There’s more news and less comprehension today than any historical period that didn’t involve literal witch trials, and trying to stay on top of it all can feel like playing a game of telephone with 30 people, except everyone’s speaking at the same time and like a third of them are openly racist for some reason. From Cracked co-founder Jack O’Brien, THE DAILY ZEITGEIST is stepping into that fray with some of the funniest and smartest comedic and journalistic minds around. Jack and co-host Miles Gray spend up to an hour every weekday sorting through the events and stories driving the headlines, to help you find the signal in the noise, with a few laughs thrown in for free.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-the-daily-zeitgeist-28516718/
Weekly Zeitgeist 180 (Best of 6/14/21-6/18/21)
The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 189 (6/14/21-6/18/21.)
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00
Speaker 1
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the
00:03
Weekly Zeitgeist. Uh. These are some of our favorite segments
00:08
from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment
00:16
laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah. So, without further ado, here is
00:22
the Weekly Zeitgeist. We are thrilled Miles fortunate, blessed to
00:28
be joined by one of the funniest stand up comics
00:31
in the world or Comedy Central presents of the classic Uh.
00:37
She was voted Portland's Funniest comic multiple times. You know
00:40
her from Last Company Standing, her own podcast, Who's Your God?
00:43
And you can see her live again check her website
00:46
for Dave. Please welcome Amy Miller wife and it's my
00:53
birth Here's what I want? Hey, guys, what do you
01:00
want for your birthday? You have a good What's your birthday?
01:02
December thirty one, New Year's Eve? Baby? So this one?
01:06
Did you have a kind of birthday this time or
01:08
you think this is this next year? No? Well I
01:13
had it was my forty birthday this last one. And
01:16
my friends made me accounting Crows video. I mean a
01:21
bunch of my friends sang long December and cut it
01:24
together and I watched I was alone in a hotel room,
01:29
but I had a zoom party. It was weird but fun.
01:32
You know, it's something I'm never going to forget for sure.
01:36
Did anybody have Adam Durwitz dreads in the video? Okay, yes,
01:40
one person did, and I think it was probably not
01:43
okay because it was a white man. He did like
01:45
he like, he didn't wear them, you know, he did
01:49
it with a computer. But then they were you're imitating
01:54
of the problematic Adam Derwitz. You're honoring the source material.
01:57
Unless he was like, no, I mean I've been growing.
02:00
You say. They tried to contact him many times because
02:05
for a birthday message or to be in the video,
02:07
because you know, we're all from the East Bay, so
02:08
like they did have connections they could call in. And
02:11
then he didn't respond. And then someone was like, oh,
02:14
he's on cameo, so we can just pay him bucks,
02:18
and so he made a cameo fort and he said,
02:21
please stop having your friends contact my dad. I didn't
02:28
know about any of it. That's amazing. Yeah, it was
02:35
a weird birthday. But is it just because you guys
02:39
share kind of area of origin or are you a
02:42
big can of crows? Yes? I am a pretty big
02:48
crow head um. Also, it was just it was just
02:51
funny because yeah, we're all from like we all met
02:54
in Berkeley where he's from, and you know, I don't know,
02:57
it's long December. It's a classic about number and how
03:01
things are going to be better next year. Like it was,
03:03
it was just amazing. I'll send you the video. You're
03:06
gonna be blown away by the effort. I mean I
03:11
felt very loved, that's for sure. So you are the
03:15
opposite of the baby like those first baby born, like
03:19
you are the last baby born. Yeah. Yeah, I was
03:23
born at like six am, so I don't think my
03:25
mom could have waited until the new year. Where are
03:29
your headlines? You know where the headlines for the six
03:33
am on December thirty one babies? I know, I think
03:36
the headline should be that my mom lived in the
03:39
East Bay and got a doctor in San Francisco, so
03:41
I was officially born in San Francisco. Why would you do?
03:44
Why would you plan to cross the bridge when you're
03:47
in labor, That's what I don't understand. What if there's traffic,
03:52
I won't even say it. Yeah, if I had been
03:54
born two hours later, you know, I would have been
03:57
born on the bridge that would be very tight, and
04:00
then they're singing a different song for you East Bay Band. Yeah,
04:13
what is something from your search history that's revealing about
04:17
who you are? Well? I have one from last night,
04:20
and I'd like to blame this on being in this
04:22
like very strict quarantine where I'm bored. But this is
04:25
something you could find in my search history on any
04:28
given night, which is I recently did search Roddy Piper,
04:32
Greg the Hammer, Valentine dog collar match, so I wanted
04:36
to watch that dog collar match from and I couldn't
04:40
find a full video of the dog collar match. I
04:42
didn't search to your because I actually found an oral
04:44
history of the three Greg Hammer, Greg the Hammer, Valentine
04:47
and Roddy Piper dog color match. So I did spend
04:50
the chunk of last night reading an oral history of
04:54
a very bloody wrestling match from three. I don't stand
04:57
by that. What what is a dog color match for
05:00
our listeners who are uninitiated all color match? I don't
05:04
know if it was a thing that pre existed these guys,
05:07
but they would do this match where they both put
05:09
a leather collar around their neck and then they were
05:12
connected neck to neck via these chains. Yeah, it just
05:16
had these brutally violent they wrapped their fists in the
05:19
chains and they dragged each other across the ring by
05:22
the chain and really like bloody brutal match. And uh,
05:27
I was reading last night, I didn't realize there's this
05:29
famous one from and then I didn't realize it was
05:31
so popular. They had to go around the country and
05:34
do like all the different territories and they wound oh
05:37
my match forty times that year, and they both talked
05:41
to like talking about how like I think Roddy pipers
05:44
ear was torn in half and they both had like
05:48
semi permanent hearing loss from it by the end, like
05:51
all this, oh, this insanity that these wrestlers put us
05:54
through back then, you think back in those days two
05:56
when you're like this was not like this is like
06:00
pre Hogan becoming like pop cults are superstar. This was
06:03
for them, Like, all right, I guess we gotta go
06:05
like entertain the southern half of Louisiana by ripping our
06:09
ears off. Tonight. Next week, I guess we'll be up
06:12
in Almaha ripping our other ear off. Maybe only wrap
06:16
the chain like three times around my face this time
06:19
before you rip it off. Yeah, can you maybe take
06:22
out my teeth? My ears are still healing for my teeth.
