The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 378 (Best of 4/21/25-4/25/25)
Episode Date: April 27, 2025The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 385 (4/21/25-4/25/25)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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It's nostalgia overload as Wilmer Valderrama and Freddy Rodriguez welcome
another amigo to their podcast Dos Amigos. Wilmer's friend and former That
70s Show castmate Topher Grace stops by the Speakeasy for a two-part interview
to discuss his career and reminisce about old times. We were still in that
place of like what will this experience become and you go you're having the best
time but it was like such a perfect golden time. Listen to Dos Amigos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and my latest interview is with Michelle
Obama.
To whom much is given much is expected. The guilt comes from
am I doing enough? Me, Michelle Obama, to say that to a
therapist. So let's unpack that.
Having been the first lady of the entire country
and representing the country and the world,
I couldn't afford to have that kind of disdain.
Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar.
I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans that combines behavioral science and
storytelling to help us navigate the big changes in our lives.
I get so choked up because I feel like your show and the conversations are what the world
needs, encouraging, empowering, counter-programming that acts like a lighthouse when the world feels dark.
Listen to a slight change of plans
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The biggest stars in country music will be taking the stage
at our 2025 iHeart Country Festival,
presented by Capital One.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Brooks and Don,
Thomas Rhett,
Rascal Flatts,
Cole Swindell,
Sam Hunt,
Megan Moroney,
Bailey Zimmerman,
Nate Smith,
special guest, Dasha.
I Heart Country Festival, let's go!
Stream only on Hulu,
Saturday, May 3rd,
starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 Pacific.
Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode
of the weekly Zeitgeist.
These are some of our favorite segments from this week,
all edited together into one nonstop infotainment,
laugh stravaganza.
Yeah.
So without further ado, here is the weekly Zeitgeist.
Miles, we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat
by very funny comedian and activist.
He's the host of the great award winning podcast,
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.
A senior fellow on comedy at the Pop Culture Collaborative.
She's written for the New York Times wrote and performed a piece on fresh air
Hi, it's the hilarious the talented
Okay pipes what is
What is up? Let us go.
Oh my God, I haven't seen the news in a while.
What'd I miss?
No, it's been good.
It's been mostly good stuff.
Oh, you're going to love this.
Then it's going to hit you like a fucking shit tidal wave.
It's going to blow your fucking hair back.
Get ready.
I was in outer space.
Tidal wave that never recedes.
I was hanging out with Katy Perry.
Oh, that's cool.
Oh, how was that? Yeah, that's cool. How was that?
Yeah, in outer space.
That sucks that she didn't let you post any of the pictures
that you were sending me in our text thread with each other.
Yeah, and I couldn't look her in the eye.
Oh.
I mean, I get that.
She's famous, so that's just kind of a rule.
Like JLo.
I know my place.
You can't look JLo in the eye either,
if you're a service provider.
But you can look her in the ass.
Thank you.
That's my proctologist.
I just watched Out of Sight for the first time in a long time.
Oh, Out of Sight.
Good grief.
Good grief.
Was that movie?
Wait, what did you mean?
I really liked that movie.
Really liked her performance.
But for some reason, when I had watched it before,
I hadn't fully taken into account everything that was going on in the backyard.
That was JLo's-
I was watching with my friend and we were just like, go!
What happened?
What is happening right there?
It was her.
We stopped it and pushed it back.
It was just like she walking to the door to go answer the door.
We're like, what the fuck?
Because wait, didn't she?
I mean, she was the one that broke the door open for people to be door, like to go answer the door. We're like, what the fuck? Cause so wait, didn't she, I mean, she, she was,
she was the one that like broke the door open
for people to be like, yeah, big butts are cool.
I guess so.
This word, the boob era is over.
We are fully in the thick butt era.
The boob era is never over, it's not.
The boob era is timeless, but I'm saying-
Boob era.
We're finally, yes, we finally acknowledge the posteriors,
the glutamous, minimus and maximusus. Yes and shout out to the maximus
I also is that the one where George Clooney is doing all the Zippo lighter trick. Yeah. Yeah
Snapping on the Zippo, you know, I so
Side note that I got a promotional out-of-sight Zippo lighter
I really time and I was I've perfected the flick open with the snap ignition.
And this was I was 15.
I wasn't smoking. I wasn't even smoking then.
And I was like stunting on people at school and they're like,
you cannot be bringing a lighter to school.
And I'm like, but did you see me flip it open like this and then snap the ship?
That's not and that's why I started smoking it open till it hurts
a little because it's burning your hand.
New position.
Woo!
Rosie, Joelle, we do like to get to know our guests
a little bit better by asking them
something from their search history
that is revealing about who they are.
I'd like to ask you both for that.
And then I understand that you've decided to trade off
the overrated, underrated.
Yes.
Wait, Rosie, can you go first on search history?
Yeah, I can because today I was looking up the very exciting laws
around internet safety when you work for a large corporation.
I was searching exciting things such as,
I'm like a 100 years old guys, I'm looking at such as, I'm like a hundred years old guys.
I'm looking at my history.
I'm like, where's the search guys?
Like, I don't remember the acronym, but okay.
I'll tell you, this is a, this is a good one.
Currently in my search history, I do have my training, uh, which I was trying to
learn about different kinds of important health and safety.
I also have a Reddit for what do people give out free at K-pop concerts?
Because I was making a present for my friend who loves K-pop.
And what's the other most interesting history thing?
Wait, what do you mean give out free at a K-pop concert?
Oh, okay.
Let me educate you.
Cause I too am, I am like not a young hip person anymore, if I ever was.
And basically at K-pop concerts, and I'm sorry to the Taylor Swift fans, it was
there first, it is very common for the young girls and the young people who go
to these shows, they make fan photo cards of the K-pop idols, they switch kind of
all kinds of merchandise.
People will take plastic cups.
People will take those light sticks.
And when you go on Reddit and you look at freebies on concerts,
because I am just a dad who looks up everything on Reddit,
they're just these unbelievable hauls that these girls get when they go,
because there's, you know, 20,000 people there,
and they're all switching around little bracelets with
their bias on it or with the name of the band.
So like the Taylor Swift bracelets.
It's kind of like that, but more extrapolated to multiple different kinds of merchandise.
And a big part of K-pop popularity is these things called photo cards, where it's just
a little photo of the idol and they trade them kind of like trading cards.
So yeah, I was looking up that kind of stuff to arrange a cute surprise for a friend. And I was
really learning a lot as I always do when I go on Reddit and ask a question that 140 year old men
have asked before me. My daughter's going to a K-pop show. Have you tried just going to Google and asking their AI? Absolutely not. Oh, okay.
Dude, I'm just as a person who spends a lot of time on the internet and who writes a lot of articles and does a lot of journalism, the moment that that came up, I was like, I have to pretend it doesn't exist.
