Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two seventy three,
Speaker 1: Episode three of dirt Les Like Guys, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. This is a podcast where we take
Speaker 1: a deep dive into america shared consciousness. It's Wednesday, February
Speaker 1: one three. My name is Jack O'Brien, a K. Potatoes O'Brien,
Speaker 1: a k oh Brian, Oh Brian. Like the Entourage theme song,
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to come back without like the
Speaker 1: guitar fluzz, but that's what I was going for. And
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be joined by a very special guest
Speaker 1: co host who hosts the podcast This Day and Esoteric
Speaker 1: Political History from Radio Topia, and a new show called
Speaker 1: good Sport from Ted and Pushkin, launching next week, coming
Speaker 1: complete with a launch party that he'll tell you all about.
Speaker 1: You may have heard him hosting thirty for thirty for ESPN,
Speaker 1: the five thirty eight politics podcast, which is where I
Speaker 1: first started years ago. It's Jody Abergay. The intros on
Speaker 1: this show are just unlike any other. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I do any show other than this one. Do
Speaker 1: this for higher I can be your husband. I thought
Speaker 1: you were doing the O'Reilly thing. Yeah, I've done that before.
Speaker 1: I might have done the entourage one, going back to
Speaker 1: the well, that's right, well, Jody, we are thrilled to
Speaker 1: be joined in our third seat by one of the
Speaker 1: favorite guests on t d Z, A poet, a podcaster
Speaker 1: who you can hear on the American Hysteria podcast, exploring
Speaker 1: the fantastical thinking and irrational fears of Americans through the
Speaker 1: lens moral panics, urban legends, and conspiracy theories. Please welcome
Speaker 1: the brilliant and talented Chelsea Weber Smith. Always thrilled to
Speaker 1: be here. Thank you so much. Very enthusiastic intros. As
Speaker 1: Jody said, yes, enthusised, enthused to have you guys here.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've said enthused since the night. But Chelsea,
Speaker 1: you have the same instinct Diet when you get an
Speaker 1: introduction that enthusiastic, you actually go in the other direction
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't like at me,
Speaker 1: that's the intent. So it's just more energy, more room
Speaker 1: for me to take up in the podcast. That's why
Speaker 1: I go so big, just to set the tone so
Speaker 1: everybody knows, this is my house, this is Daddy eats first,
Speaker 1: is what I like to say. Off Mike No I
Speaker 1: don't say that. How are you guys doing doing good?
Speaker 1: I got a little cold, so I sound like a
Speaker 1: little baby, but it's all right. Yeah, I'm coming off
Speaker 1: of like four full days of not being sick or
Speaker 1: not having anyone in my family. It's just remarkable that
Speaker 1: it has been X days since someone in this house
Speaker 1: has had RSB or COVID. You know, we're about the sign.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I'm living that n N S life,
Speaker 1: that never not sick life in this household. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure always. But all right, Well, we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: know you a little bit better in a moment, Chelsea. First,
Speaker 1: we're gonna tell our listeners a couple of the things
Speaker 1: we're talking about. There's a big New Yorker article on
Speaker 1: the subject of what's the matter with men? And you know,
Speaker 1: when when I first hear that question, I start getting
Speaker 1: a little worried that it's going to be you know,
Speaker 1: men are being held down by this new civilizational shift
Speaker 1: to the left, and there is some acknowledgement of that,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It seems like an interesting article.
Speaker 1: I thought i'd bring it up. It raises some interesting ideas.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about the Biden administrations pivot to the middle.
Speaker 1: We were told this was coming after you know. The
Speaker 1: explanation was that during the mid terms there was evidence
Speaker 1: that voters rejected extremes on both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 1: Which did They just took, you know, people's rejection of
Speaker 1: far right conspiracy theories, and we're like, and they probably
Speaker 1: hate the left too. So we're gonna talk about what
Speaker 1: that is looking like in terms of actual policy from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration. We're gonna talk subtitles. Do when when
Speaker 1: you consume content streaming content, do you do you subtitle? Chelsea? Absolutely, always,
Speaker 1: always yeah, but I have so many questions about why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not really even sure why, but yeah, for sure
Speaker 1: it happen. So all of that plenty more. But first, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: we do like to ask our guests, what is something
Speaker 1: from your search history? You know, this is my favorite part,
Speaker 1: right so we've got my favorite part when you are
Speaker 1: on so right now out My best one is Jack
Speaker 1: Chick Closet Witches Tape. I feel like Jack. You know
Speaker 1: Jack Chick Chick tracks, do you not? I am aware
Speaker 1: of yes. So that's the next series that we're working
Speaker 1: on in American hysteria. And uh, Jack Chick, for anyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't know, is the person who made those tiny
Speaker 1: little booklets that people would leave at like uh pay
Speaker 1: phones or tip you personally. I got tipped in chick
Speaker 1: tracks all the time, and they're little Bible little stories
Speaker 1: that Jack Chick is telling about the sins of the world,
Speaker 1: and they're very dramatic Demons, Satanists, homosexual agenda, Catholic conspiracies,
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And uh, I feel like most people
Speaker 1: have come in contact with this in some way, so
Speaker 1: we're trying to like get really deep into this. So
Speaker 1: I was curious if either of you guys wanted to
Speaker 1: say anything about Like, Jody, do you know what chick
Speaker 1: tracks are? Is this familiar to you? I'm actually on
Speaker 1: I mean, as you described it to have a sense,
Speaker 1: but I'm doing some furious googling. Yeah, furiously google. Well,
Speaker 1: he's like the most read indie comic artist of all time, right,
Speaker 1: so he's got this weird support. But it's like they
Speaker 1: you know, you hate his message, but you can't help
Speaker 1: but be like, I love this comic because it's just
Speaker 1: the best outsider art. And he's also the most widely
Speaker 1: published theologian ever, you know, because there's about a billion
Speaker 1: of these out in circulation all over the world, and
Speaker 1: so we're trying to really get into both who he was.