06:27
The photos look pretty erotic, though when you look at
06:30
the still images, you're like, WHOA, Okay, I see what's
06:33
going on here. Ww it is pro wrestling. There's there's
06:36
always going to be some homoraticism inheriting. Some fans might
06:40
not like to admit that, but let's call it what
06:41
it is. Yeah, I feel like wrestling back then was
06:45
closer to the like being a carny or like in
06:48
the circus, I guess would be the closer thing where
06:51
you came to town, people came and saw you. But
06:54
it wasn't It wasn't on T N T like that
06:57
blew my mind when I realized that they also did
07:00
shows that weren't televised, because I went to one and
07:03
I was like, wait, where are the cameras. I'm like,
07:04
this isn't this is an exhibition? And I was like,
07:07
what they do this all the time, like almost killed themselves. Cool.
07:12
I'm really fascinated to back in those days when it
07:15
was the territories. Like John Darnelle from The Mountain Goats
07:19
has this famous stray. I love where he grew up
07:21
in southern California and hated Roddy Piper. Roddy Piper was
07:24
like the biggest asshole, the enemy of the Guerrero family.
07:28
And then he went to visit his dad up in Portland, Oregon,
07:31
and he took him to wrestling matches and they introduced
07:33
Rowdie Piper and John was ready to like boo his
07:35
head off, and everybody started cheering because in Portland they
07:38
were just running a different storyline. But because there was
07:41
no national TV, it was like, you can be like
07:43
actually causing riots in l A through your like bad
07:47
guy hee'll anti Mexican rants, and then up in Portland
07:52
you are like a beloved hero pillar of the community.
07:55
They love you. It's not even that far away. Yeah,
07:59
they might not have had to change the storyline that much,
08:05
that's true. Yeah, you you are somebody who I've always
08:09
been interested to hear talk about kind of regionalisms. I
08:12
think it was on Beautiful Anonymous you talked about like
08:15
just weird New Jersey early on that that always got
08:19
me fascinated. That site is pretty pretty incredible. I worked
08:23
for them for anyone who know. That's a magazine about
08:27
sort of like ghosts and local Legends and Jersey. I
08:29
worked for them for four or five years in my
08:31
my early twenties, and it's the best job I will
08:34
ever have. It. It's called Weird New Jersey. Yeah, Yeah,
08:38
And it started out as a fanzine and it just
08:41
kind of kept getting more and more call to access
08:43
in Jersey and then it eventually a lot of people.
08:46
If you've been to like a Bars and Noble, you
08:48
may know that. Like I wound up writing a book
08:50
called Weird New York, and then they did Weird Us
08:52
and then all these different states. It became this like
08:54
coffee table book series. But the beating heart of it
08:57
has always been this kind of underground fanzine in New Jersey.
09:00
And it was very, very lucky to find it when
09:03
I did, and I encountered some situations that were truly
09:07
foolish and terrifying, and I can't believe it was a gig.
09:11
And yeah, sort of helped me realize like going on
09:14
to be an entertainment. I always felt like it was
09:16
one of these things that gave me a little bit
09:18
of an advantage where I was like, there's all these
09:21
rules here, but I also know that you might be
09:23
able to like make a healthy living off of a
09:25
fancyne about New Jersey based ghosts whatever, felt a total
09:30
need to like buy in on the system side of
09:33
they're a big part of why. And I do think
09:35
there's something about New Jersey that's like a click up
09:39
in terms of just weirdness. I don't know, maybe through
09:42
your research into New York he found that wasn't true,
09:44
but like, yeah, my family has a story that my
09:50
grandma and my aunt when my aunt was a child,
09:53
broke down on the I think it was a Jersey turnpike.
09:57
It might have been like another highway around there, like
10:00
by the pine barrens, and a guy just came out
10:03
of the pines with a hammer and was attacking the
10:07
car and they had to like run their back. Then
10:09
like the way you called for help was there was
10:11
like a phone every like quarter mile, yeah, call box,
10:15
And so they were like running back and forth to
10:17
the call box while this guy kept running out of
10:19
the pines with a hammer, just like covered in mud,
10:22
trying to attack their car. Classic Piney's. They there's they
10:26
called them Piney's, the people who kind of lived within
10:28
the pine barons and do their own thing. And my
10:31
friend Group I said, he was not there this particularly,
10:34
but my friend group has this story from high school
10:36
that we all still say this phrase to each other
10:39
where they were going to see some punk show in
10:41
a place called Brown's Mills, New Jersey, which is we
10:44
were North Jersey kids, the Pine Barons. That was like,
10:46
you know, like trying to go to more door to us,
10:48
it didn't make sense of no GPS back then. They
10:52
got super lost and they pulled into this shady looking
10:55
gas station that looked like it was off a movie
10:57
set in the middle of the pine barrens, and this
10:59
guy comes out and they just go, hey, can you
11:02
help us out? Like how do you get to Brown's Mills?
11:05
And the guy just took a deep breath and turned
11:08
and just turned to them and inexplicit the way, how
11:11
do you get to Brown's Mills? And they just like
11:14
hip the gas and peeled out got out of there
11:18
like this South Jersey. I'm was that to see still
11:28
certain friends in my life where if I want to
11:31
make him laugh, I just how do you get to
11:33
Brown's Mills? What is something you guys think is overrated?
11:42
This is actually what we were prepared for this question ship.
11:51
I did have one actually thought about last night. I
11:54
did not tell you though, Oh damn. But hopefully you
11:56
agree with this. Okay, picnics because is I mean every
12:01
time I eat outside, I think you usually there's a
12:03
lot of bees. M I should have talked to Anna
12:07
about this one. I'm what you're hearing is that I'm
12:10
captivated and I'm enamored constantly, and I'm constantly impressed by you,
12:14
and so this kind of goes into that because I
12:17
hear you, and even though I haven't heard you say
12:19
these words before I go, I'm right there with her, right,
12:21
I am right there. That's why this word overrated. Yeah,
12:26
because there's ants, Because there's ants and there's bees, and
12:29
it's just I don't I think it's hard to eat
12:31
comfortably outside. Can I even add? Yes? Dining alfresco. I
12:36
know it's a it's a it's a necessary evil at
12:40
this point, and I know some people are like, look,
12:42
it's like Portugal or whatever. I don't like when people
12:45
walk by and look at my food. I feel too exposed.