Oh, yeah. exist because otherwise at one point I will look at it because I'm busy and I will get
got and suddenly I will be writing something completely factually inaccurate.
I'm like, I got to stay to the sources I know, the sites I know.
And mostly that has just led to me just going to the thing like comic books, movies.
Because you can't, you got to ignore it.
Google has been completely broken for years now and now they just have a thing that's like,
what if we just took from
the top five results that have been wrong for years?
Yeah.
This is my first old man yells at cloud moment.
Where my kids don't look at the AI, it's terrible.
The answer is so frequently wrong,
and it's really terrifying
If you're a person who really enjoys people reading because I feel like it's reducing no it is
Like comprehension by even more and you're just like it's it's just Google is just it used to be so accurate You guys remember when Google was good. Let's go over there. I'm what you were looking for
Vista was good. Oh my I remember I remember using Ask Jeeves, guys.
I used to have a butler, a personal internet.
That was the beginning though.
That was the best I've ever been.
That was kind of the beginning of the AI creep though, because with Ask Jeeves,
I remember it was so totally set up to be like, rather than a search term, like,
you're asking the person.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
In a conversational way.
But I mean, the more I look at like AI and I hear like, like, like men talk about it,
it's like, dude, like you can actually do therapy on there.
I'm like, I'm now convinced AI was just created.
So men didn't have to appear like they didn't know anything.
And no, I think that you, I think it was, that is one of the biggest problems with it
is it is exactly that because I didn't realize in my, you know, naivete as somebody
who's just too old to have been sucked into it.
Multiple friends that I have who work with people who are in their twenties are just
constantly catching them using it.
Like it has become the go-to so quickly to just put something through chat, GTP or ask
them a question and then people come on the internet as they always have done and
act like they are an expert source.
But the funny thing is now they are getting it from like a, before you might have gone
to a fandom site, like fan-sourced media and archival spaces are really, really important
and have for a long time been like at the heart of a lot of genre fandoms.
But you would go there and you would read someone else's thing. You would maybe do some research
or maybe you just quote it from Wikipedia.
But now you're literally just quoting something wrong.
Like nine times out of 10,
that AI answer is gonna be absolutely incorrect.
I was looking up something about the technological safety.
I'm really sure I'm making this corporation feel great.
I obviously have all the lingo down, but don't worry.
I will never put a USB stick where it doesn't belong guys.
I know that much.
But even then-
The big thing that you learn in those trainings
is if you find a USB stick in the parking lot,
don't load it up.
Don't load it up.
Don't just take, pick it up and plug it directly
into your computer as I had been doing for years.
And also outdated because whose computer even still has a USB plus.
Exactly. No one. They've taken that away from us.
I had to go and buy a dongle.
Yeah, go buy a dongle for $30 from Best Buy.
So curious what this USB stick in the parking line has on it.
But even during that, while I was trying to understand a bit more about these different
legislations that have come in in the last 20, you know, since 2015 or whenever.
Every time I would be Googling to try and understand more about it, because I'm like,
if I'm going to do the training, I may as well actually learn something.
So I Googled it and then they are legit giving me like the incorrect answer and information
in the top while the correct thing is in the, you know, the answer below.
And that I think as well, Joelle, you must under, you must know this feeling.
Um, me and Joelle both came up like doing, you know, journalism, entertainment,
journalism and stuff.
And if you wrote like a big deep dive interview or a law piece five years ago, the best kind
of feeling of achievement was if yours was the first answer on Google,
you would be like, okay, I'm the most cited.
Now I'm like, that better not fucking ever quote me in the AI because it means I definitely
got something wrong.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, AI is a perfect replacement for men in that they just created a machine that will give an answer that isn't correct very confidently.
With total loyalty.
Just like made by men for men to replace men.
And you don't have to struggle in public.
Yeah.
Because you can quietly just, you know, should like refer to your phone and even for fucking
therapy.
Yeah.
I mean, I know, and like, I can see that there are potentially non-malicious applications
of it, but like, when I see the amount of people, like, reflexively, like, just think
that that's the answer, that's what, that's what spooks me out.
Yeah.
Joelle, is there something from your search history that's revealing who you are?
Yeah, it's so funny you bring up K-pop because I was picking up Blackpink tickets.
Hey!
I like Jennie, she's cool.
Everybody loves Lala Lisa.
She's pretty sweet.
Rose got her little Tipper-Apetit song that I'm doing.
That's not good.
Maybe I'll go see the girls.
That song is everywhere.
It's literally taking over my feed.
I was like, well, maybe I'll go.
But tickets were more expensive than I paid for Beyoncé.
And I'm like, oh, shit.
I can't.
I don't.
I think I can't do that.
I can't.
So I'm just going to wait.
There's still a ton of tickets left, though.
So I'm like, maybe closer to the concert we'll look around.
I was going to say, what about this, Joelle?
This is not an advertisement, as I am not sponsored.
But I do enjoy the Game Time app where you
can buy a ticket like two hours before a show and it's like 20 bucks. That was what happened
with Beyonce last time. There was all these people buying floor show tickets for like
60 bucks during the Renaissance tour, like as long as you're a couple of hours away.
So I think you got the right idea. Wait.
I haven't explored the Game Time app yet, but let me download it because I'm also looking at floor seats for the WNBA games when those start back up.
You know, I've been wanting to go.
I haven't.
You?
Yes, because Rosie, it was you.
You were telling me about how much fun the WNBA games were.
And I was like, I gotta go check these things out.
The WNBA you can buy because the Sparks ended up as the lowest team, if not maybe one of,
I think it was the lowest ranked.
But I went to the last game and it was unbelievable.
The girl, I just wanted to cry.
She was like, I'm so sorry.
We'll do better.
Like the captain of the team.
And I was like, no, you are amazing.
Like, it's okay.
None of us watching this are professional athletes, but that, like, it's okay.
Like you didn't do it.
They were cheapest.
They had, uh, when I emailed to find out about the season tickets, they had season
tickets that started at like 400 bucks.
But like not terrible seats.
Because they ranked so low.
I just feel like it's a big place for the queer girlies to like hang out,
meet one another, see amazingly tall Amazon women dunk on each other.
Like I'm just really here for it.
I will add another selling point, which is when I went,
two of the girls had a fist fight.
It was Brittany Greiner and one of the girls from the Sparks.
And they got in a fist fight and they literally had to start the game.
And they both got ejected, just straight up ejected.
It was, it was pretty sick.
I'm not going to lie.
Sports fight is a top tier.
I've never been to a sporting event where there's been a fist fight, but
if there's one happening and I'm at like, I'm on my feet immediately.
I'm like, let's go.
Let's see.
I just love, I don't know fighting IRL I'm like, let's go. Let's see. I just love. I don't know if I being IRL, but sports are
not real life. That's it. Those are billionaires punching each other.
Somebody's writing a script somewhere. It's like just let them fight.
I feel like there's a lot of there's a lot of blood lust right now in the sports fandom.
