it when like something is needed but we are generally trying to be a no Amazon household. And it definitely adds days to the process. But it's definitely. The other thing that's good is most places that you would buy something off of, like buy something from Amazon.

Like if you go to their website, they're usually like, yo, get 15% off just off the rip. Because we're competing with ourselves against Amazon. For us, we'll ship it pretty quickly and when i actually kind of started looking at it like that i'm like oh yes it's really not that hard especially if you know and if i needed something immediately like band-aids and shit go to fucking cbs yeah exactly amazon prime that shit yeah that's good it's good like our brains work better when our feet are moving so it's good to like go do something instead of just making it it's good to visit that mom and pop store cbs yeah yeah exactly don't you think of the little the little guy yeah walgreens

anyways we have to get to important shit matthew mcconaughey has spoken i'm seeing pickup for this like everywhere uh in the media the hollywood reporter just sent me a notification being like here matthew mcconaughey would be risking it all with a governor run but he'd also stand to like gain a lot and it's just like why is this not risking shit right the fuck is his risk? He's a millionaire. right. But yeah, so we've all been speculating like what, like just the idea of a Matthew McConaughey gubernatorial run seems very

strange. We have no real idea of what his platform would be and we still don't. Um, but he talked about it. He, he said some words kind of at that question. Yeah. The direction of it's like,

is he going to, is this going to be a reality based campaign? Will it be a sick ass character study character bit he's going to do? And just based on his answers, it kind of sounds like both is what this thing is going to be like, because he went on carrot swisher's podcast and he had ideas he had thoughts first off just on the abortion ban sba in texas he was like it's ruthless it's terrible like he's like the trickery involved with the like legal wording is despicable

six weeks is not enough time for anyone for anyone to make a reasonable decision as it would relate to that so that one okay seemed like he was on the reality-based reasoned sort of crew there on masks he said we were all more afraid of the word mandate than we were the damn mask and i think our pride trumped and stamped down our honor there we chose privilege over principle starting he's starting to heat up though getting a little mcconaughey here and then he really then they were like, OK, so like what? How do you think about your relationship to politics and like where you fit in all this stuff? He says, I'm working on what I'm trying to understand politics to be.

Whoa. OK, I think we've got to redefine politics. If each party is only about preservation of party. Well, I'm almost arguing that's undemocratic. I mean, there's something to that. And then he says, if you're only there to, you know, by hook or by crook, preserve your party, you're leaving out 50% of the people. So I think politics needs a redefining. Oh, okay. Okay. What else you got? Then he said, look, I'm not a man who comes at politics from a political background. I'm more of a statesman philosopher, folk singing poet. I don't talk politics.

I talk people. There he is. Statesman philosopher, folk singing poet. That's what I was waiting for. I was waiting for something like that. I don't know yeah i guess uh i'm not sure what his philosophy is aside from him i think he's also on that yang like

radical centrist shit because he's like the way i look at it there's 60 of people out there that's the majority and we gotta find it from the center man and you're like oh boy okay matthew mcconaughey trying to fuck me with this uh answer it's It's just like the shit that a fuck boy would say at a party. Like, I'm trying to fuck you. Paris is just like, are you brushing my hair back? I'm more of like a statesman philosopher. Like you're a folk singer and poet, if you will. Okay, sir.

Thank you. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Well, this is, I mean, only from that last poll, only 25% of Texans were like, yeah,

yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I mean, it doesn't seem like the right state for that sort of thing either. Like, I mean, I know he's from Texas and like is a proud Texan that Texans are proud of. But I do feel like there's also... Maybe mayor of Austin would work, but I feel like... You know what he reminds me of, man? He reminds me of somebody joining a random club

and thinking they have it all figured out and you just feel like, oh, that kid is so naive. He doesn't know what he's stepping into. It's like if you actually think about what people vote on and like how they vote they rarely they rarely look at like trying to solve the the problems that we have they're just like thinking of the one issue they care about most and they're like well how does this politician think about this one issue how do they care what do they think about taxes and they're just going to vote whoever is going to make their taxes cheaper or you know there's some people who are single-issue voters on like

abortion and only abortion you know so it's like ah i don't know man i don't know how many people are really convinced that politics can be redeemed and that there can be a like a utopia america where politicians aren't slimy scumbags it's like that sounds great that sounds nice i think everybody who gets into politics might think that at some point but then you get there then you saw just like people doing favors for each other and it's like people i don't know it's not that clean i got involved right when obama was running and i was like here we go so this with this lobbying firm and i'm like yeah bro we're gonna help get this fucking health care