12:48
Don't look at my food. It's private. Okay, I wish
12:52
I could. I don't like dining al fresco. I don't
12:55
like a picnic. I just don't like eating outside. Can
12:57
you okay, can you bear eating outside if it were
13:00
a place that isn't like a high trafficked foot area,
13:03
like it's just a section that is dining outside. But
13:06
I get because like I was eating outside for the
13:08
first time recently, and it was like one of those
13:09
sidewalk adjacent things, and you're like, man, like this person
13:13
on the fucking bird scooter almost knocked over the fucking
13:16
water station. It was like a nightmare exactly. I don't
13:20
like that level of like scrutiny from it shouldn't be
13:24
up for discuss I don't need even a facial opinion.
13:27
You know what it really for me? This comes from
13:29
I'll say a trauma. I never thrown that were trauma
13:31
around a lot nowadays. But I was eating in San
13:34
Francisco Fisherman's Wharf. Already, huge mistake. I'm eating a lobster
13:38
bisk i. Took a chance on a soup that I
13:40
wasn't previously acquainted with. The soup it's a bread bull.
13:44
But I'll be very honest with everybody here, the soup
13:47
was green. It was a green lobster bisk It's not
13:50
your average looking bisk i. Understand. But people were walking
13:53
by and really looking into my soup in a way
13:57
that you know, I'm already facing this. I'm suffering the
14:01
consequences of my soup. Okay, I don't need added Okay,
14:05
I don't know. That's not what you were talking about originally. Yeah,
14:07
but I'm happy you added to what. You really got
14:10
me going and it really helped me. You got my answer. Oh,
14:14
we're coming back to you. I like the name Alfresco.
14:20
I think that's fun. Yea Alfresco is a nice name
14:22
for you name your kid or yeah, al Fresco, Alfresco.
14:27
Maybe you get a second dog. Yeah, I guess second
14:28
dog on name al Fresco. I like when Shaky's Pizza
14:31
and Glendale was trying to do Alfresco dining. Shaky's Pizza
14:36
and Glenco. They had a sign briefly in the pandemic
14:39
that said, but you know, come to Shaky's Alfresco and
14:43
it was just a parking lot in Glendale. Yeah, that's
14:45
a that's a bit of a mismatch, like slinguistically, when
14:48
you're like shake E's al Fresco, hold on, hold on,
14:52
don't y'all can eat in the parking lot. Now that
14:56
feels like more on point because we're there for the Mojo's.
14:58
Let's be real. Absolutely, you said are you are you
15:01
like with bees and stuff? I know you said you
15:03
don't like the picnic. I get it. I'm with somebody
15:07
who hates bees and when they get stung, like it's
15:09
a fucking problem. So is it? Do you have like
15:12
a real aversion to bees? Are you just in genuals?
15:14
Like I don't like sitting on the ground your ass
15:16
gets wet sometimes because the grass the moisture seeps through
15:19
and then sudden you got wet. But I don't like
15:21
getting of this. Like we're just to help me understand
15:23
where youre coming. Wow, thank you for also helping my answer. No,
15:27
I'm like, I'm just trying to make sure we're in
15:29
the same page. No, we're on the same page. I
15:32
think I do have an aversion to bees. I mean,
15:34
but I mean, who doesn't. I mean, when you see
15:36
a bee, you're not gonna be like like start running
15:41
and trying to get away from the bee. It's like,
15:45
but I mean I think growing up, it's like I
15:47
always go to these picnics and it's like there'd be
15:49
so many bees, and it's just not I just don't
15:52
want to get stung. You know, I know there's a
15:54
problem with the be so no offense to no offense
15:58
two bees because been going in stinks. So I'm not
16:01
trying to hear going through it, but I just don't
16:05
they're going through it. I respect that and go girl.
16:09
We've all been there, girl there, like I'm sorry, sorry,
16:16
but I just don't want I just don't like them.
16:18
You know my space, You got your space. The degree
16:22
to which, like my behavior was shaped by early be stings,
16:29
Like just I never would walk outside without shoes on
16:33
because I stepped on a bee like once when I
16:35
was four years old. I feel like I've been guided
16:38
by beastings. And then I just got stung by a
16:40
bee for the first time in like twenty years over
16:42
the weekend, by a dead bee. I was picking up
16:46
a big clump of leaves and there was a dead
16:48
bee in there, and it stung my finger. And really,
16:51
I don't know how long how long ago it's been
16:53
since you guys got stung, but those still hurt. That's
16:57
one thing that hasn't gone away about the bees. There
17:00
still bastards. I still feel like there is there's this
17:05
idea like, yo, man, like what's your like twenty men?
17:07
A beasting doesn't And then like, I too had a beasting,
17:11
like for the first time since like high school a
17:14
few years ago, and I was like it, like it
17:18
sucked me up so bad. And then I was so
17:20
mad at myself. I was like, your pain threshold should
17:22
be high up into you, man, But I learned to
17:26
live with the beast things. And now jack you won't
17:28
go outside with without gloves now, yeah, I know. Yeah,
17:32
that's why I'm wearing these two sparkly Michael Jackson gloves
17:35
early from of mice and men type of thing. We
17:38
then like went swimming at our neighbor's house, and every
17:42
time a bee out in the pool, I like made
17:44
everyone get out into like fish it out. It's like
17:47
really likes, yeah, everyone spotted another one. This is bullshit.
17:55
You think getting swallowed by whale is bad, trying to
17:58
getting stung by swimming? B what? What's something you think
18:03
is underrated? I this might be sacrilege to say, but
18:08
I think, um, listening to anything other than podcasts is underrated.
18:13
And I cannot tell you how consistently it feels like
18:17
a miracle whenever I just like, remember that I can
18:19
listen to something other than a podcast. Yeah you know us,
18:24
Oh my god, Like who would have thought this is amazing? Uh?
18:28
You know? Or like audio books. I may I listen
18:29
to a ton of audio books, but I just I mean,
18:31
I'm working this industry. It's what I do. I love podcast,
18:34
but but like there's just something magical about getting in
18:37
my ears something else to listen to, and and it
18:40
feels like fresh and new every time. Yeah, yeah, that's
18:43
my my My search constantly is for new music because
18:46
that's like the one dragon I keep chasing. It is
18:48
like when you just hear like a new artist or
18:50
like a new album or that you're like, where was
18:52
this my life? And that to me is like some
18:56
of the that's what the juice of life is. But yeah,
18:59
I find myself really leaning into that. Although I've been
19:02
the audio book pendulum has been swinging very aggressively back
19:06
into my life against Yeah I would listen to. I
19:08
would say the majority of what I listened to that's
19:10
not music, his audio books instead of podcast. Hit me.