Like there, there are a couple of NBA series that could
have a really good chance in round one of the NBA playoffs of going, spilling over into street
fights and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, put it right in my veins.
Yeah. It's like the same reason people watch hockey. They just want to see somebody beat
someone else up, right? Yeah. That's the same reason people go to the, to see any kind of large, slightly dangerous event is like,
oh, what if it went wrong? Like there's a human curiosity there.
Yeah.
And you're right. 2025 is bringing out the bloodlust.
Oh yeah.
What if the horses in the Kentucky Derby started fighting each other?
Okay, that would be sick though. I would watch.
I still want to see the animals fight. No, no, just humans please.
Put up your hooves.
What is something you think's underrated?
Felipe.
Uh, I was thinking a lot about this one.
I'm going to make both of my underrated, my overrated things about sports.
I think because I have to say it here in this country, soccer, soccer is
incredibly underrated, underrated.
Yeah.
It's like my favorite sport.
It's incredible.
It's insane.
Absurd.
The level of athleticism that you have to have to play it.
And like people run like those players run like six miles, 12 miles every three days.
And I'm like, yeah, it's not about the goals.
Also, like there's really cool goals.
So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So soccer is a big thing that I think is underrated here. Who. Also, there's really cool goals. So, yeah, yeah.
So, soccer is a big thing that I think is underrated here.
Who's your team?
I mean, probably obviously the Columbia National Team.
Yeah, Columbia National Team, which as
they say in the book, Columbia is a great nation
whose people will never let you down
unless they play for the men's national team.
Which they will always let you down.
Shout out David Ospina.
You know what I mean? You used to play for Arsenal. Yeah, yeah will always let you down. Shout out David Ospina. You know, I mean, you know, Arsenal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And Ospina actually played for my favorite club, which is Arsenal in London.
Miles. Hell, yeah.
I'm right there, bro.
I knew that's why I said I'll be nice.
Let me vibe check real quick. Yeah.
You guys are you guys are riding high right now, right? Yeah real quick. Yeah. You guys are riding high right now.
Right.
Yeah.
Real Madrid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fucking beautiful.
That was, Oh my God.
I love throwing in the haters.
There's so many Real Madrid fans were like, just wait, bro.
Have you heard of Remontada?
Have you heard of Remontada?
We're going to, we're going to win back.
Nah, y'all are trash.
Anyway, it was, yeah.
Yeah.
Have you guys thought about like adding dunks to the game?
I just feel like maybe like if you could like dunk, it would be cool.
Well, there are shots from outside. The box are like dunking, bro.
OK, those are three pointers.
So I would love that.
Three pointers. They would be like a goal.
If a goal comes from outside the box, it should count for two.
Yeah, like a three pointer.
Yeah, there's so many like, let's change this sport.
That sounds so beautiful that you love so much.
Let's change it for the American audience.
Maybe maybe rockin' jockey a little bit.
Maybe there's 10 pointers from random spots.
If you watch the South American leagues, they take fucking rips from outside the box.
Like it would be those scores would be wacky for the amount of like outside of the box goals
I've seen in South American leagues.
It'd be cool.
Yeah.
What's something you think's overrated?
And here's my, here's the thing that will probably get me
excommunicated from the United States college sports.
Don't get it, has never been my thing.
Got it.
Like I didn't go to college here, but I'm like,
these are just like 22 year olds who are late for chem.
Why is everyone so riled up about this?
Don't you all have jobs? You're no longer in college.
This is my theory about it, Felipe, because the reason I really love football, Let's call it football. That's what's the that's what it's called is the
sort of tribalism around the supporter culture. Like everybody has a club, everybody is devoted
to their respective club or national team, they will they will dress up, they will get together
on match days to experience it all. And I think college football is the closest thing in America
that we have that's localized enough that even if you live in Nebraska where you have no
professional sports team, you have a college team that allows you to be like,
we are Nebraska. This is our team. We fuck with them. These are our enemies.
So I think that's the one parallel I see.
But the difference being is they don't have the fun chance and songs.
Like, yeah, the just sports and soccer.
It's amazing.
But I get that actually, like, this is the first time someone's like presented that,
like that way of looking at it.
Like, I understand that a little bit more.
It's, it really is just like one of those things where like, it's so weird to me.
Sometimes I'll see like a grown man with like a, like a KU like jacket.
And I'm like, you, like, sir, you have daughters and sons, I presume.
Didn't cry at either of their births, but did cry the last time that team lost.
Oh man, when Ralph LaFrance was there, man.
Ralph LaFrance, what a pull.
Yeah. And it is getting... Sorry. Jacques von, you know, the list goes on. Damn.
Why were they so French?
Joel and B?
Yeah.
I mean, I don't get Kansas.
Joel and B?
We were not familiar with your game.
It's now basically becoming more of more like corporations where you are hiring people out.
Like the way that the system is set up, like it's like, you know, it's like, you know, It's now basically becoming more like corporations where you are hiring people out.
Right.
The way that the system is set up.
At first it was the athletes were only paid with their education,
which was not good because this amorphous entity,
the NCAA was making all the money and just not sharing any of it with athletes.
But they then switched it.
And now it's just this weird thing where like people change teams constantly.
Like it, it almost feels like when somebody's like, Oh, you want to do it your way.
Fine.
And they like make it bad on purpose, you know, like they've just like not put any
rules in to make it so that any team keeps players that like are there.
It's just everybody has to switch constantly.
But anyways, it is I get what you're saying.
Like from an outside perspective, I feel like it would be like,
what the fuck is anybody talking about?
But they're totally.
Yeah, it's totally like I didn't grow up with this.
It's like when you go to your like like a friend's house
and everyone's like, oh, for dinner, we're going to have my favorite
like tuna pasta or whatever.
And it's like you're like, what is happening?
Everyone I like to do in a pasta, too.
But it's like everyone in the home is like, this is amazing.
And you do the casserole.
May you know, you're like, oh, don't forget to do the dance. Do the tuna casserole dance, dad. Amazing
Actually don't feel that good could I I might have to call my parents pick me up chicken tastes like wood
Hey miles have you ever gone over a friend's house to eat? The food just ain't no good?
Just ain't no good.
See, reach for a bottle of K-Yo Pek-Tay.
That verse is mind-blowing to me. What fun.
What an unexplored direction that rap could have taken,
where if they had gone with that verse as the one that worked from Rapper's Delight.
Can you imagine if rappers, rather than starting off, I said a hip hop, a hip, and they just
started with, have you ever gone to a restaurant?
No, no one of our friends has to eat and the food just ain't no good.
What?
The macaroni suck. And like rap is just a like poor food commentary and like failed stand-up comedy comedy is the direction that all rap goes.
Have you ever noticed that airplane food is not as good as food in the land?
What's the deal with how small these peanut packages are?
All right, Felipe, wonderful getting to know you.
We're going to take a quick break.