shit and then you're like wait who's paying my wait who cuts my checks and i'm like wait we work for this industry what the fuck and then i'm like nah dude i can't i can't keep doing this shit this is like but very idealistic because you have this belief you're like yeah if this is like the right amount of people but you're playing a rigged game and so until you can like change the rules there's not much that can be done so i think that's why the emphasis really needs to be a little bit people need to zoom out a little bit more and be like it's not just the people that you get in there like it's fundamentally you're sending them into the terror dome so there's pretty much only one outcome yeah any any one of these like experienced politicians will just eat

him alive man and they're just going to get him to say what they want him to say on like the condition they help him with something else and that's just how politics works behind the scenes you know even someone like aoc who everybody is like she's the only principled one i see it all the time people believe that right and then you see like she's the only principled one i see it all the time people believe that right and then you see that she's like voting absent on something she really has very strong wait hold on where are you on that iron dome funding ma right and she's just gonna just sit quietly because she feels like she has to so right i don't know i'm like yo just flame out do you and if they vote you out then go out a legend because you could probably come right back

in but like it's but there aren't many politicians who are willing to go no i'll fuck i'll i will ride this shit till the fucking wheels blow off and i'm voted the fuck out and yeah when you start seeing people triangulate and do shit like that you're like oh you're starting to become you're you're understanding the hill a little bit and you're trying to survive the hill. You're doing hill survival moves. I do wonder what the like there were all these stolen Facebook numbers that indicated to Bannon and, you know, whatever that data firm was that they're. Yeah. Cambridge Analytica that America was like ripe for an outsider candidate. Like I think it was a couple of years before the

presidential election. And that's why they backed Trump kind of reluctantly. I wonder what those types of numbers say about the country now, because it does seem like we're still kind of disillusioned with politics as it currently exists. But we're also disillusioned with the presidency of the outsider that they chose last time so i don't know i'd be curious uh somebody hacked facebook i was like here's all the ways that bernie could still win like this is how you do it right i'm one of those people too where i'm just like so jaded and i get why people say they don't want to vote because it feels like we don't really have, like, we don't get to choose who we want to vote. We get to vote against the person we don't want. And that's just the system we have. And it

sucks, but that's what we got. And it's hard to start there knowing that that's what the situation is trying to convince someone to, to vote with you because you know that this person isn't perfect. It's like all the people who wanted Biden and it was the purpose was to get Trump out. Right. Yeah. I hope I'm not like shattering anyone's reality by saying that, but that's really why I wanted Biden. And I was like, yo, Trump is going to kill us all. And I don't want to end up on a list because he like floated that idea about Muslims. I was like, I got to get this guy out of here before he starts doing that. And you know, that's the, that's the baseline. That's where we're starting.

And so when you have someone like Matthew McConaughey come in and say like, look, I can fix this. It's like, really, you're, you're, you're not selling us on anything new. You're coming in and you're going to say, I'm going to be the right person. That's what they all say. And then they come in and then something happens. And then now all of a sudden Guantanamo is not getting close. And now all of a sudden we're going to do healthcare, but it's going to look like this. It's not going to be free. It's everybody's making compromises. Everybody's

making compromises because they had that one issue they got to get through. So I don't know. I'm almost rather him come in and say, look, we got to fix the wealth gap and everything I'm going to talk about, I'm going to bring back to the wealth gap. Exactly. That's a serious strategy. That would be amazing. Yeah. All the pain you're feeling is because of inequality. So that's what I'm here for. Every spin.

Watch. Say any topic right now. I'll bring it right back to inequality for you. Yeah. Fucking anything. Go. And no one talks like that. I mean, that's the other thing is that i think just the way people are communicating too it's still like this hybrid of like old gate beltway talk but also just like with

trying to be somewhat more conversational when really people seem to speak directly at the ills and how to solve them but everyone's different because then someone's like this person just hates america it's like no i'm identifying issues and they're fucked. But McConaughey might be like, I can fix it, man. Unlike a Buick Enclave to 2021 that will not ever need any fixing because with their 72 month warranty and 0% APR financing for qualified borrowers. I mean, we're looking at a new adventure. Buick. I'm sorry. His sales pitch is always like I saw a moose running.