19:14
Hit me with a good audio book that you've I'm listening.
19:16
I'm listening to um a brief History of Seven Killings.
19:20
Have you heard that Marlon James or read that? I
19:23
have read that with my ears. Yeah, there you go,
19:26
really and really well well read, but brilliant book. I
19:30
will say, of course, I under cut myself. Marlin James
19:32
also hosts a really good podcast, so there you go.
19:35
You can go listen what he does. This amazing thing.
19:39
I forget what it's called, but it's it's a podcast
19:42
that he hosts with his editor, and they just have
19:44
an amazing relationship. And it's the kind of thing that like,
19:48
I feel like a really good novelist and their longtime
19:51
editor have a type of relationship with probably unique in
19:54
the in the world, right, And so they have that
19:57
and they just talk about books they love. But it's,
19:59
you know, it's really based around their chemistry. But it's
20:01
like so open, and I mean, I wouldn't I don't know.
20:04
I've been people's editor and I've had editors. I don't
20:06
know if I would ever have those like really honest,
20:08
open conversations. Knowing that then at some point I'm gonna
20:11
have to, you know, send them my work and they're
20:13
gonna have to tear it apart or have to I
20:15
don't know, but it's a it's a really great it's
20:17
a really great podcast. So underrated is his podcast. Somehow,
20:22
somehow came back to recommending a freaking podcast after all this, Miles,
20:26
what do you read? What do you uh? What audiobook
20:29
are you read? My Life in Red and White by
20:31
the former manager of Arsenal, Arson Venger, And it's narrated
20:36
by him as well, and he just has a fantastic
20:39
perspective on life and soccer football as it were. And
20:43
I think for a lot of fans of Arsenal myself included,
20:46
like there are a lot of things that happened during
20:48
his tenure that he never really spoke about with much depth.
20:52
He wasn't really always like giving like the most sort
20:54
of open interviews, But in this book he's able to
20:56
really speak about how he saw player management, like he
21:00
you know, he like has a background as an economist
21:02
and that factored heavily into how he even like managed
21:05
trades and things like that. So there are there are
21:07
moments as fans are like why why would he trade
21:08
this person? Or like what's going on? Like why what's
21:11
why do we keep these people? And then you find
21:13
out like sort of from from his perspective, so it's
21:15
a nicely sort of post mortem on his time there,
21:18
and his voice is just you know, classic miles. Do
21:20
you do you know that show Desert Island Discs, That
21:23
BBC show. I've heard of it. Yeah, it's like been
21:26
running for like eighty some years now, but it's basically
21:29
a guest talks about the five or eight records they
21:31
would take with them onto a desert island. But it's
21:33
sort of an excuse to talk about. But he did
21:35
one of my favorite Desert Island discs, recent memories, not
21:40
of all time. It's just phenomenal, So I go check
21:42
it out. But yeah, he's he's got a great voice. Yeah,
21:44
and very thoughtful guy. And you know, yeah, I'm not
21:47
an Arsenal fan, but I I admire him. Yeah, change
21:50
the game and now he's now he's wrapped up in FIFA,
21:53
so he can't really even speak space scathingly of this
21:56
body that is probably actually ruining the game. But hey,
21:59
you know that that's how they get you. I can
22:01
give a anti recommendation for a audio book. You should
22:09
get it, but just don't do what I did. I
22:11
fell asleep listening to Blood Meridian. Oh no, and uh.
22:18
And then I was like, why why am I so
22:20
like anxious today? And yeah, it is because Blood Meridian
22:26
was dancing. Visions of Blood Meridian were dancing through my head.
22:30
I thought it would give me like some insight into
22:33
you know, we we need to know about Texas now
22:36
as as they're about to descend into an apocalyptic, post
22:40
electricity hellscape. I was like, let's let's get into this
22:44
Blood Meridian I've been hearing so much about. Yeah, that's
22:48
that's fucked up. I don't I don't know who narrates it.
22:52
I just did, uh the Autobiography of Malcolm X narrated
22:55
by Laurence Fishburn, and that was fucking amazing. Narrators can
22:59
do so much. But Jody, just based on your podcast,
23:05
I was curious if there are any like esoteric moments
23:11
in history or esoteric kind of trends in history do
23:14
you think are kind of underrated in terms of understanding
23:18
the current zeitgeist and kind of modern America. I'm sure
23:22
there's a ton, but like, yeah, anyone that sticks up. Yeah,
23:26
it's an interesting question. I mean, you know, I I
23:30
try and be open. You know, part of this is
23:32
like you bring a lens of your own. And so
23:34
I'm one of these people who often I kind of
23:36
feel like every story is a media story, and so,
23:39
you know, I just feel like in every conversation we have,
23:42
at some point it comes down to just the like
23:44
radical transformation in media that goes back further than maybe
23:49
you know, Fox News came around in the early two
23:52
thousands or in the in the nineties, but you know,
23:54
you um and my co host Nicolehammer Studies wrote it
23:57
the numb an amazing book called Messengers on the Right
24:00
wrote a you know, and and studies a lot. How
24:03
especially the GOP came to really um radicalize around new
24:07
media in the you know, sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties.
24:10
But that's that's the kind of thing that I always
24:14
I feel like, it doesn't get it doesn't get rated properly.
24:18
It's just the way in which we've just been fractured
24:21
intentionally by changing media landscape. So there's just all sorts
24:25
of stories of people who were doing stuff in the
24:27
fifties and sixties and seventies where you're like, oh, that's
24:30
the blueprint that we're just seeing right now. You know,
24:33
Facebook's just Facebook's just the latest iteration of of you know,
24:37
the way in which took all the breaks off. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah,
24:41
I mean it was interesting. Jillapoor on your most recent
24:44
episode was talking about how the current culture wars are
24:48
basically the modern like leftovers from the Cold War and
24:54
not the leftovers, but no, it's basically they kept the
24:56
Cold War going by attacking left wind politics within America. Yeah,
25:02
I had I actually, you know, when she said that,
25:04
it was the first time I've ever heard anyone really
25:06
frame it that went and a few people, i mean like,
25:08
you know, but basically she said, you know, and this
25:10
is the billions of Jillaport was just to sort of
25:12
like tossed off comment, but she was like, you know,
25:14
when we quote unquote won the Cold War, all the
25:17
moves were still there, and so we just turned those
25:19
inwards and we started fighting the Cold War with each other.