Speaker 1: But also he had these three influences who were like
Speaker 1: these these secret agents that would deliver Jack Chick information
Speaker 1: and they were One of them was an Illuminati high
Speaker 1: priest who was also a Druid witch and he kind
Speaker 1: of provided him with all that satanic panic information that
Speaker 1: we love. He had Dr Rebecca Brown and Elaine and
Speaker 1: all it it was hurt story was that he was
Speaker 1: a doctor at this hospital that was infiltrated by witches
Speaker 1: and she was doing exorcisms. But it all turned out
Speaker 1: that she was kind of doing this because she was
Speaker 1: really addicted to dem roll and uh, then you know,
Speaker 1: we had his and that's that's why. No, that's the
Speaker 1: thing is that it was an honest It was kind
Speaker 1: of an honest thing he was doing. He wasn't actually
Speaker 1: becoming rich, so yeah, he was. He wasn't really paying anyone.
Speaker 1: These were people who Stanley of the Christian world exactly,
Speaker 1: So yeah, not really paying people, right, It's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's different than you're Jerry Folwells in a way because
Speaker 1: it's like, well, at least you're doing something you believe in.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, we're just really going to
Speaker 1: try to dive deep because those tracks were like huge
Speaker 1: in the Satanic panic and huge in them what was
Speaker 1: the he Chick tracks era? Um, they started in the
Speaker 1: sixties and then he died in they're still going, but
Speaker 1: of course they've lost their they've lost their special time.
Speaker 1: I will tell you. I'm on the Wikipedia page here
Speaker 1: learning from you as you talking. Also as I scan,
Speaker 1: and I did a control f for for something, and
Speaker 1: I was shocked at dinghump. I did control f John
Speaker 1: Birch Society and it's not there, but you know that
Speaker 1: that was the sort of where my head went. And
Speaker 1: that's great, that's great, except that Jack Chick condemned the
Speaker 1: John Birch Society really, so I guess we'll give him
Speaker 1: that just hated. Yeah, And I also will say his
Speaker 1: grand conspiracy was not Jewish people taking over the world.
Speaker 1: It was the Catholic Church, so old school school, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. You know it's funny, Chelsea. You covered the
Speaker 1: sudden you're showing and on our show too. You know,
Speaker 1: we do we we talked about kind of all sorts
Speaker 1: of different moments from from history, and we just had
Speaker 1: an episode where we kind of we we hit like
Speaker 1: four episodes of our show, because times a week, but
Speaker 1: we talked about kind of big themes that have emerged
Speaker 1: over just many my stories in American history recovered, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them were usual, but I had not
Speaker 1: really gotten my head around, and actually doing this show
Speaker 1: really taught me how anti Catholicism is just over and
Speaker 1: over and over, you scratch on a moment in American history,
Speaker 1: and it is just an underlying theme, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and it mingles with Yeah, it makes sense, but you
Speaker 1: know it, and it just mingles with every other kind
Speaker 1: of like paranoia Jore. But that is always it is
Speaker 1: always one of the ingredients saying it makes sense because
Speaker 1: we're the worst, Yes, And I would say it makes
Speaker 1: sense because they're annoying and their church is very strange. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and America was founded on anti Catholicism, right, so it
Speaker 1: makes sense that that would be our go to conspiracy
Speaker 1: and it yeah, I don't know. It's it's refreshing and
Speaker 1: a live sorry Catholics out there, but it's different than
Speaker 1: the the Jewish conspiracy that we usually hear from like
Speaker 1: the John Birch Society. Yeah, please bring back anti Catholicism.
Speaker 1: It's there. That's not what I'm saying. Yeah, what is
Speaker 1: something you think is overraged Catholics? Are you? You guys
Speaker 1: are horror movie people, right, Catholics? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm not like a huge horror movie person because
Speaker 1: I don't have that many people to watch them with.
Speaker 1: But when I watch a good one, I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Oh that's sad. Um. Well, I'm thinking, did you guys
Speaker 1: hear about Skinner Rank the horror movie I've seen. I've
Speaker 1: seen it start to bubble. I'm aware of I'm aware
Speaker 1: of the hype. Yeah, the hype for me personally didn't.
Speaker 1: I saw it at a mall movie theater and it's
Speaker 1: one of those movies where like, if you watched it
Speaker 1: on YouTube in the middle of the night, you like
Speaker 1: stumbled upon it, it would be really good. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a hundred and something minutes of very very
Speaker 1: very slow, completely on like just plotless content. I respect it,
Speaker 1: but I just feel like, I will say, fifteen grand
Speaker 1: budget for a horror movie that made a wide release,
Speaker 1: you gotta respect it. But it's no Blair, which project
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Remember was it New York mag who
Speaker 1: used to have this little feature Maybe they still do that.
Speaker 1: There was like show back that No, not the matrix.