Yeah, right. It's just so wild. They said Encore, the Buick Encore GX. Your point on people voting for Biden because he was against Trump is interesting. I may be in the minority here. I actually voted for Biden based on the art of his son, Hunter. But I don't know. That's a sensitive man. That's interesting. He raised that artist. Yeah, exactly. We need more news articles about the

people who voted for Biden only for Trump. Right. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. 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

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This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Thank you. 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 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 and we're back and there's starting to be some some strikes around around the country starting to be a little uh little momentum behind uh labor over 10 000 john deere workers went on strike on wednesday uh which is the largest private sector strike since 2019 yeah when you see that when i read that line i was like oh man since i was probably like night the 90s and like no 2019 because things are if you look on a timeline on an accelerated path because inequality is on an accelerated path. And yeah, I think we've seen this through everything.

You know, the pandemic has just made inequalities painfully clear for most everyone in this country. And as more workers withhold their labor for better pay and benefits, companies are struggling to figure out how to stay greedy and have slave wages. It's, I mean, how do you do it? I don't know. So we have all these strikes. In this instance, John Deere employees are striking because, can anyone guess? They want better wages and a fucking pension plan that doesn't cut out who hires.

Huh. Who would have thought? What's next? But the reasons have been the same across the country. You know, companies are reporting the same things happening companies have report record profits oh my god we're record profits and thanks to you all whose labor we extracted all this wealth from uh shout out to you because you know you guys are rock stars i hope you guys are the rock stars who made this trip to space possible y'all are rock stars. Give yourselves a hand.

Don't ask for less work or more pay, you fucking cretins. So, in 2021, just to give you an idea for John Deere, they fucking, they're set to profit nearly $6 billion due to increased demand for their agricultural parts and equipment.

And it's beating its past record by 63%. The CEO in 2020 was was paid 15.6 million dollars in compensation thanks to a baby shareholder value the stock is performing here's a little deal man i mean i was on that shareholders call that guy's got that guy's got it miles and locking him in for a mere 15 mil i mean oh my god what's so fucked up about that is that those employees are only asking for like 20 cents more an hour by 2024 like they're not even asking for all that much and you're right because they're you know the the united auto workers union who's representing them they were the ones who said no this last thing that

john deere put in front of them absolute trash trash. And even if you just think of this, right, this fucking CEO made $15 million. Imagine if he said, you know what, I only need $5 million this year. The other 10 million for those 10,000 workers, he could have cut them $1,000 check each. More, even more. That's crazy. I'm just saying narrowly, if you want to be the most greedy version right it's like well we're not going to touch what the corporate profits are i'll say for me as a ceo you can take this out of my piece i don't need 15 come on now five is five is fine the 10 for y'all the people who i acknowledge that off of your fucking blood sweat and tears and your backs and bodies being broken and being put to work all the time.

That's why I have this shit. But, you know, I think at the end of the day, it isn't just this industry or just a specific region of the country. You got the Kellogg cereal factory. Workers went on strike to end a two tier benefit system. They had Frito Lane Nabisco went on strike earlier this summer. And fucking IATSE. On Monday. On Monday, shit could go down.

And you're going to have 60,000 Hollywood film crew, people who work in production, who are going to go on strike. Because, again, people see the same shit going around. And no matter what your job is, you have probably seen the same thing. You get paid fuck all and you watch your managers or superiors or the leadership of a company living in a completely different financial reality and then fucking condescend and patronize you

with like all these just like empty platitudes about like gratitude for what you've done. And they're like, oh yeah, dude, I got a sick ass bonus. Like we shattered our revenue goals. I mean, I think two things. I think firstly, people, managers, specifically higher ups are so far removed from the realities of labor that they can no longer even imagine what it's like to be living at $15 or less an hour, not even touching what it means to physically be the labor. And then secondly, did you see the tweet that IATSE put out today where they have been hearing

reports because productions know that a strike is coming, they are forcing onto their crew members extra seventh day and sixth day. Like, like they're trying to get it. To try and cram it in before the strike so they're breaking more labor laws to get ready for the strike which is like such a bad fate it's like let's yeah let's get this in while we can still do it like right yeah you might as well just strike now i mean as from where i'm, I am like shocked that workers haven't turned to like violence and like Molotov cocktails because it's like and truly what I think it is. And I think about this a lot, like a general strike would never be possible in America because we don't have the network of mutual aid to support laborers who would not be able to go into work.

And so and another thing I heard about IATSE is that one of my friends who's in IATSE told me that they had been talking about how some productions are reaching out to college students to get them to scab like college film students here. Wow. And those kids don't know that if they are scabs, that means they can't join the union when they're ready. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's. Yeah. And look.