25:21
And I was like, oh right, yes, that makes sense.
25:24
But yeah, it was. It was a very good insight. Yeah,
25:27
very cool. All right, Well, we're going to take a
25:29
quick break and we'll come back and talk about culture
25:32
wars and we're back. And the Biden administration has been
25:45
a little strange for the lack of kind of scandals
25:50
coming from the right, like they I haven't heard about
25:53
him wearing a the wrong suit to anything the way
25:58
that we we did when Obama was empowered. The you know,
26:02
Fox News just could bring up anything about him and
26:06
like their majority racist viewership was just ready to hate him.
26:11
But Biden looks exactly like their majority racist viewership. So
26:16
now they and I think also his policies are pretty popular,
26:20
right well, yeah, I mean they don't remember they didn't
26:22
want to talk about the stimulus because you're like, yeah,
26:25
I need money from the government, are you kidding me?
26:27
I don't. I'm not working right now. So they're like,
26:30
talk about Mr potato Head. Now they have to talk
26:33
about Mr potato Head. Dr Seuss. And the big one
26:36
these days isn't now critical race theory. Yeah, and it's
26:40
it's it's completely like like you said, it's we're in
26:43
a whole new environment where they can't even focus on
26:46
even the low hanging fruit, which would be like, what
26:49
is Joe Biden actually done from his campaign promises? Because
26:52
I would if you're looking for something to be critical of,
26:55
that's something you could go down the list and like, well,
26:57
where is that student debt relief where was that that
27:00
weird math where certainly turned into a different amount of
27:03
stimulus money. But now it's critical race theory. And we've
27:07
talked about before how this has been a conscious effort
27:10
to create this like outrage over it. And the numbers
27:14
I think are starting to show that this is very clear.
27:17
Fox News mentioned critical race theory five dred fifty two
27:21
times in the previous eleven months, and then it ramped
27:23
up in the last three which there's another number that's
27:26
like over six hundred, and it's only gotten more and more.
27:30
Last week they've shoehorned it into coverage one d times
27:35
in five days. And then so then you see we
27:39
we've seen all their coverage or a lot of coverage
27:40
in the media of this has been you know, people
27:43
in Florida or Texas, like governors and legislators trying to
27:46
be like, we gotta stop teaching this, or like scenes
27:49
of like outraged like racist parents at these school board
27:52
meetings being like, don't teach them history. What is this?
27:57
It's destroying us? And yeah, the biggest thing that's just
28:01
the biggest miss of all of this, at least in
28:03
the reporting, is that first of all, it's a decades's
28:05
old academic discipline. But on top of it, this is
28:08
hot at the graduate level, Like when you are in university,
28:12
this isn't we didn't grow up with, Like alright, kids,
28:15
and now open up your critical race theory books is
28:17
like first graders. So all of the energy is completely misplaced.
28:21
And this is all by design because they just need
28:23
this catch all outraged topic to get people sort of,
28:27
they just need an energy to exploit. And yeah, I
28:30
think the more you you hear what how people talk
28:32
about it, You're like, do they even know what this is?
28:35
Or this is just the new dog whistle that can
28:36
play a bunch of different tunes, right, didn't like one
28:40
of them was one of the conservative politicians was asked
28:44
to describe, like what critical race theory is and the
28:50
person whose last name is Pringle appropriately enough. It basically
28:56
teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of
28:59
the color of their skin. Period. H that's a lot
29:03
to unpack these people whose perspective, these people when they
29:09
were doing the training programs and the government, if you
29:12
don't buy into what they taught you, they sent your
29:15
way to a re education camp. Huh, what do you
29:21
mean the white male executives are sent to a three
29:24
day re education camp where they were told that their
29:27
white male culture wasn't there. Okay, let's just let's are
29:33
you okay? Because this is like just hearing that in
29:36
the in the wake of the uprisings last summer, there
29:39
were companies saying like, we need racial sensitivity training because
29:42
they're clear blind spots from a corporate culture that needs
29:46
to be addressed. And then this is now turned into
29:49
they're what they're fucking Their heads are bagged and they're
29:52
thrown into a fucking van and then driven like the
29:54
dark side of town for like how their eyes peeled
29:57
open to watch like a bunch of a rap video.
30:00
I don't know what the funk they think this is.
30:02
And it goes on still like the other like attacks.
30:06
Are people saying, quote, minority students are going to suffer
30:09
the most from this. When you teach students that the
30:12
system is against them, they have no motivation to learn.
30:15
They are not going to try to work, They are
30:17
not going to try to improve themselves. Seinfeld was doing
30:21
that part, what are you talking about? You even I'm
30:24
going to improve themselves? He says, I mean this whole
30:27
idea that it's like, oh, thank you the savior person
30:32
for saving me from being defeated by acknowledging that I'm
30:35
surviving in a racist construct, Like what what exactly is
30:39
the concern there? And I think this has been going
30:42
it's it's just gaining more and more momentum. But I
30:45
think this is the part where you really see what
30:47
it's all about, because underneath it, it's just like the
30:49
other threats are that it will lead kids to Marxism.
30:53
And this is the last thing that this guy Pringles said.
30:55
He said, quote, this is still the greatest country that
30:57
ever ever been in the his street of the world. Okay,
31:02
and the radical left is trying to destroy that and
31:04
tear us apart and divide this country based on racing class,
31:07
which is exactly what they do in communist countries. Um,
31:11
I don't, so you don't, So you don't know what
31:12
communism is either, Okay? Cool? God damn. They love comparing
31:17
things to like concentration camps, and like just implying, did
31:22
you see that what's her face, Marjorie whatever? Yeah, I
31:25
was just gonna say, like as one of them is
31:27
apologizing for comparing masks to uh yeah, she's like I
31:32
had like, was she not forty years to go to
31:37
a Holocaust museum? Like, yeah, have you not taught that?
31:40
Was she not taught that? And this is why we
31:42
need better education because she didn't know what the Holocaust was.