We're going to come back and we're going to talk about some news.
We'll be right back.
It's nostalgia overload as Wilmer Valderrama and Freddy Rodriguez welcome another amigo to their podcast, Dos Amigos. Wilmer's friend and former That 70s Show castmate Topher Grace stops by the
Speakeasy for a two-part interview to discuss his career and reminisce about old times.
We were still in that place of like what will this experience
become and you go you're having the best time. But it was like
such a perfect golden time listen to dose amigos on the
I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your
podcasts.
And the dream season is now complete the Golden State
Warriors of the 2015 NBA champions.
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, it's been 10 years since their shocking run to a championship.
We examine the controversial move that made it possible.
It's never a great conversation as a player when you hear that you're being benched.
For the entire behind-the-scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10-year run,
listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey kids, it's me Kevin Smith. And it's me Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter,
man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And
that's the name of our podcast, Beardless, D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the
young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard.
Sounds innocent, doesn't it?
A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language.
It's for adults only.
Or listen to it with your kid.
It could be a family show.
We're not quite sure.
We're still figuring it out.
It's a work in progress.
Listen to Beardless, I'm the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcasts or wherever.
You get your podcast.
I'm Clayton English.
I'm Greg Glod.
And this is season two of the World on Drugs podcast. Sir'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glodd.
And this is season two of the World of Drugs podcast.
Sir, we are back.
In a big way.
In a very big way.
Real people, real perspectives.
This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.
We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.
It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.
Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.
We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug man.
Benny the Butcher.
Brent Smith from Shinedown.
Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.
NHL enforcer Riley Cote.
Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamouche.
What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things.
Stories matter and it brings a face to them.
It makes it real.
It really does.
It makes it real.
Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to
Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast.
And we're back. And we're back. We're coming back in mid-laughter.
We have fun when you guys aren't around.
I hate to tell you guys this, but we actually sometimes have more fun
when you guys aren't around when we're in ad breaks. Unfortunately.
That sounds like a shitty thing parents would say to their kids.
I hate to say this, mommy and daddy have way more fun when you fuckers aren't around.
You know what's funny? My kids are terrified of that notion. They're like,
what do you guys do when we're not around?
Oh, they have FOMO? Like, care FOMO? Oh, no.
And also, my youngest has so much angst about the two years before he was born.
Oh my God.
What did he do? What did you guys do with him?
Oh, no. So he thinks about the before times of his life?
Which is wild.
So for me, my existential fear is all about end of life.
And somebody once put it into perspective for me by being like, well, are you worried
about the time before you were alive?
I'm like, no.
Wow. They're like, well, then why would you be worried about the time before you were alive? I'm like, no.
Well, then why would you be worried about the time after you're alive?
And I was like, shut up.
Okay.
No, I was like, that's a really good point. Shut up.
My son has, has fear of before he was alive.
Interestingly, I just tell my kid, I was fucking.
What was I doing before you were?
I was fucking
Work to make you
Busting it open. Okay
Worry about you worry about you
Let's talk about Pete Hexeth real quick
This is a will they won't they? A bit of where Monday morning,
it was Pete Hegseth, he gone.
Or at least the reporting was the search has begun.
The search has begun.
To replace him.
Tuesday morning, he gone.
What now?
It is, he might not be gone.
Yeah.
Caroline Lennon.
I think really searching, I mean,
it really seems like they just like, you know, skim the top, just kind of.
Well, they skimmed the top of Fox News to find them.
Yeah, exactly.
And now they will just be skimming the, like, sort of closing hours of a TGI Friday is near the bar to find a replacement, I think, for the new Secretary of Defense.
So we'll see how that goes.
But Caroline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, was just like, no, Pete is fine. He's safe. This is all fake news. And everyone in the Pentagon is
against him, which might be true, because everything we're reading now in this last week is like,
we have Republican Congressman Don Bacon coming out. He's like, this guy's an amateur. Like,
he shouldn't be there, essentially calling for his resignation. More people inside the Pentagon
are telling the press that everyone hates this fucking guy because he's a greasy piece of shit.
And wait, her excuse was like, he's fine.
It's just everyone in the Pentagon hates him.
Pennant Pentagon being the thing that he's supposed to be reading.
They're like, they're like, doesn't that mean he's bad at his job?
This is what they do.
It's never that he's a good coach.
It's just everybody in the locker room fucking hates him.
Okay, we're not firing him. He's a good coach. It's just all of
the basketball players on his team hate him.
But the coach isn't the one that goes out there on the field to
get the results. It's the sole it's the people underneath.
It's the players. That's why that's important.
They've all just said that they hate him and refuse to play for him.
Oh, so then what do we do? Fire all the half?
It's not his fault.
Yeah. I mean, that's where they're going.
No, it's the vodka.
Yeah, exactly. What is it, the vodka?
And it's clear though, too, I think, as there's been all these exits, he's fired aides for being leakers.
But you can only purge so many people at the
Pentagon before it stops functioning.
And that's something that at least people around Trump are aware of.
It's like, you can't just fire fucking everyone or else we don't have the big
nasty killing machine that is the United States military that we can threaten
people with if we don't have big nasty killing machine, we don't have much to
threaten people with anymore.
So we got to really be clear that the big nasty killing machine operates at,
you know, somewhat optimal levels.
So now we're at the point where Pete Hegseth, as we saw on Easter Sunday,
fighting for his life.
It continued Tuesday morning where Brian Killmead did him a solid.
His former Fox and Friends morning show, you know, homie had him on for a segment,
kicks off this whole segment about like, everyone's against me with a really,
a very tragic Freudian slip or maybe not tragic, just very,
he's probably just saying what's to come.
Here to set the record straight himself. Uh, the former secretary,
the current secretary of state, Pete Hexeth, former, uh,
host right here on Fox and Friends.
Pete, great to see you, Mr. Secretary.
Great to see you.
I like you then didn't even get his title right.
He said former secretary of, secretary of state?
Like.
At the record straight himself,
former secretary, the current secretary of state.
Oh!
No, that's Marco Rubio, fam.
And also he said former.
Yeah.
Former, current. I mean, he doesn't wash. And also he said former. Yeah. Former, current, do, do.
I mean, he doesn't wash his hands after he pisses.
What?
I mean, you said it, you said that years ago, Pete.
That's you.
God, it's so wild.
I thought you all just shake it off.
You have to wash your hands.
The dumbest story that somebody can be introduced to us
on on this podcast, then leads to them having a major role in history.
To being in charge of the killing machine is Mr. Pissed Hands Pete.
Yeah, not great.
He basically is there now to really perform for camera,
to beg Trump because Trump watches Fox News that Pete Hegs said,
it's like, this is just all a bunch of leaking.
Now you tell me if this next sort of exchange is a good look for Pete
Hegseth, some people are saying he's flailing.
And he's doing that thing again, with like a lot of big facial gestures.
Like he's Jim from the office looking down at the camera lens.