So, again, it's always rearing its ugly head, even if it's saying like, oh, I guess we have to deal with these people in good faith. We'll also try and exploit even further. Yeah. Until the wheels quite literally fall off. Which just show you that it's it's almost never in good faith. Like they don't actually like if there is a dollar to be made, that will always be more important than humanity and safety. Right. Yeah. And I think this is what's interesting too, is, you know, it's clear now workers are beginning to realize they have the leverage here. Right. Or else we wouldn't see all these strikes. Absolutely.

10 years ago, it was kids will fucking forget about it. But America used to be like a union country. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Till Reagan came along. Yeah.

You know, bust them shits up. And also, yeah, Starbucks, too. I believe they closed down two stores, I think one in New York and another one in Pennsylvania. Yeah, because they were talking. Is that legal? That's not legal, is it? Isn't that union-busting?

I think they can just be like, I mean, sorry, guys, we just can't afford it. Like, this doesn't work for us. They could be like, oh, the overhead here is too high. Yeah. We were just talking about how these motherfuckers can do anything. It's like, yeah, it is.

But what's this? Yeah. I'm going to say it was for operational efficiency. And so many of those things are like, let's say, for example, the opioid crisis, all that shit was illegal,

but it was legal with a fine. Like if you can, if you can pay to apologize for it, you can do it. Yeah. And it also means that's a law for poor people. Yes, exactly. It means that's a law for poor people.

That's how you know. If it's a fine, it's only for poor people. In so many instances, there are offenses that could be prisonable, jailable, and whatever. We can get into how nobody should go to prison. But for really rich people, they never see jail time. They just fines yeah yeah and that's that's nothing so that's baked in i mean that's like legal liability is baked into the to their calculus there's that book the corporation from 2003 that is or i think it's from earlier but the documentary came out in 2003. But it talks about how corporations like have legal rights as individuals, like they have the right to be treated as individuals. But when you look at how they behave, if an individual behaved that way, they would be, you know, in prison and deemed a psychopath, like an actual like categorical like psychopath because they have been on the record

many times as being like okay so we discovered this manufacturing defect in this car it's probably going to kill 12 000 people oh but okay that's a good number but their suits like the limit to the like tort law or whatever whatever the fuck it is like means that this is how much we stand to lose and this is how much we would lose if we did a recall and so we're gonna go with just letting the people die like because that's just how it's less money yeah i mean there is like an assignable price i think the the un once like got to a specific number but there's like assignable prices to human lives which is right so intangible and so fucked up but that's like cap that's capitalism right that's where we have to be at and i just want to say you know like to that point of you know how general strike would not work like obviously this one works because

they're in a union and the union is giving them you you know, I think like $275 a week for the, for these John Deere employees to be able to withstand on a very small scale, the loss of, of income. But the other thing is because there's so much leverage, you'd hope that more and more working people begin to understand that they are, workers have just unfathomable leverage at the moment. Because all you see right now is from the business owning class through their friends in media, they are terming this a labor shortage, right? And it's that perception, which makes it just seem like, oh man, like people aren't working. Rather than saying, yo, people are fed the fuck up and they're getting organized and they're actually beginning to advocate for better

outcomes for themselves in a way that they never have because the entire agreement has been fucked up. And so it's always through this very distorted lens. Well, it's not a labor shortage until there are wage hikes, like until wages go up. It's not a true labor shortage. And I also heard this very interesting take, and I can't remember who it's from, but essentially they said that there are places who are, say that they're hiring, but won't actually hire anybody

because it cuts their overhead costs to have fewer people and run on a skeleton crew, but because it might affect customer service and therefore public opinion, they have to be like, we can't find anybody to work for us. Nobody wants to work anymore. But in reality, they're like,

fine, we'll run on a skeleton crew, pay them exactly as much as they were and make even more. Right. Right. Yeah. Who was it who was talking about going into a bar that was like overrun

and like just one person behind the bar? I think it was Johnny yesterday, wasn't it? Yeah, Johnny was saying Biden. Yeah, he walked into a bar. The bartender was like just, you know, completely overwhelmed and turned to him and just went Biden. Yeah. I mean, I think that sums it up perfectly. That sums it up perfectly. And it's also like I don't I feel like I want to have like a group team meeting where i'm like we need to stress the importance of like labor solidarity because if you strike alone it doesn't matter but if you strike with your co-workers now you have something that's really