Speaker 1: It was just like undulating curve of like hype, backlash,
Speaker 1: backlash to the backlash black, you know, And I feel
Speaker 1: like you can plot that I'm seeing that sort of
Speaker 1: ride that roller coaster a little bit. But you're right
Speaker 1: about the only thing I've seen other than like the
Speaker 1: fact that it's, you know, in wide release after being
Speaker 1: such such a slow, such a small budget, is that
Speaker 1: um people were like, yeah, it really vividly recreates the
Speaker 1: like slow, subtle terror of being a kid alone in
Speaker 1: your room, which for some people I think it's like
Speaker 1: that's incredibly powerful, but for other people, like that might
Speaker 1: not be the best content for a movie. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And it is super super subtle. It is very subtle,
Speaker 1: and it does give you like this feeling of when
Speaker 1: you're going back into your memories and you're it's all
Speaker 1: kind of all these images and sounds and you can't
Speaker 1: really pull a narrative out of it, and you try
Speaker 1: and try, but you can't. And for that reason, I
Speaker 1: think it was very cool. I just could not bear
Speaker 1: it in a movie theater with other people in there
Speaker 1: who garante like just normal people who are like, let's
Speaker 1: go see the new horror movie, and it is just
Speaker 1: I could tell that everyone just felt so uncomfortable. They're
Speaker 1: truly plotless. Um, there's a plot, but I would say
Speaker 1: pretty plotless. Yeah, more impressionistic, like an impression, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean the reason I don't get to watch horror
Speaker 1: movies because I'm four and a six year old, and
Speaker 1: you know, the movie time generally is a lot of
Speaker 1: Disney things. But it sounds like this one is actually
Speaker 1: kind of appropriate for them. So I'll definitely make sure that, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely kind of sit down as a family and and
Speaker 1: take this in. Wait, can I tell Can I tell
Speaker 1: your story? That might get cut, but it's worth telling.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a friend of mine who has
Speaker 1: a kid in third grade, and I was telling me
Speaker 1: that around last fall, around Halloween, there was a sub
Speaker 1: in one of the for the third grade class, and
Speaker 1: you know, the teacher was out. Six stub came in
Speaker 1: and it was on a Friday, and then that weekend,
Speaker 1: all the parents in the school in the third grade
Speaker 1: started to like text each other and be like is
Speaker 1: your kid off? Like is your kid off? What's going on?
Speaker 1: Like you know my kids? My kids couldn't sleep last night.
Speaker 1: My kid was like just sort of talking about some
Speaker 1: weird stuff that happen in school. And so they start
Speaker 1: piecing together what happened at school on that Friday, and
Speaker 1: it turns out that the substitute teacher showed a third
Speaker 1: grade class the movie The Conjuring four, just like a
Speaker 1: straight up horror film, like it's just the Conjury and
Speaker 1: and like all the kids were traumatized, like completely traumatized,
Speaker 1: and um and the one and the way they finally
Speaker 1: pieced the information together because mostly it was like kids
Speaker 1: who were just like refusing to talk about what happens school,
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, like terrorized. But then there was like one
Speaker 1: kid who seemed to be completely unaffected, and it was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, the sub showed was the Conjuring form.
Speaker 1: We watched it was pretty cool, you know, which which
Speaker 1: raises all sorts of questions about like why that kid
Speaker 1: wasn't traumatized but just an incredible his first day ever
Speaker 1: as a substitute teacher decided to show a bunch of
Speaker 1: third grades there Conjuring, for it seems like malicious intent.
Speaker 1: That doesn't seem like any version where they're like, oh
Speaker 1: you know what, this might be the one that reaches
Speaker 1: the kid. I I think the only only possible explanation
Speaker 1: is that, like substituti shouts show movies all the time.
Speaker 1: It's like he logged into his Netflix and it was
Speaker 1: like the first thing on there because he had been
Speaker 1: watching it, and then he got steamrolled by the kids
Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, we want watched, everyone watched, and
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't know. There's literally his first stay
Speaker 1: ever as a substitute teacher, and that one last presumable
Speaker 1: I got a theory for you. Okay, So the Conjuring
Speaker 1: series is actually very very Catholic, you know, So we're
Speaker 1: back on Catholic conspiracies and it's very much like it's
Speaker 1: made by religious people in fact, and so it's like
Speaker 1: maybe they were trying to get a little fear of
Speaker 1: God in those kids, and it's probably worked. Brooklyn Public Schools. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you want to show and I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: why would you show them? For? With so many questions here,
Speaker 1: so many questions here, like that's not fair. The best
Speaker 1: part was that, you know, there were a bunch of
Speaker 1: parents who were just like WHOA, that's weird, and you know,
Speaker 1: kept it moving, and then a bunch of parents like
Speaker 1: got totally up in arms marching to the principles and
Speaker 1: she's like, what do you want me to do? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's not like in the guide book for
Speaker 1: for new teachers, be like do not show a bunch
Speaker 1: of eight year olds a horror movie. Like she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hire that guy again. But like,
Speaker 1: what was that? Like? It just wasn't the rule says
Speaker 1: that dog can't play basketball. It's like sometimes that actually happens.
Speaker 1: There's a similar story where a coach played It's not
Speaker 1: really similar, but it just reminded me that that because
Speaker 1: I found out about this morning. It was a coach
Speaker 1: who an assistant coach who like subbed in and quotes
Speaker 1: for a player on a high school girls basketball team.
Speaker 1: And you know, my because the student was out of
Speaker 1: town like playing on a different team, and like I
Speaker 1: I guess the student is like one of their better players.
Speaker 1: And so my mind was like, oh, maybe they needed
Speaker 1: like a fifth person to suit up, and they just
Speaker 1: like kinda set to the back and then they like
Speaker 1: show footage from the game and the coaches just like
Speaker 1: Billy Madison blocking the shots and like doing like to
Speaker 1: get to the rag and doing that, and one like
Speaker 1: just like celebrations. And it's similarly, it's like you're telling that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, well where I We'll see what movie
Speaker 1: it is. Maybe it's like an honest and maybe it's Braveheart.
Speaker 1: My teachers always showed that to me in high school
Speaker 1: for some reason. But the Conjuring four and then it's
Speaker 1: just blows pass all that. Yeah, it is interesting to
Speaker 1: I would be interested to find out if it was
Speaker 1: a Catholic school. Ya get that teacher on the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I say that time. Yeah, Chelsea, what is
Speaker 1: something you think is underrated? Well, as I was like
Speaker 1: working on that this morning, I came up with my
Speaker 1: answer and then I remembered that this was an answer
Speaker 1: I gave on another show with you guys in the past.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna do it again, and that is
Speaker 1: Hackey Sack. Yeah, yeah, I know, I just like I
Speaker 1: had picked that this week. Hacky Sack is just making
Speaker 1: a major comeback? Is it making a comeback? I have
Speaker 1: no idea. Okay, well that would be nice because I
Speaker 1: feel weird doing it. But um, I had my friend
Speaker 1: Sarah Marshall from You're Wrong About came up and just
Speaker 1: got in a hacky sacking with me for the first
Speaker 1: time in her life, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: she was saying that it felt like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're working on hockey sacking, you can kind of get
Speaker 1: into some ship when you're talking. And maybe that's how
Speaker 1: dudes just talk to each other in the nineties. They
Speaker 1: just hacked around and it just gave them this opportunity
Speaker 1: to get kind of intimate. And I like that and
Speaker 1: that stually sounds gender But yeah, I know finished that
Speaker 1: What's Wrong with Men article, But I'm pretty sure seen
Speaker 1: where it was headed that that kicker was that we
Speaker 1: just don't hacky sack with yether do with one another enough.