He's going barrel down.
I mean, this one, it makes sense.
This one is designed for that. But this one he's got he's given us facial he is eating in this performance.
Okay. In reality. So Mr. Secretary, I guess I can conclude this we know some bizarre situation with
Michael Waltz happened with the first time the whole thing with the Signal app came out. You
believe this came out they said it was called
Team Huddle because one of the people who work for you, one of the three who no longer are there,
leaked this out as a way to get back at you. Okay, I just want to point out that I like that he
leads him to what this next game is going to be. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, that's what happened.
You're not some drunk fuck up who's way out of his league here as Secretary of Defense.
It's that someone is telling on you, right?
That's the problem?
You're getting told on.
Tattletales, correct?
It's just tattletales, yeah.
It's just that person who you had to fire as a bitch.
Is that what the problem is?
And let's let Pete Heg set yes and this to the maybe save his career.
We'll see.
That's right, Brian.
When you dismiss people who you believe are leaking classified information.
And again, the investigation is ongoing and that will take time.
And if when the evidence produced it will go to DOJ, why would it surprise anybody?
Brian, if those very same people keep leaking to the very same reporters, whatever
information they think they can know to try to sabotage
the president or the secretary. So once a leaker, always a leaker, often a leaker. So we look for leakers because we take it very seriously.
And we will do the investigation and if those people are exonerated, fantastic.
You know what? I'm using that clip to potty train. Once a leaker, always a leaker.
A leaker.
Often a leaker.
Wow.
And his whole point is like, yeah, I did the thing, but they told on me.
Yeah.
Okay.
That is a level of lying I did when I was like eight.
Sure.
Yeah, exactly.
We've all improved since then.
Come on, Pete.
You realize that it's intellectually does you no good to be like,
so like you're caught and you're like, it's because this person told him.
It's like, no, no, no, you have to actually attack this.
Like you're the event that you're responsible for.
How do you account for that?
And if it's always this is the same thing that Trump does all the time.
It's never explaining your
actions or like justify it's about complaining that you got
caught. It's like, Oh, let me see your DMS you're talking to
other women. How come you got my phone? It's like, No, no, no,
no, no. Why are you talking to other women in your DMS? No,
how did you get my phone? That's a violation of my privacy.
You Yeah, yeah, exactly. And now, how am I supposed to
trust you now?
Right.
It's so worth watching that clip just to see his eyes.
Yeah, his eyes when he's like, so-
It's like a cartoon.
Yeah, it is truly, it really went full-
I thought he was gonna start talking about
corn cob TV pretty soon.
Yeah, it really felt like the guy from corn cob TV.
They told me that. He is pretty close to-
They told me that. They told me that.
They told me that.
I didn't do shit.
I didn't say shit.
We were so close to him saying that.
Like, you're here.
These are the receipts, sir.
He should have been shaving his eyelashes that whole time.
Yeah, his eyelashes are a little too long and luxurious.
They want him out.
He's a glamour queen.
I do just want to, it also,
there are rumblings that Elon Musk on his way out also.
He's claiming he's not,
but people, the Washington Post is reporting that he has grown weary of attacks from
the left and that his hand might be forced because of Tesla's plummeting
stock price, which I would love for him to leave.
Yeah.
I don't think that's going to save it, my man.
I don't think it will.
You know, I wrote a song about this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It goes, Elon Musk, when will you leave?
Go to space forever or down to hell or in a volcano.
Down to hell or maybe go to Mars and do that scene from Total Recall where their
helmets break and they're like, ah, maybe King Kong crushes you.
Anything, anything, literally anything, literally anything.
Please just leave.
This is, I mean, it does your point, Jack, about the stock price makes sense
because this story is coming out the day or like this headline came out the day
before the Tesla earnings call.
So as of right now, we don't know because that's the next big performance
from Elon Musk that a lot of people are looking for.
It's like, what are you going to say, man?
The stock's down like 40% and it's all because of you and your Nazi stuff.
Like when he leaves the White House, right?
He leaves the White House.
We're not going to magically forget that he did the Nazi salute.
That's what, that's where I do think the, I do think the whole like point that
the media has been ignoring the Nazi salute to...
Okay, go ahead.
I have to.
I have to interrupt a white man to say...
Do it.
Why are we all even talking?
He took everybody's social security.
Right.
He has also just all the information.
That was day two!
Yeah. Right. He has an also just all the information. Yeah, that was day two.
Yeah. I mean, why? Why? Why are any of us?
What should have happened is we eliminated everybody's social security.
We reissued them, recertified them and got that clown out of town.
Yeah, I don't.
I will not get over it.
And we just keep tacking on.
I can't. I mean the sentence is a run on.
It's going to, I mean, at this point, like all, everything that had to be done, I
guess, in terms of like the project 2025 of it all, Elon's done a good job from
their perspective with Doge, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I check in on Jack though.
Are you okay that I interrupted you like that?
And I called you.
It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of work. How can you trust you anymore? Yeah
Your eyelashes after you went through my phone soft and squishy. Yeah
Look at those long-ass eyelash. I knew you were soft boy. I
Do think the thing that's probably gonna keep hurting the Tesla stock price is
I do think the thing that's probably going to keep hurting the Tesla stock price is the Nazi salute.
I think that one's going to have, I think that that one's going to die
hard in the old cultural memory.
When you're trying to, when you're part of selling a product that relies on
people thinking your brand is cool.
I think it's kind of a bummer for people to see you out on Maine, doing a
massive emphatic Nazi salute.
Yeah, yeah.
Especially to kick off the administration that day
and say, all eyes on you motherfucker.
And you're like, here's my chance.
Listen, my czar predictions are like really slaying
right now.
Yeah.
Okay.
Zara stradamus.
I've said it.
Zara stradamus.
I am no stradamus.
Zara stradamus.
Zara stradamus.
Zara stradamus.
Whoa.
That really filled my ego in a way
that I wasn't prepared for.
No, this is what I do.
I give nicknames.
You're really good at it.
Wow.
God, you and there's one other public figure who gives a lot of nicknames.
I can't remember who it is.
No one cares.
Donald Trump was always biting my fucking style, dude.
OK, Nazis are the act one villain.
Everyone kills and is fine with it.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
There is no one else you can just like kill in TV and film that everyone just
like gets over in some nonhumans.
Zombies and Nazis.
Yeah.
You give them a hat, you, you, whatever they do a salute.
You see something that even looks like Nazi ish.
Yeah.
Kill them and everyone moves on.
This country is being set up for a war.
I'm saying, because the whole rest of the world
of the last World War was for Nazis.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Well, we'll see.
We're setting up to be the bad guy.
Yes.
I mean, we've been.
Yeah, we've been the bad guy,
but now it's conforming to like the media
informed version of good and evil.
We're like, well, they're the Nazis now.
So I think that's also like the hard part with it in America, too,
because especially in America, like every like for the last 60 years of media,
it's been like, kill the fucking Nazis.