important absolutely yeah and that's why yeah or getting organized i know it's it's it comes in many different fashions but like whether that's just getting the pulse of your co-workers and knowing where they're at and like what their needs are and wants are and being like you know if we get organized we can all say look we want this shit or even finding out how much everybody makes yeah right exactly which you'll see and then the most insidious things you'll still see like it's illegal but you'll see places be like don't talk about your way i've had that so much at the donut shop people were i they literally told us that they were like don't talk about what you make back here like that's not appropriate aka there's some fuck shit going on exactly and i was like that's illegal like you can't tell me you can't tell me that wow oh one question i had

like so if there is a if there's a strike going on in your local community and there are people who need support, community support, are there food banks? What are ways that people can just hop in? kitchen on Tuesdays in Koreatown. Lots of comedians come and volunteer because they've been unemployed for the last 15 months. But I would say specifically in Los Angeles, if you can donate, if you know anybody who is in the union who is striking, you can ask them specifically what they might need and that would be good. But if you don't, you can donate to food banks. We have a huge network of community fridges, which don't just need food. They also need people to go and clean up any boxes or remove any spoiled food. And then I would recommend getting involved with a mutual aid organization in your neighborhood. And that can look like a diaper bank. It can look like a food

bank. It can look like any number of things, water drops, specifically in LA, very important. So yeah, I would just say, try to do hyperlocal. And something I've noticed over the pandemic, it's not like, for a long time, I ate at my soup kitchen because money was short for me too. It's all different types of people that face food insecurity or diaper insecurity or a big one we see is menstrual product insecurity. So there are all these sort of small necessities

of daily life that as your bank account dwindles, those get harder to place. And so finding ways to fill in those gaps, I think, is like the number one thing that we can do to support like striking labor. Yeah, that's awesome. And sometimes you'll see sometimes there'll be strike funds. Yes, I think there will eventually. There'll definitely be an IOTC strike fund for sure. Yeah. And that's one way if you're not maybe physically there, you can support with your money to support a strike fund that would then help striking workers.

And I would argue that liquid cash is definitely the most important thing because you can't anticipate an individual's needs, only they can. And some people are like, oh, I don't want to give out cash money. And I think that's the number one way to help a person is to give them liquid cash. But I need them to uh jump through this hoop where they apply for a job and then uh how do i means test this yes exactly that's so and it's everywhere it is everywhere yeah and people don't realize too how insidious means testing is to like even i have friends who work in, you know, blue municipalities, state governments where they're bang their head against the wall with their other bureaucratic coworkers who they're like, yeah, we do need to address this and help these people who like, you know, these people in this marginalized community do need better. Like we should allow them that we should give computers or something just to create better educational outcomes.

And people are like, but how do we know that people are going to use them in the right way i just feel like fuck that like i don't i don't take that out of your mind yeah well first things firstly i would so much rather help somebody by accident than not help anybody or like give somebody something that they don't actually need and then secondly or like the amount of like fraud that would have to happen for me to care about it would have to be like 25 percent and that's not happening it's going to be like 25 percent. And that's not happening. It's going to be like one to five percent, if that. And then secondly, the fraud that happening is with the wealthy.

Yes, really. That's the large scale fraud we should be worried about. And then also something I've noticed is like the amount of self-policing that we do. Like people police like the community fridges and being like, oh, like I saw this person take that thing. Shut up. Shut up. Right. Yeah. I'm sorry.'m sorry did you did you did you have a need for this yeah like this charity all things for everybody i don't like we

don't care what people take we don't care what they leave we just care that they respect the space right that's that's so funny because just it's not funny but it's just like i have a five year old three year old and like they are obsessed with what the other one is getting like they don't care what they get as long as the other one doesn't get shit like they just like want i don't know that that just feels like it's like a very like deeply human thing where people like wait what did they do or childish yeah right but it has to be like yes unlearned or it's like something you actively have to work against. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah. You don't, if you have a scarcity mentality, then the world is fucking awful and there's no need to help anyone because everything's fucked. But the fact is there is a lot, there's abundance out there. It's just, it's been untapped in a lot of ways, whether that's people not paying their taxes or the fact that we have tremendous food waste or other things like there are many ways to actually you know approach these things but it's i think some you

know it's the imagination part yeah and i think this is the good thing about the big strikes going on people are beginning to get the imagination yeah children are monsters they have to have it drilled out of them just by nature there's so much uh wild shit in there yeah yo what about that thing you do like if you have like siblings or cousins and you like you you bring in like a plate of food and like which one's heavier right no i'm gonna get that you know i mean which bag is heavier of this takeout oh yeah, yeah. Which one's bigger? Which one's bigger? All right. That's going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist.

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