Speaker 1: There's definitely something to that of like occupying your mind
Speaker 1: with some task that is sort of wrote or you
Speaker 1: know something too, and like by distracting the conscious part
Speaker 1: of your mind, your unconscious is allowed to like kind
Speaker 1: of play a little bit and have a good conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about this with video games, you know,
Speaker 1: to think of it like so isolating or whatever. You're
Speaker 1: staring screen, but like you know, you're with five other
Speaker 1: people and you're sort of have this running commentary and
Speaker 1: it's just sort of creates this like texture on which
Speaker 1: to have I think, you know, real conversations and bond
Speaker 1: and all those things. So right, absolutely, it's just the
Speaker 1: equivalent of like being being with your friends, like playing
Speaker 1: with the little cord on the phone, you know, up
Speaker 1: late m hmm, as the sun's going down, as you know,
Speaker 1: you're like, you've only got another thirty minutes to hack boy.
Speaker 1: That's right. Hacksack was big in my middle school. My
Speaker 1: middle school was very heavy first. So big in middle schools?
Speaker 1: Is it just that we don't oh, I hang up hangs.
Speaker 1: It's pretty Uh, it's not not as popular as I'd
Speaker 1: like it to be. You know. I try and get
Speaker 1: some circles going, and they're not not a lot of
Speaker 1: takers these days. It can't be because I'm forty two
Speaker 1: years old. Yeah, well, it's it's hard to get it
Speaker 1: going when you're legally you don't have to be two
Speaker 1: fifty feet away. That's right, All right, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and we'll be right back. To talk about
Speaker 1: what's the matter with men? And we're back? And this
Speaker 1: is this is I mean, the title of the article
Speaker 1: in the New Yorker is What's the Matter with Men?
Speaker 1: Probably that feels as close as a New Yorker title
Speaker 1: has come to being also the title of like a
Speaker 1: you know, Donna Hue like you know, like the old
Speaker 1: eighties daytime talk show thing, or also a Fox News
Speaker 1: like a Tucker Carlson Chiron like probably on a bi
Speaker 1: weekly basis. So, I mean, it is hard to cover
Speaker 1: the subject without seeming like you're claiming cancel. Culture has
Speaker 1: changed the rules and it's too mean to boys, or
Speaker 1: you know whatever. There's a lot of answers given to
Speaker 1: this kind of preemptively by the Fox News of the
Speaker 1: world and the right and Tucker Carlson. But you know,
Speaker 1: my might take on that would be that like, culturally,
Speaker 1: we are seeing just the barrassed minimum start to fixing
Speaker 1: an imbalance and structural inequality that has been pervasive like
Speaker 1: for many, you know, across many human civilizations. And you
Speaker 1: know now that the thing the interesting things that I
Speaker 1: don't think I fully understood the extent of is that
Speaker 1: in academic performance, both in the United States and in
Speaker 1: countries around the world, we are seeing boys underperformed girls
Speaker 1: like drastically, like in a way that is like not
Speaker 1: is not statistically like insignificant, like you you can't. There
Speaker 1: has to be something going on there, they say. It's
Speaker 1: like both with advanced countries that still struggle with considerable sexism,
Speaker 1: such as South Korea and in notably egalitarian countries like Sweden.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's just you know, in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: American high school students in the top ten percent of
Speaker 1: their freshman class where twice as likely to be female.
Speaker 1: In the United States, women are close to or girls
Speaker 1: you know, are close to outnumbering boys two to one
Speaker 1: in undergraduate and in colleges, where whereas at the start
Speaker 1: of the eighties it was more like one to one.