And that's why you have some people who are like, yeah, man,
it's kind of different.
Other people are still like, I don't know.
I mean, all the video games and movies I saw are kind of like
tarnish that brand.
But hey, we shall see.
We shall see.
We shall see.
I don't have to.
Literally, I worked at Blockbuster.
So many movies.
Seen it.
Seen them all. Seen them all see them all they die they die no one cares no one care
We all just we rally around kill the fucking Nazis. I mean
like
It's just interesting to me how we can be over here being like oh
This sucks, and I can't wait for this to change, and I'll just keep my head down,
and hope it gets better at some point
and somebody gets in there.
But meanwhile, the whole world is watching
because we have the world's largest nuclear arsenal,
and they're just not gonna let us keep it.
Yeah.
If we're run by Nazis, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They have a stock in that too, if we don't.
If we're not like, hey, that's a problem
The rest of the world isn't cool with it. Yeah, there's we're definitely in that process of the rest of the world being like oh man
They they've got a guy who's lost his mind
And it right now we're just at tariffs
and you know and and just I mean, not even just that
and disappearing people and trafficking them
to El Salvador into gulags and shit.
Yeah, the evidence is mounting for sure.
But I think-
We made Canada take out the cavalry.
Both.
Yeah.
Okay.
You made your nice Canadian friend mad. Yeah, yeah.
And we united them for a moment right now.
They're like, yeah, America's gotta go.
It does feel like, I don't know, it's been a while since it, it felt like they faced consequences.
I think because of how incompetent the main like national Democratic party is. It feels like the rules of politics no longer
apply to them. So they won that election where it seemed like they might have just left the rules
of normal politics behind. Rather than being like, okay, maybe we test the border, the boundaries of this new power, immediately went full went sig hailing on the main stage.
Like even the, did you see the MTG like tweet on the morning the pope died?
Yeah.
Like normally you wouldn't want to alienate all Catholics in America.
She tweeted, she tweeted in response to the pope dying today, there were
major shifts in global leaderships.
Evil is being defeated by the hand of God, like straight up.
Straight up.
Yes.
Yeah.
The great schism.
Yeah.
All over again.
She could have just as easily not said that, but you know.
Look, I can't wait for there to be the black poke
You about to have a fucking oh my god some kind of event cardiac event, baby, yeah
Yeah, meanwhile, they're having like the apprentice
Reality TV of like firing cabinet members. Mm-hmm
Bye, you know, it'd By the ultimate reality TV show though.
The Bible.
Conclaves.
Oh, concrete.
Conclave.
Yeah.
I fucked that one up.
Wait, what's conclave?
Con have you seen the movie conclave where they it's it was nominated for an Academy award this past year.
Wraith finds.
Wraith.
Listen, I love him.
Oh, you're going to like it.
It's a, it is a blast.
It's a movie that's like super watchable and fun.
That's about like the most boring seeming topic, but it's like about the
choosing, like how they choose a pope.
And it's, they like all get, they like close the fortress around the building
and nobody's allowed to come in or leave
until they've decided who the next pope is. The only way that information comes out is through
smoke signals. It's very strange. But anyways, it's a rollicking good time at the movies.
I highly recommend it. But if they could get cameras in there, just go full reality
TV, get the producers of the amazing race.
But it's like, no, it's like, yeah, it's the new making the band, but
they're making the poke.
Few plopes auditioning.
They're like, I really liked him, but his dancing was not great.
And his Latin is terrible.
Big brother, Vatican, super producer, Victor suggested that.
I like it.
The real world Vatican.
How did I miss it?
Oh yeah.
I was just pumping breast milk for the rest of my life.
That's right.
Yep.
Let's, uh, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
break and we'll be right back. It's nostalgia overload as Wilmer Valderrama and Freddy Rodriguez welcome another amigo
to their podcast Dos Amigos. Wilmer's friend and former That 70s Show castmate Topher Grace
stops by the Speakeasy for a two-part interview to discuss his career and reminisce about
old times.
We were still in that place of like what will this experience
become and you go you're having the best time. But it was like
such a perfect golden time listen to dose amigos on the
I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your
podcasts.
And the dream season is now complete the Golden State
Warriors of the 2015 NBA champion on the new limited
podcast series Dub Dynasty,
it's been 10 years since their shocking run to a championship.
We examine the controversial move that made it possible.
It's never a great conversation as a player when you hear that you're being benched.
For the entire behind-the-scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10-year run,
listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith.
And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.
That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version
of me.
And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless, D***less Me.
I'm the old one.
I'm the young one.
And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it?
A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language.
It's for adults only.
Or listen to it with your kid.
Could be a family show.
We're not quite sure.
We're still figuring it out.
It's a work in progress.
Listen to Beardless,
S***less Me on the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
You get your podcast.
I'm Clayton English.
I'm Greg Glodd.
And this is season two of the War on Drugs Podcast.
Sir, we are back.
In a big way.
In a very big way.
Real people, real perspectives.
This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.
We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.
It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all
reasonable means to care for themselves.
Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.
We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote
drug thing is.
Benny the Butcher.
Brent Smith from Shinedown.
Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.
NHL enforcer Riley Cote.
Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamouche.
What we're doing now isn't working
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Stories matter and it brings a face to them.
It makes it real.
It really does.
It makes it real.
Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast
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And we're back.
We're back.
What was your favorite ad, Jack, that just played?
Oh man, the one where Jeff Bezos came on himself and just talked to us about progressive politics
and like how we need to forget about them.
I think he said, just let me handle it guys.
Quote the actual thing when he goes, the progressive politics, forget about it.
Is Jeff Bezos drunk?
No.
Anyways, yeah.
So this is one of those, um,
familiar positions of having to shoot down dumb conspiracies about something that
itself sucks and is not worth defending.
But there were,
so there was a ton of conspiracy theories last week that,
so Katy Perry and Gayle King
and Jeff Bezos' girlfriend and a bunch of-
Warren Sanchez, former local news person in Los Angeles
on Fox 11.
They went to space, came back,
and people were like, I don't believe it.
I think they were just like, most people hadn't been paying attention when the billionaires were going to space and just like kind of dipping
their toe in the space and being like, technically, we've been to space.
In your face, everybody. Right. Right.
I am an astronaut. Any questions?
I am an astronaut and you will address me as such.
The big astronaut story before this was people,
someone lived in space for not that couple.
Yes.
Like nine months or something.
Ten months.
Yeah, so that's what we're expecting.
Yeah.
People were comparing pictures of Katy Perry
on her like little 10 minute space in quotes flight
with pictures of the astronaut
who had been there for six months and they were like,
that looks like space hair.
The woman who had been there,
whose hair was just like flowing in all directions.
Whereas Katy Perry's hair was like still kind of neat
and didn't look like it had even been hit by much wind,
to be honest.