31:45
And then like y'all I was just in that museum.
31:51
She literally said, hey, it happened, Like are you what?
31:55
Where's the just son know, I saw this. I saw
31:59
this TikTok the other day for this like Republican lady
32:03
was complaining about the Quaker oats guy on the canister
32:08
and was like, if we're gonna change anti mimah, we
32:10
should get rid of this slave owner on the this
32:13
can of votes. And like someone was like, that's not
32:16
a slave owner. That's a Quaker. That's a completely different
32:20
that's not a slave owner. You know, just no one
32:23
knows what they're talking about, right, Yeah, I mean, and
32:26
I think even with that Marjorie Taylor Green comment, it's
32:30
like it just shows you how much of a threat
32:34
these kinds of people are when this is their worldview,
32:37
and then they enter the halls of Congress too, you know,
32:40
drum up legislation that is trying to reinforce their worldview,
32:44
where maybe the Holocaust. I don't know, I don't know.
32:50
Were you there, Yeah, exactly, that's like her. So I
32:55
went to like a shitty public school in Michigan, and
32:59
I know about the Holocaust, like at the very least, right,
33:03
we didn't have parents at home that we're saying, you know,
33:06
it didn't happening. Because in eighth grade we took a
33:11
trip to d C. I may have told the story
33:14
before before we're going into the Holocaust Museum. Our teachers
33:18
before we got off the bus said hey, I just
33:19
want to let you know we got a letter from
33:21
a parent that said that the Holocaust never happened and
33:25
that they didn't want they didn't want your classmate in
33:28
to go to this museum. I just want to let
33:32
all of you know. I'm not going to say who
33:33
it is, but I just want to let you know
33:36
that there are people who are going to deny what
33:38
all of the things you are about to see in
33:40
this museum. And it was really a pointed. It was
33:43
like it was like everyone's like, yo, what the funk?
33:46
And I'm growing in l A were like we saw
33:48
Schimler's List, it was best picture. But like then we
33:53
go in and that was sort of wold. That was
33:54
my first time even hearing that. People were like, what
33:57
do you but that ship happened, Like what are you
33:59
talking for that? I don't know about holocaust and ires
34:02
until maybe like ten years ago. I had no idea
34:04
it was a thing, right, Yeah, all right, very cool,
34:09
cool time. Marjorie Taylor Green. All right, let's talk about
34:18
Hunts four leaks. This this is just a story we
34:21
see all the time. We kind of got a taste
34:23
for it during the Trump administration when like a story
34:26
would come out that was based on a leak or
34:28
a whistleblower, and then we would get to hear about
34:31
like Trump kind of trying to ferret out the leak,
34:34
and also he would tweet, he would give us like
34:36
a live look into window into his brain as he
34:40
like was being furious about it. And then we kind
34:43
of learned that you think that, like reporters were like,
34:46
you think this is bad, Obama was like worse. He
34:49
like was really aggressive about going after anybody you leaked,
34:54
just like digging through their emails and ship. And now
34:58
that is a big part of the story about you know,
35:01
the pro publican story that we just talked about earlier
35:05
last week where they leaked the tax records of individual billionaires.
35:10
You know, they instead of it being like, here are
35:13
fifty anonymous people who are the richest in America, they
35:17
were like, no, you get to see who these people are,
35:20
because that is how we understand stories, is like via
35:26
these characters, and like they are making themselves celebrities. So
35:30
we are going to use that to, uh make our point.
35:33
And I think it was really important reporting. And now
35:36
the story that's being told in the mainstream is like
35:40
they're hunting down the leaker. Uh, the I r. S
35:43
Has like referred it to the FBI, And I don't know,
35:48
just generally in reality, when you accuse someone of something
35:54
and their responses who told you that and then making
35:57
the entire argument about who told you that, um, that's
36:01
usually like a pretty good sign that that person is
36:05
doing something wrong. What you heard is accurate. But for
36:11
some reason, unless it's being done by the Trump administration,
36:14
this hasn't really hit our brains as like an evil
36:18
thing that becomes like the focus of our attention. I
36:22
think that it's also like a lot of these billionaires
36:25
must be mad at certain other billionaires because they're not
36:28
even I can't help, but feel like there's something to
36:31
be said for like Elon Musk is gonna host SNL
36:35
and then Jeff Bezos is gonna announce he's launching himself
36:37
into space. Oh yeah, like yeah, there's very little sympathy
36:41
for me right now about these people's privacy rights. If
36:43
I'm being honest, like, it's gonna be hard for me
36:45
to go like, well, I would hate it if my
36:47
tax in fall got out there, Like yeah, but I
36:49
also don't, you know, dominate the American economy and fight
36:54
unionization and launched myself into orbit like it it. I
37:00
don't do that either, So yeah, I'm not gonna worry
37:02
too much about how who leaked that, you know, but
37:05
I bet that you got like Warren Buffetts sitting around
37:07
going like I play it cool. I shouldn't think a
37:12
lot of these people spend a lot of time and
37:14
money staying directly out of the spotlight. That makes it
37:18
um so enjoyable to want them to get taken down.
37:21
They'd prefer we didn't know this. They must be looking
37:23
at Elon going get the funk off a live TV.
37:26
What's wrong with you? Stay off making it hot for
37:28
the rest of the drug dealers essentially exactly that is.
37:32
It is interesting, it's kind of become a new strategy
37:36
of like like billionaires used to I guess they didn't
37:40
used to lay alow. They used to like buy colleges
37:42
and name them after themselves. So they've always liked having
37:46
their name out there. But it's it's just seems like
37:49
the trying to like chase celebrity, probably like having more
37:54
PR dollars spent on their own like personal image than
37:58
most companies. I'm sure. Like that seems to be a
38:01
new a new angle. And the thing that they've arrived
38:04
on is go to space. Man. People people think that
38:07
ship's cool. And at least the college is like I'll
38:11
put my name on this thing and other people go
38:13
and learn there and then learn, like you know, like
38:16
these billionaire industrialists back in the day where it's like
38:18
I'm gonna build Grand Central Station because I want i
38:21
want my city's train station to be better than anybody.
38:24
It's like it's just still building a public service thing.