Speaker 1: So go ahead, no, yeah, well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I like this article, and um, you know, I know
Speaker 1: you have to write a headline to get people on
Speaker 1: the Internet to pay attention, so you know whatever, I
Speaker 1: just tend to dismiss headlines and just actually look at
Speaker 1: what's going on there. But but it feels like you
Speaker 1: started to hint a two things that this article I
Speaker 1: think does a nice job of and navigating, which is
Speaker 1: one is, you know, there's a problem with men in
Speaker 1: the sense that all the ways in which they've traditionally
Speaker 1: been allowed to behave our cultural norms are changing. And
Speaker 1: that's where it gets into cancel culture and you know
Speaker 1: all these other things, and that's you know, for for better,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's fraught. You know, there's complications to
Speaker 1: explore there. And then there's this other thing which you described,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, men and boys are falling behind
Speaker 1: in in lots of ways um that we can start
Speaker 1: to measure and see. And I'm not sure if those
Speaker 1: are necessarily like related or part of the same conversation,
Speaker 1: Like just because we told Louis c K he can't
Speaker 1: behave a certain way doesn't necessarily mean that then like
Speaker 1: eighth grade boys are that are worse at math and
Speaker 1: so there, I just want to sort of identify that
Speaker 1: there are lots of swirling and interconnected but not necessarily
Speaker 1: causally related things going on with men. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think what's really important is to think of about how
Speaker 1: now men's rights and women's rights are somehow diametrically opposed
Speaker 1: from each other, But originally during there was a men's
Speaker 1: rights movement. The original men's rights movement was very much
Speaker 1: pro equality, which meant men needed to sort of take
Speaker 1: that self inventory and say, okay, how are the ways, like,
Speaker 1: how are we oppressed? Quote unquote right? What what causes
Speaker 1: us pain? And that also causes women pain at the
Speaker 1: same time. So those movements were kind of like married
Speaker 1: to each other until slowly they unwound into this sort
Speaker 1: of battle against each other, which is really sad because
Speaker 1: there's lots of reasons that we should look at the
Speaker 1: problems that men experience that's not somehow anti women, right,
Speaker 1: it should be something that we're moving forward with consciously
Speaker 1: on both sides. And it's really a bummer that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's become such a cesspool of horror men's rights la.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that's it makes me think of
Speaker 1: this article in The New York is a review of
Speaker 1: a of a book, and you know, the book is
Speaker 1: written by someone who tends who comes from a background
Speaker 1: of studying inequality and the kind of like myth of opportunity,
Speaker 1: which I think is so related to all this because
Speaker 1: I think to your point, like when you set yourself
Speaker 1: up to define opportunity as a zero sum game, which
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of men, but I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of Americans in general, is the way
Speaker 1: that we've seen it. Then you lead to this sort
Speaker 1: of competitive notion of equality or or you know, gender,
Speaker 1: the relationship between the genders, Whereas if you can kind
Speaker 1: of like start to rethink what it means to have
Speaker 1: opportunity or to succeed and think of it as more collaborative,
Speaker 1: then you maybe start to find some of the answers
Speaker 1: in the way that you're describing. But I just think
Speaker 1: it's like a really fascinating lens through which this person
Speaker 1: is um is taking on this question because it is
Speaker 1: so related to you know, almost like most things in life.
Speaker 1: It's about like the disconnect between expectations and reality, right,
Speaker 1: and we set up the expectations to be that men
Speaker 1: get sort of yeah, get it, get it all handles
Speaker 1: to them on a flatter h then you you end
Speaker 1: up with that that frustrating disconnect for a lot of men. Definitely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's one of the things that points out
Speaker 1: is that there's still a great deal of structurally inequality.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're seeing these differences in performance metrics,
Speaker 1: like at the educational level, but the c suite is
Speaker 1: still you know, largely male, even though it's moving in
Speaker 1: more equal direction, but like there's still a pay gap.
Speaker 1: And it does make me wonder like the structures of
Speaker 1: masculinity that we've created across cultures. Like Chelsea, you talked
Speaker 1: about the original men's movement, and I know, people like
Speaker 1: there there seems to be a resurgent thing of like
Speaker 1: these like men's groups and and you know meetings that
Speaker 1: are meet men's meetings that are designed to undo the
Speaker 1: the toxic like things that you were taught about what
Speaker 1: it means to be a man, and like that seems
Speaker 1: to be the way to attack this and not going
Speaker 1: back to the unequal way. Like I I talked about
Speaker 1: how when it comes to like white supremacy as well,
Speaker 1: like there is like the the people who benefit from
Speaker 1: these structures that kind of encode or enforcing quality like
Speaker 1: that at some level they even recognize, like may maybe
Speaker 1: it's not their conscious mind, but at some level they
Speaker 1: I think that's where a lot of the anger and
Speaker 1: the self hatred that like comes out as like outward
Speaker 1: hatred comes from. Is the recognition that like they're not superior,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're benefiting from this narrative that is
Speaker 1: demonstrably not true, and like that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: the like kind of conflict and violence comes from, as
Speaker 1: well as the fact that you know, so so many
Speaker 1: of the structure of masculinity that's still like you know,
Speaker 1: are still around. Like my kids just pick up an
Speaker 1: interest in guns and ship like that just through osmosis,
Speaker 1: through like school books and stuff like. It's violence is
Speaker 1: part of this structure that still hasn't been like rooted out.
Speaker 1: And I am I being naive though that I do
Speaker 1: feel like that it is changing the language around masculinity.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just feels like, for you know,
Speaker 1: most of the people I know under the age of
Speaker 1: I just kind of marvel if I'm being honest, you know,
Speaker 1: and not granted I run in certain circles or whatever,
Speaker 1: but I just feel like, you know, the level of
Speaker 1: sort of language and empathy and openness with emotions and
Speaker 1: you know, ideas about what consent means, Like it is
Speaker 1: so much more expansive than when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would think I was like progressively
Speaker 1: minded and tried to behave in all the right ways,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't have that language wasn't even handed,
Speaker 1: that the culture wasn't sort of really pointing me in
Speaker 1: the right direction in a way that I don't know,
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I'm being naive or overly hopeful, but it
Speaker 1: does feel like there has been some real shift around
Speaker 1: the way that young men talk about being young men
Speaker 1: that I yeah, that I find kind of hopeful. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's a good point because in our
Speaker 1: cultural moment, everything feels like the worst that it's ever been.
Speaker 1: But you just go back five years, ten years, fifteen years,
Speaker 1: a hundred years, and there is a steady movement toward
Speaker 1: progress and undoing toxic qualities in all ways, And I
Speaker 1: think we have to sometimes stop and value that we
Speaker 1: are making progress because it's so easy to see these
Speaker 1: individual things happen day by day, and I think in
Speaker 1: some ways things are getting worse than they were five
Speaker 1: years ago. But but generally, by and by we're kind
Speaker 1: of you went okay, which is you know, you know anyone.