And people were like, that's,
she didn't actually go to space.
And like, that's true in the technical set.
Like when these it's true that she went to space in the technical sense, right?
That she, she crossed that threshold 62 miles in the sky that now you are in
space. But I think it's the microgravity of it all that people are like,
we can fuck a microgravity. The hair does move.
Yeah, it's, it's all, and there's, so, uh,
one of the things they were pointing to was the hair
Another thing they were pointing to was that like when space capsules come back to earth from being actually like in
Outside of the atmosphere in space they like get burnt and like you can see like the burn marks on them
and this one was nice and clean and
People were like that's well
This just looks like.
They just like took it and placed it there.
And of course that's because it didn't have to come.
It didn't. It didn't enter orbit and then have to come back through the atmosphere
and like turn into a ball of fire.
It just like hit the technical limit of space.
Right. And then came back.
It was like dipping its toe in a pool and then being like, I'm an Olympic swimmer.
And if you were faking it, you would muddy it a little.
This is like a rookie move to have a pristine capsule come
back if you're going to fake it.
Yeah, there's also the thing about like Jeff Bezos
opened the door inward.
I was like, I don't know what the fuck that's
supposed to mean.
Wait, it's so funny, the video.
Have you seen it?
I haven't seen that.
I haven't seen that clip.
I saw the other one.
He goes up.
They want this big moment where Jeff is like opening
the capsule, but someone inside opens it before he gets there.
They just landed and they go to open it.
And they're like, the press person's like, close it,
close it, because they want this big like camera moment
of Jeff opening it. But they had already opened it. And I think that's the thing like, close it, close it, because they want this big like camera. Oh, jeff opening it, but they had already opened it.
And I think that's the thing people, I mean, right.
Like the people who have actually, you know,
use that as the main point of their critique.
I think that's where it should be,
because there's too many people who are like,
who gives a shit at these broads when they're not fucking out.
Like whatever to that part.
It's like, it's the going along with the Jeff Bezos,
vanity space thing while like, while meanwhile the going along with the Jeff Bezos vanity space thing, while like,
while meanwhile on earth, everything is falling apart
and we have terrible inequalities.
Like, come read the fucking room here for a second.
Like that's, I think the more of the critiques
that I've read that I'm like, yeah, that's a bad look.
Yeah, apparently it takes a ton of jet fuel
to like get this thing to the border of space.
Like to the point that people were saying that
this used, this was as damaging to the environment as the entirety of Taylor Swift's Eros tour.
No, is that an actual measurement they did? I saw that somewhere, so I can tell that. I can tell
you that. I saw it on the internet. I did see that on the internet. Why don't you guys support women reaching new heights?
That's what I'm hearing.
That's what I'm sort of, why can't we let them achieve?
That's what's so frustrating about it is just like, ah.
The, it's like they make us have to like side with,
like, well, what, you're gonna be one of these
right wing trolls that says that this is like artificial? And it's like, well. No, I're going to be one of these right-wing trolls that says that this is like artificial?
It's like, well, no, I don't think it's artificial. It's just super. It's just stupid. Super official. It's just dumb.
And it's just it's it's meaningless in the sense that like this is just helps bring more attention to Bezos's space program and Katy Perry's tour, which is so weird.
And she's like flashing the set list.
Like you're spending your time in space.
Like, and my tour, no one will go to,
here's a set list for you to see.
Those are all the parts.
I'm just like such an eye roll.
Meanwhile, they're like the two other people
that were actual like scientists.
I'm glad they aren't being mentioned in the same breath
because like, well, those two people actual scientists
Right gale came up at all
I don't know and the Lawrence Laura Sanchez of it all who who knows but it is
It sometimes people just use anything as a chance to express their hate for a specific person
Some of this feels very just like oh a lot of people just don't like Katy Perry
Yeah, this is exactly fuel because they all deserve equal hate if it's like the
project at large. All of the things that people are pointing out about this flight are true of
many of the flights that billionaires took to space, but because these are women, everybody is
pissed off and like turning out. But one of the ones they're like, look at this picture. There's,
there's like a dummy's hand in the capsule.
And it was like a capsule from like a test flight in 2017.
They just like switched it in for, for like, just to, I don't know,
it's like make the case that yeah,
it's such a bigger L to like come after this thing.
And then with the stupidest angle like this picture from 2017
What not real like why why would they fake it?
This is in the Daily Mail there was like this whole thing about like Katy Perry regretting Blue Origin flight and
amidst continued criticism it said
after the after insiders told Daily Mail after the flight sparked backlash that
Perry has taken the criticism hard and was stunned by the public branding her quote tone deaf and
quote embarrassing. This is what the insider said, Katie doesn't regret going to space. It was life
changing. What she does regret is making a public spectacle out of it. Maybe, maybe. They need to
take a book, a page out of like the Pete Hegseth book.
Just don't change course, Katy Perry.
Just you did the thing, stand by it.
Don't admit you've done anything wrong.
Just be proud of what you did.
Just that just makes it look weird.
Man.
Yeah.
The tour.
Would y'all go?
Would y'all?
I love free stuff.
Oh, I would go live on TikTok and see if I see if it goes up.
I don't I mean up up there.
Maybe I want to I have no desire to do that.
I want to I mean, I want to go to outer space just generally as a sensation.
But like if I have to do that and be one of like Jeff Bezos' like little puppets
on the ship, I don't know about that.
So you do a SpaceX flight then?
Yeah, yeah.
The SpaceX definitely more for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That one goes for the opportunity to shake hands
with Jeff Bezos.
That's what, yeah.
Yeah.
No, that was, I was like always one of the highest thoughts
I had in college was like, do you remember that guy Felix Baumgartner like jumped out of that hot air balloon from outer space? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Yeah that to me. I was like, dude
I want to get so high and do that like just purely literally high both literally and literally in both ways
Just just burn up go up in the hot air balloon and be like, I'm about to feel infinity.
That was the thing I'd always say in cosmic.
Dude, just feeling infinity all around you.
That shit must be crazy.
Yeah, that was my thing.
They need to take the six women that did the space flight
and just hotbox in a car and let's watch the same.
Just get them as high as possible.
I wanna see Gale King high.
I think she could go to space that way.
She'd probably say some really interesting stuff,
I'd imagine.
All right, I do just want to talk about
the weekend box office.
Ryan Coogler's Sinners beat a Minecraft movie,
dethroned a Minecraft movie,
and became the number one movie at the box office.
It made 45.6 million domestically,
61 million worldwide, beating expectations.
It's the best opening for an original film
since pre-pandemic times.
Wait, so which one was, oh, Us.
So Us was the last movie, which was the original pre-pandemic.
Huh, okay, so another Black Helm film
that just,
it blew away expectations, over-performing people would say
to be slightly pejorative.
It's actually over-performing.
Oh, is it?
Their expectations are always low on these.
That's so weird.
It's weird when it's a black filmmaker.