38:26
It's like, dude, you're just gonna go like read que
38:29
cards on NBC television and smirk about it and none
38:33
of us are even sure how much of what you
38:35
do is real? Man, Like, Yeah, I'm not gonna feel
38:39
too bad when somebody's like, check out the dirt I
38:41
got on these people. It's hitting a breaking point, you know,
38:43
and it's it's actually just really scary because it's like
38:46
they're going to go after the leakers, but it's not
38:49
like anything changed after the Panama papers either, And it's
38:52
just you's gotta sitting in you wonder. Oh, it's like
38:55
it really, it really does feel like this is not
38:57
going to change. They're not going to opped out of this,
39:00
like it's gonna need to be taken away from them.
39:02
And that's what you're talking about, like, oh, is there
39:04
gonna have to be like an actual like revolution against
39:08
billionaires because it seems like they're getting a lot of
39:10
chances to go at least put in a token effort
39:13
to give some of this stuff back. You know. It
39:16
feels that way. And I think until like culturally we
39:19
we shift away from just being like, oh, having a
39:22
lot of money is good and cool, it will always
39:25
have like this love affair with like people who like
39:27
have just could you imagine that's so cool? We have
39:30
so much money, like you don't even know what to
39:32
do with it. And I think slowly, I think more
39:36
and more look more and more people look at billionaires
39:38
and go, no, there, that's that's bad. This they're hoarding
39:42
the wealth. And that's why there's a lot of people
39:44
are lacking is because these people a don't pay their
39:47
fair share and they're just concentrating all their wealth off
39:51
of the backs of the people that work for them. Um.
39:53
And I think until we can like shift cultured for
39:56
like a billionaire or a millionaire, you know, some like
39:58
hyper wealthy person to show up like on a screen
40:01
and a sitcom and people don't go, oh whoa for right, boo,
40:06
oh my god, it's a fucking evil doer like that,
40:10
that's I think the important shift that has to take
40:13
place at some point at least a popular culture. I
40:16
feel like some of these guys are really starting to
40:19
come off to me, Like if Willy Wonka didn't share
40:22
any candy, and it's like, and now you're just thrust psycho.
40:26
He's just like a psycho and crazy clothes with like
40:28
a weird warehouse full of experiments, right, and you don't
40:31
even share the candy, like we don't even does he
40:34
does the golden ticket thing, but he keeps them all
40:37
for himself and then just like makes a big deal
40:39
about how much candy he can eat. It's he's like, damn,
40:42
I got each one. Yeah. I mean to your point, Chris,
40:46
I think the the message of this leak is obviously
40:52
the rules are broken, right, Like it's so like there
40:55
was the CNBC segment that was embedded in one of
41:00
the articles about how like the I R. S Is
41:02
hunting these people down, and the c NBC anchor was like,
41:06
it's not tax evasion, it's tax avoidance. Like I don't
41:09
see what the big deal is, and like one of
41:12
the people I think it was Jim Kramer actually on
41:14
the panel, was like, they're gonna be mad at me,
41:17
but I'm I think these billionaires need to pay more money.
41:20
And they're like, what are you talking about? How are
41:21
you going to do that? They're not booking the money,
41:24
but like they just can't think beyond the Yeah, they're refusing.
41:29
They suck. The rules are bad, that system is broken.
41:34
And I called him out before in a joke, but
41:39
I think Warren Buffett is the one who has gone
41:41
on record and said like they absolutely should change the
41:44
law so we can stop doing this and I think
41:45
he's been like, yeah, I do it because it's not illegal,
41:49
but it should be. League. I think it was Warren
41:52
Buffett who's been like that. Guys like if twenty of
41:56
us all, that's the thing that's so maddening for the
41:59
rest of us, right, Like, I've been very lucky. I've
42:01
I've a couple of years ago, I had a couple
42:03
of years I did really well, and I have some
42:05
breathing room. Now I'm not doing as well, and I
42:07
sit and I stressed about that, but I'm very very lucky.
42:09
And even I sit here and I go, man, it
42:12
really is about twenty to thirty people that if they
42:15
just like, if they cut the ship to a degree
42:18
that they wouldn't even notice, it would take so much
42:21
stress off the rest of us. I'm not even saying
42:23
take I'm not even saying own up to it, to
42:27
do it to a degree that it will affect your life.
42:29
It will not affect your life. You'll only own of
42:35
American commerce instead of forty three percent. That other three
42:38
percent will help so many other people get like braces
42:40
for their kids and ship Like That's what's infuriating, is
42:43
like you could find a middle ground where these assholes
42:46
are still getting away with so much and and it
42:49
erases human suffering and they don't do it. And it's
42:52
weird to say, but I'm like, that's for as gross
42:55
as like, you know, the Carnegies and and the rocket Fellers,
42:58
where at least they did go and build big train
43:00
stations for the rest of us. And was was it
43:02
so that they could like jerk themselves off in the mirror? Yeah, sure,
43:06
but they did do something for the rest of us. Yeah, absolutely.
43:11
But Bezos is doing something for the rest of us,
43:13
and that is going to space and showing us anything
43:16
is possible with a loan from your parents. Yeah, let's
43:20
take a quick break and we'll talk about that in
43:22
a second, and we're back. Let's talk about some U
43:34
a P. Debunking material. Uh, listener, Amanda Price, I think
43:38
other listeners had shared this podcast with us. Amanda shared
43:43
the time code that included the relevant interview shout out
43:47
to the lazy and disorganized. Yes, thank you, I need it, uh,
43:51
And if you could actually start the video for me,
43:53
that would be here. But so, I think they just
43:58
did a really good job of presentinging the information that
44:02
skeptics are trying to get across. So the videos that
44:05
they're particularly debunking are the tic TAC videos, like the
44:09
one where the people are like whoa, like we locked
44:12
onto it, we got it. And the person doing the
44:15
debunking is a former video game programmer who therefore has
44:21
tons of experience doing three D modeling and like so
44:25
has a really good sense of like perspective and like
44:28
what something would look like. And he points out that
44:32
like broadly, for the same reason that Biden Jimmy Carter
44:37
picture looked so wild, uh yeah, just like perspective and
44:41
lens distortion, that the tic TACs only look like they're
44:46
moving extremely fast. And he said that like if you
44:49
look at so if you look at all of the
44:52
information that's like contained in the video, it is actually
44:57
probably why up in the sky the actual tic TAC
45:02
is way up in the sky, looks like it's speeding
45:04
over the water. But and I think I got this right,
45:07
but I'm he I think he's saying that the horizon
45:11
of the water is actually in the foreground and the
45:16
tic TAC is like beyond it, and so as it's
45:19
moving slowly, it looks like it's speeding over the water,
45:22
and it's it's not it's just moving, So what is
45:26
it's seeing? Then he's basically saying that it's moving the
45:29
speed of like when you look at how high up
45:32
it is, that's how fast the wind moves at that level,
45:36
like with this perspective shift. And he also said it's
45:40
because it's a black white infrared targeting camera and this
45:46
it's on a black hot setting that the fact that
45:50
it's white just means that it's extremely cold, and so
45:54
he's saying that it's probably and this is like the
45:57
standard answer for all u a p are UFOs weather balloom,
46:02
but like that that makes sense. It's big enough to
46:05
like see at a distance to like create weird perspective
46:09
distortion and it would kind of look like a tic
46:13
tac at that distance. And the reason that it's like
46:17
kind of fucking with everybody who looks at it is
46:19
because the we're looking at it through a camera that
46:24
is extremely classified that you've never seen anything through. It's
46:28
like a targeting I think it's made by Raytheon and
46:31
it's like a targeting camera that is super powerful, and
46:35
we don't typically see video from those targeting cameras, so
46:39
it's just like not something we're used to looking at,
46:42
so I you know, he he definitely presents a compelling case.