Speaker 1: But there's always a backlash, right, so that's that they
Speaker 1: took hard against I mean, there's always Yeah. I'm working
Speaker 1: on a series about Hollywood history, and in it we
Speaker 1: do an episode about Errol Flynn who was like an awful,
Speaker 1: awful person, you know, treated women terribly, was accused of people,
Speaker 1: and you know sort of like lived in a thirties
Speaker 1: and forties era of very toxic masculinity. But then he
Speaker 1: like hung around for a long time, and you know
Speaker 1: when the fifties and sixties was like still kind of
Speaker 1: like hanging around and hadn't been quote unquote canceled in
Speaker 1: any sort of hangful way. But the thing that I
Speaker 1: realized from there was that like every generation of men
Speaker 1: can tell themselves that, you know, they're put upon and
Speaker 1: that they don't have it as good as the as
Speaker 1: the boys from the who were ten years older, who
Speaker 1: could have you know, were boys ten years ago. Boys
Speaker 1: could just be boys, and now we have to put
Speaker 1: you know, deal with all this bs. And that's like,
Speaker 1: that's the most consistent thing is that men feel aggrieved
Speaker 1: and put upon, and then they just get to act
Speaker 1: however they want to act. Exactly if you're a victim,
Speaker 1: than anything you do is a retaliatory right. You can
Speaker 1: do anything if you Yeah, yeah, I think there's a
Speaker 1: built in fragility to a lot of the structures of
Speaker 1: masculinity that men are kind of taught to just yeah there.
Speaker 1: There's an interesting quote in the article when they talk
Speaker 1: about like a manifesto from the thirties and the author
Speaker 1: of the manifesto Bovoir, Jaqueline Bovoi, but writing that the
Speaker 1: most mediocre of males feels himself a demi god demigod
Speaker 1: as compared with women, and just that like to to
Speaker 1: actually go around believing that on a day to day
Speaker 1: basis and be coming into contact with evidence that it
Speaker 1: wasn't true constantly like and then just having to double
Speaker 1: down like that, it makes sense to me that there
Speaker 1: would be some damage, some baggage from those structures. That's that, though.
Speaker 1: I think something has has genuinely changed in the last
Speaker 1: five eight years or so, which is the appetite for
Speaker 1: mediocrity I think is no longer there and people just
Speaker 1: wanting to call it out, see through it, you know,
Speaker 1: not accepted for themselves. You know, obviously there will always
Speaker 1: be people who, especially white males, who fail up and
Speaker 1: kind of scirped by and slough off off hard work.
Speaker 1: But I do really think that that has genuinely shifted
Speaker 1: in some in some meaningful way. I think it's definitely shifting.
Speaker 1: But I think at least part of what we're seeing
Speaker 1: with this kind of the some of the struggles that
Speaker 1: we're seeing are echoes and you know, past generations still
Speaker 1: being around and you know, educating, and yeah, so I
Speaker 1: think i'll just say really quick that if you guys
Speaker 1: are interested in this topic, we did we put our
Speaker 1: heart and soul into an episode called Men's Rights of
Speaker 1: American Hysteria, and it really looks at the whole movement
Speaker 1: of men's rights starting back in the seventies up until
Speaker 1: the modern day and try to take not an impartial
Speaker 1: look because we can't do that, but you know, just
Speaker 1: really try to understand sort of the emotions and and
Speaker 1: uh thinking behind that movement through the decades. We will
Speaker 1: link off to that in the foot notes. But that
Speaker 1: sounds wonderful. Also, you just did an episode about how
Speaker 1: high school students used to have to swim in the nude.
Speaker 1: We did not not really related to this subject, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it was up until the seventies, many many,
Speaker 1: many public high schools boys swam naked and that was
Speaker 1: just totally normal and it has to do with hygiene
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But we actually interview Robin Washington who's
Speaker 1: a reporter and uh, someone who had to swim naked
Speaker 1: in high school and he gave us belowdown and yeah,
Speaker 1: lawsuit city, that's what he calls it. Now, all right,
Speaker 1: let's talk really briefly. So the Biden White House is
Speaker 1: going to let the coronavirus Public Health Emergency expire in May,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, around five hundred people and they
Speaker 1: are still dying of COVID's currently become a top ten
Speaker 1: leading cause of death among children, and imagining this was
Speaker 1: a decision made in consultation with public health experts. But
Speaker 1: it seems at least the narrative that's being portrayed in
Speaker 1: the media is that is being motivated by political maneuvering.
Speaker 1: The Republican House, i believe, was about to introduce a
Speaker 1: bill called the Pandemic Is Overact, which we don't Pandemic
Speaker 1: is Overact is there's just gonna be a fuck you
Speaker 1: Joe Biden Act at some point like right there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then he did it and they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's what we're gonna say to do. So it's
Speaker 1: good to see that he's taken our lead. And there's
Speaker 1: just a bunch of you know, pissing contests happening. But
Speaker 1: one of the major changes that could come about as
Speaker 1: the result of ending the state of emergency would be
Speaker 1: the end terminating Title forty two, the public health measure
Speaker 1: that has limited the inflow of migrants at the border.