What is it about these filmmakers
that they haven't come?
Is Ryan Coogler black?
I believe, yeah.
Oh. Nah, couldn't be. I know a couple of guys named Ryan? I believe, yeah. Oh.
Nah, couldn't be.
I know a couple guys named Ryan who aren't.
So.
Actually most of the Ryan's I know,
my homies Ryan, all white guys.
All white dudes.
But yeah, so there's a couple of headlines.
There's a variety story and a New York Times story
that like on Sunday, so like the day
that the box office is being like reported,
it immediately had the backlash take of,
actually this isn't that good.
Oh.
Like, so Variety said,
Sinners has amassed 61 million in its global debut.
It's a great result for an original R rated horror film,
yet the Warner Brothers release has a 90 million dollar price tag before global
marketing expenses. So profitability remains a ways away.
Sounds like if it does even a fraction of what it did this first weekend,
it's profitable.
It's a ways away though, like multiple days.
You know, never how we report on box office ever before but in this case for
some reason variety can get fucked they were the same people that put out that
dumb Rachel Ziegler hit piece laying like the failures of Snow White on at
her feet and being like I think it was because she's pro-Palestinian and the
and then you know she had to do her politics all out loud that Gal Gadot got death threats
And you're like what is the meaning of this piece at all?
Like this is nothing to do with the movie.
Who? Are they in the pockets of like the studios?
Yeah, it's a trade so like they all have direct sort like lines to heads of studios that are like
We need to you know, it's like any media really.
I saw somewhere that the director gets the rights to this film back in 25 years. Yeah, I get it. So they don't like it's kind
Yeah, I think studios want to take this down a notch. Exactly. It's not just a pure win
It's just like this this could be everyone's like also spinning it as like a cautionary tale
Like don't give the black creator too much now because it's's interesting to compare it to once upon a time in Hollywood because so the
New York Times also claimed Sinner's success has a big asterisks.
Again, arguing that profitability is far away.
And they also pointed out Zach, what you were talking about that Ryan Coogler gets to own
the movie after 25 years.
The New York Times said,
despite not paying for any of it, he gets to own it.
You know, he only wrote, directed and conceived of it.
What a fucking mask off sentence.
Even though he didn't, he's not paying for it.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Mr. Coogler will then own it despite not paying for it.
Wow, let me bow and prostrate to the studio
for exploiting my creativity.
Like, what are you fucking talking about?
I think, yeah, sorry.
So just real quick to compare it
to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
they had this same deal structure.
First of all, Tarantino got ownership of that movie
after a number of years.
So this is not as unprecedented
as people are making it seem.
One made 45 million on 3,300 screens after the pandemic
and Tarantino made 41 million,
so less on 3,600 screens,
so way more screens, which means that they had
higher expectations, and when that movie came out,
everyone was like, it's a certified box office smash
for Quentin Tarantino.
Right, yeah, no, no, it wasn't.
I mean, I think just the other stuff you see
is so much hand-wringing in these other headlines,
like, it could be the end of the studio system. And I mean, I think a lot of the
questions around quote unquote profitability, I'm sure they have nothing to do with the fact that
again, Ryan Coogler in negotiating this deal masterfully, he also secured a first dollar gross
deal, meaning he makes money, the second tickets are sold. He gets a taste of the box office,
the second ticket starts selling,
as opposed to then like waiting for the studio
to recoup costs and then you get a taste of those profits.
Like it's-
Right.
They're like, oh God, this black man
is getting too much now.
This could be the end of the studio system.
Like that is just, I feel like so obviously
what all of this is about, but yeah, sure.
They could be the end of the studio system
and who knows if it could be profitable
even though they're projecting it's gonna do 300 million
when everything's said and done.
Yeah, but they, I mean, Hollywood's famous
for managing expectations and like lying
about how much money a movie made
so that they can change how much money
they're actually sharing with the artists
who again made the movie, but they didn't even pay for it.
So I mean, why should they get it?
We should be worshiping the people, the capital, the people who put the capital up, not these
artists who didn't even pay for it.
It also just reminds me of that Sony leak.
I bring this up so often, but it's just such a revealing email exchange where a producer
was arguing that the studio shouldn't invest in Denzel Washington because black actors
don't perform well overseas.
And this was not in 1987.
They were talking about a sequel to the equalizer
You know after decades of Denzel being one of like the most surefire
movie stars So the equalizer came out in 2014 was a massive hit and this person was like I just don't see it guys. Look
Denzel's my favorite. Okay, right. He's my favorite actor favorite actor, but we don't want to invest in this because
You know audiences abroad just aren't gonna go see his movies by the way the equalizer to grossed
190 million dollars on a 60 million dollar budget
But they just don't want to let black artists have
success because that would mean that like the system that,
you know, gay makes it so that they have their jobs
is wrong, you know?
Well, and it's, it purely speaks
to the exploitative nature of it too.
Like we already don't properly compensate creators
for things and to see something,, especially like if a white creator,
it's one thing, but if a black creator is doing it now,
we're talking about quote, like the,
like an existential crisis over the studio system.
Yeah, okay, okay, okay.
Well, good luck with that, good luck with that.
I mean, even like in LA and stuff,
it's like, if you wanted to see Sinners,
like it was hard to catch catch certain screenings of it.
It's because people are going.
This is not some fucking flash in the pan thing.
And it's also, as of right now,
it's his highest rated film that he's put out.
And I think a reminder- Made Creed.
Yeah, reminder to the studios,
let people tell fucking original stories.
They fucking, people like new shit, not fucking Snow White and all this other nonsense over
and over again.
I mean, I just wish that Minecraft and Sinners had come out on the same day so we could have
had miners.
Miners, yeah, that's good.
As the Barbenheimer.
Yep.
So that everyone, miners would be saving the studio system
or bringing back Hollywood.
Syncrafters.
That would actually, that sounds kind of hot.
Syncrafters. Syncrafter.
Ooh.
Ooh.
That sounds like the problematic optometry place you go to.
Like in a Christian church.
The set of Lenscrafters.
Oh, you went down to Syncrafters, did you?
I can tell from those transition lenses. Transition
lenses? I don't think so. You went to SYNcrafters. Not on my watch.
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! So It's nostalgia overload as Wilmer Valderrama and Freddy Rodriguez welcome another amigo
to their podcast, Dos Amigos.
Wilmer's friend and former That 70s Show castmate Topher Grace stops by the Speakeasy for a
two-part interview to discuss his career and reminisce about old times.
We were still in that place of like, what will this experience become?
And you go, you're having the best time.
But it was like such a perfect golden time listen to dose
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Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and my latest interview is with
Michelle Obama to whom much is given much is expected the guilt
comes from am I doing enough me Michelle Obama to say that to a
therapist so let's unpack
that. Having been the first lady of the entire country and representing the country in the
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Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans
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I get so choked up because I feel like your show
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Listen to a slight change of plans
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