46:47
And so my thing is that the tic TAC has
46:49
never been the most compelling like thing for me. It's
46:53
more the eyewitness testimony of that fighter pilot and the
46:58
two fighter pilots who are in the same plane, and
47:00
for that their explanation just seems to be like, there
47:04
are people who believe in UFOs who work in the
47:08
military and like are lying. Basically damn, that's so we
47:13
got all these boring asks that we still have his
47:15
boring as jets and propulsion systems, and yeah, exactly. I
47:21
did an episode of a podcast with Jason Parjeon recently
47:25
from the executive editor from back when I was at Cracked,
47:28
and he's he's both interested in like paranormal stuff but
47:32
also like fully skeptical. So I was I've been like, oh,
47:35
we gotta get you on to like talk about the
47:37
tic TACs, And first of all, I didn't know what
47:39
I was talking about, but then when I further explained,
47:42
he was like, oh, that story is so annoying. Just
47:45
because like someone knows how to fly a plane doesn't
47:47
mean they're not completely full of ship, which I was
47:51
like huh, I guess I can. Like he's basically saying
47:55
like they're there are people in the Pentagon and in
47:58
the Air Force who just are lying, who want to
48:03
launch lying. So that's the thing that don't don't lie.
48:10
So that's the one thing that we can kind of
48:12
point to. But yeah, I don't know. I still I
48:15
don't think this like fully debunked it. I just think
48:17
it in terms of the tic TAC videos, I think
48:20
it is a plausible explanation. M definitely brings my enthusiasm
48:26
down a little bit. But I'm also like all always,
48:30
you know, always believe the truth is out there. So
48:32
that's just me. Yeah. So the thing that I kind
48:36
of objected to about the this podcast called like the
48:40
Skeptic podcast or something, Uh, they dismiss the people who
48:46
like think this stuff is interesting as just being people
48:50
who like want to have some inside information and like
48:54
seems smart, and I don't. I think that's like not
48:58
giving it enough credence. Like I think that's that's how
49:02
That's what I used to say when I was just
49:04
like assuming that like we know everything there is to know,
49:07
and uh, anything else is stupid and people need to
49:11
shut up, like I feel like it's just too dismissive
49:14
and not I'm always interested in people who actively want
49:20
aliens to exist, like what why, Like I need it,
49:26
I need it passionately. I have the perspective of, like
49:31
I'm always open to acknowledging that there's things we just
49:34
don't know just in general. Is like a human being,
49:36
like that's try to have that mindset to be open
49:39
to like learning things and not be so like that
49:42
they're absolutes in terms of like what we can or
49:45
can't know. And so yeah, So I think in those instances,
49:48
I'm like, oh, ship maybe, but I'm definitely not like,
49:51
come on, like I cashed out my phone one K
49:54
and I'm going you a V hunter or you a
49:57
B hunting or whatever? You a P hunting, You're not
50:00
University of Alabama, Birmingham exactly. I think it. I like
50:06
there's a spiritual aspect to my wanting to believe in it,
50:10
like the same I think it's akin to people wanting
50:14
to believe in gods or higher powers. Okay, so your
50:18
religion is UFOs is what you're saying. I'm not saying
50:21
that's my religion, saying that I think there is like
50:25
and it's also we saw a lot of the really
50:30
interest and belief in UFOs like going up as people
50:35
became i think less religious and went to church less
50:38
and less. Like it just creates a like big, vast
50:42
framework for the universe. And like I could see a
50:45
version where, you know, if they are friendly aliens who
50:49
are just deciding not to kill us, which it seems
50:51
like they could if they had this technology, then we
50:54
are on a progressive path towards being You want just
50:59
to believe in the universe. I want to believe in
51:01
the Star Trek version of the the universe where they're
51:05
just like they're not quite there yet, but like once
51:07
they stopped killing each other, then we can let them
51:10
into the cluss. What if we're just on a germ
51:13
rock that's utterly fucked. Yeah, this is big news. I
51:19
didn't know Jack was part of the Alien Church, and
51:22
it's I mean, I think it's time for you to
51:24
do my podcast. Yeah, you just want there to be
51:28
something more than this daily sludge. Yeah, if I'm psychoanalyzing,
51:36
like why I'm open to it, I think that's probably
51:39
at least part of it, your openness rather than your
51:42
strict But you're not saying it's a strict belief. Yeah,
51:44
it's definitely not my strict belief. And I yeah, I
51:47
just think it's interesting and I think it's like I
51:50
used to dismiss it because of a assumption that like
51:54
we knew everything there was to know, and I just
51:57
don't think that's true. Oh no, that can't be true.
51:59
I mean we're very dumb as a species exactly. Yeah,
52:03
And I think, yeah, but that as the foundation. Then
52:06
you're like, if that's true, then many other things are
52:09
possible if we're dumb as buck on the right, right,
52:14
all right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeite. Guys,
52:19
please like and review the show. If you like the show,
52:23
uh means the world to Miles. He needs your validation, folks.
52:28
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
52:31
talk to him Monday. By