Speaker 1: But of course the Republicans are in favor of keeping
Speaker 1: Title forty two restrictions and arguing Title forty two is
Speaker 1: not tied to the PhD. So I don't know he's Biden, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: is attempting to controversially expand the powers of Title forty two,
Speaker 1: So he's It just seems this is kind of what
Speaker 1: I had in mind when I heard that he was
Speaker 1: going to, like from his strategists that look for a
Speaker 1: pivot to the center coming in the second half of
Speaker 1: his term after after the mid terms, because this logic
Speaker 1: that said that both you know, we we after the
Speaker 1: day after the mid terms, we were like, wow, like,
Speaker 1: how are they going to cover or failed to cover
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, Fetterman one and you know,
Speaker 1: beat somebody who was like more of a mainstream Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate and like was kind of a big d NC
Speaker 1: hopeful and then and Connor Lamb and then defeated you know,
Speaker 1: a very well funded candidate that had the entire power
Speaker 1: of Trump and Mega behind him, Like, how do they
Speaker 1: cover that without being like, it seems like there might
Speaker 1: be a genuine appetite for left of Democrat policies, and
Speaker 1: they've just kind of, I don't know, declaring that the
Speaker 1: pandemic has moved to a different phase should not be
Speaker 1: related to these conversations, right, It should not be a
Speaker 1: political act. It should not pull in all of these
Speaker 1: other things. I mean, there's plenty of other places you
Speaker 1: can point to the Biden administration and be like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see, you know what if we're going
Speaker 1: to see their true centrist instincts revealed here, But like
Speaker 1: this is, you know, another example to me of just
Speaker 1: kind of like how much the well was poisoned, especially
Speaker 1: with the pandemic and politicized and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so strange to me that every conversation about the
Speaker 1: pandemic doesn't start with the simple fact that like Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was president when it first happened, and that cast
Speaker 1: a die that we're still living with, and that everything
Speaker 1: is politicized as a result, because this was a man
Speaker 1: who from the very beginning saw no other incentive, but
Speaker 1: to politicize, you know, it's like day two of the
Speaker 1: guy was like, oh, well, if we just don't count
Speaker 1: the cases, that there won't be any cases, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like so and you know, so then to
Speaker 1: like criticize or look for political positioning within decisions in
Speaker 1: the content. I mean, it's just so we're just so
Speaker 1: far around the bend on making sensible, reasonable decisions around
Speaker 1: around COVID is like it is so dispiriting, but like,
Speaker 1: the pandemic is in a different place than it was
Speaker 1: a year ago, six months or like we know that,
Speaker 1: we see that, and so like I would be open
Speaker 1: to the idea that the pandemic emergency might be over,
Speaker 1: but it's we're just so lost at sea in terms
Speaker 1: of being able to really evaluate things like that without
Speaker 1: it completely getting screwed up in all the all the
Speaker 1: ways we're describing. Yeah, I do feel like the timing
Speaker 1: is unfortunate, but yeah, well we'll be keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on it to see how consistent this pivot to the
Speaker 1: center is. But yeah, I don't, I don't know. Here.
Speaker 1: Hearing that that was their takeaway from the mid terms
Speaker 1: was pretty pretty frustrating to me. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll be curious to see how much, you know, the
Speaker 1: Santis is gonna go all in or at least half
Speaker 1: in on like a bunch of sort of pandemic related
Speaker 1: grievance stuff. And I'm curious to see what the salides
Speaker 1: of that is. You know. I wonder if he's out
Speaker 1: there a year from now just railing against masks, whether
Speaker 1: people are just gonna be like, yeah, like really like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I got angry about that and Summer twenty,
Speaker 1: but like, I don't know, I'd be curious. We were
Speaker 1: talking about how like there isn't that much like content
Speaker 1: that really resonates with people about the pandemic at this point.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. It seems like people are just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've we were moving along and don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about that anymore. I don't know if that will apply
Speaker 1: to them being still furious that they ever had to
Speaker 1: wear a mask in publix or whatever, But we'll see.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk subtitles. And we're back and our writer
Speaker 1: jam is pointing out this trend that I wasn't really
Speaker 1: fully aware of. I thought I thought we were all
Speaker 1: doing this, but apparently the media has decided that gen
Speaker 1: Z just loves watching shows with subtitles, So there's a
Speaker 1: headline gen Z more likely to use captions when viewing
Speaker 1: video content. Young people watch TV with subtitles more than
Speaker 1: older viewers. Surveys says, that's a local Fox story. Why
Speaker 1: do younger generations love subtitles? So people have you know,
Speaker 1: done studies on this, because it makes you know, the
Speaker 1: streaming content makes money, and it's makes a ton of sense,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't just apply to gen Z. The main
Speaker 1: reason young people use subtitles and reason I use subtitles
Speaker 1: is muddled audio. The they've actually changed where the speakers
Speaker 1: are located on TVs. There they used to have front
Speaker 1: facing speakers and now they have them facing the wall
Speaker 1: behind the flat screens, so the whole front of the
Speaker 1: TV can just be uh screen essentially. Accents that are
Speaker 1: difficult to understand was also an explanation that was given.
Speaker 1: And then not wanting to disturb roommates or family, which
Speaker 1: ties into yeah, it's it's politeness and the fact that
Speaker 1: younger people especially are suffering from an incredibly out of
Speaker 1: control housing and real estate market and yet they're still polite, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: but in terms of understanding accents. With streaming, people are
Speaker 1: now able to watch more international shows than ever before,
Speaker 1: so that probably makes sense. And also actors give more
Speaker 1: naturalistic performances than ever before, which you know, I always
Speaker 1: what I would like. I had a bias against black
Speaker 1: and white movies for a long time because when I
Speaker 1: would watch the performances and everyone would talk and clicked
Speaker 1: ways that seemed like they were like an announcer for
Speaker 1: something instead of trying to pretend to be an actual human.
Speaker 1: But they enunciated the hell out of what they were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, like they that mid Atlantic accent. Really it's
Speaker 1: not subtle. And then there's also like a a trend
Speaker 1: in sound mixers to mix the widest surround sound available
Speaker 1: and have a dynamic rain, so like big sounds are
Speaker 1: very big and quiet sounds are very quiet, which is
Speaker 1: you know, designed with a movie theater in mind, but
Speaker 1: not necessarily at home. That's part of what I was
Speaker 1: thinking about that. You know, I think this is a
Speaker 1: pre pandemic thing, for sure, but the pandemic like accelerated
Speaker 1: so many trends. But I said, you know, what percentage
Speaker 1: of movies that we would normally have watched in a
Speaker 1: theater where it was completely silent, perfect sound system, no distractions,
Speaker 1: no worry of bothering our neighbors. We're now doing a
Speaker 1: significant percentage of that at home, where all these other
Speaker 1: factors are coming into play, and so maybe that's just
Speaker 1: a level part of it. And like before, I mean
Speaker 1: way before, when I was a child and watching a
Speaker 1: movie at home, it was either a VHS tape or
Speaker 1: it was something that had that was like being broadcast
Speaker 1: on television. It was like you know that there was
Speaker 1: attention being paid to how it was being distributed, right,
Speaker 1: and like they were doing a mix specifically for those
Speaker 1: formats presumably, whereas like streaming is like you know, you're
Speaker 1: getting it and it's having to be delivered to you
Speaker 1: and probably compressed to get two like where you're where
Speaker 1: you're able to watch it, and so like some of
Speaker 1: the quality is being diminished, like in the same way
Speaker 1: that you know when when you take a video and
Speaker 1: text it, sometimes it is the size of a postage
Speaker 1: stamp and you're like, oh, ship, that is unintelligible. You know,
Speaker 1: movies are having to deal with similar things based on
Speaker 1: like a thousand different types of streaming devices that they're
Speaker 1: being distributed to, and so it just it feels like
Speaker 1: it's it's harder to control things like that. And then
Speaker 1: we didn't even have like the option to have subtitles before,
Speaker 1: Like with VHS tapes, there was no I don't think
Speaker 1: anyway that there was any way to turn those on,
Speaker 1: and you definitely couldn't do that. And even on TV
Speaker 1: it was like they weren't good, the subtitles were. They
Speaker 1: didn't do a good job. The one thing I'll say
Speaker 1: about subtitles that I dislike is that once in a
Speaker 1: while it will ruin the scene because it will come
Speaker 1: like before some take reveal and you're like, oh, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I can't do it on comedies because yeah, it ruins
Speaker 1: the timing of the of the joke. For the most
Speaker 1: it works the other way too, though, where if you're
Speaker 1: you know, like a lot of us, if you're half
Speaker 1: distracted looking at something else or whatever, you can you
Speaker 1: can hear a line be like, oh that was notable
Speaker 1: or whatever, look up quickly and still catch the lingering
Speaker 1: suffer at all. So you know, that's a movement that
Speaker 1: I have to assume is out there but you know,
Speaker 1: because I think that's how like closed captioning works, Like
Speaker 1: on a live TV brought like a live sporting event,
Speaker 1: if you have the close captions on, they're coming up,
Speaker 1: you know, three to five seconds after the words are
Speaker 1: spoken by the commentator, like something in between that and
Speaker 1: where we have it now where a lot of times
Speaker 1: they're coming up before the words are spoken, Like it
Speaker 1: should be either immediate as they're being spoken, or you know,
Speaker 1: like a second delay so you can look up and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not you're you're not distracted by knowing what happened
Speaker 1: ahead of time. I mean, this is this This This
Speaker 1: is where I'm like, why hasn't someone sort of played
Speaker 1: with this phenomenon. They know that so many people are
Speaker 1: doing this, why not you know, mess with the subtitles
Speaker 1: or or be more artful in them and know that like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the close captioning needs to be timed a little better
Speaker 1: and we need to actually recognize how people are watching.
Speaker 1: And conversely, like you mentioned, one of the main reasons
Speaker 1: for this is, oh, they're mixing the movies differently, or
Speaker 1: oh they put the speakers in a different part of TV.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, I still don't understand why why are
Speaker 1: they mixing the movies that that you can't hear them?
Speaker 1: Why do they like your job as a mixer to
Speaker 1: get people to hear What's like, that's your job, right,
Speaker 1: Your job as a TV MANU speaker manufacturer is to
Speaker 1: make speakers that people can hear, Like I still or
Speaker 1: something like, yeah, and is it that? Is it that
Speaker 1: the people who are making these and doing the like
Speaker 1: final quality control check are still watching it in a
Speaker 1: totally silent room where they're paying a percent attention, So
Speaker 1: they're just like not envisioning the real use case in
Speaker 1: which is happening. But then I'm like, that's literally your
Speaker 1: job is to know that, like it's going out into
Speaker 1: the world and people are gonna use it in this
Speaker 1: worst I just don't understand. People seem to just like
Speaker 1: slough off this thing. I'm like, well, it's mixed differently
Speaker 1: or whatever, and it's like, well, that's not my fault. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've noticed that it happened on HBO stuff a lot.
Speaker 1: I noticed that happening on Fleshman Is in Trouble when
Speaker 1: I was just watching that on Hulu. Apparently there was
Speaker 1: like a big spoiler in the Mandalorian that like gave
Speaker 1: away some piece of information. I haven't watched that show,
Speaker 1: but like give away some pieces of information of like
Speaker 1: who someone is because they set a line and it's
Speaker 1: their name who was saying it, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be a reveal that happened later
Speaker 1: in the scene. Right, So yeah, it does seem like
Speaker 1: there's just I mean, I think this is a problem
Speaker 1: that is probably under rated. Is just there's two much
Speaker 1: content like that. It's the biggest problem with like social
Speaker 1: media too. There's just like too much content too like
Speaker 1: efficiently and effectively moderate, right, And when it comes to
Speaker 1: streaming content, it's like there's too many different versions of
Speaker 1: this going out to too many different devices and like
Speaker 1: at too many different internet speeds, you know, to this
Speaker 1: has been a known problem for a while. I just yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think it's like they sure to figured something
Speaker 1: out at this point. Yeah, and especially because there's so
Speaker 1: obviously we have articles written about how popular subtitles are
Speaker 1: to go back to that, it's like, I feel like
Speaker 1: this is a good job creator. Just have somebody really
Speaker 1: who knows what they're do. Wing timing could be great.
Speaker 1: I don't know it just feels like really weird that
Speaker 1: they're not putting any money towards this because they also
Speaker 1: get screwed up a lot. Does that happen to you guys,
Speaker 1: where it's like if you pause it and started again,
Speaker 1: then they're totally screwed up and there's just no tim yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they're like, okay, great, it's this is from
Speaker 1: ten seconds ago and or ten seconds ahead and talk
Speaker 1: about ruining things. I mean, it's similar to the whole
Speaker 1: like darkness conversation right with prestige TV and movies wherever
Speaker 1: it's too dark and you know, the same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: It's like you get this response where it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, because the best TVs now can show the
Speaker 1: darkest stuff. It's like, well, no one very If the
Speaker 1: majority of people don't have the best TV, then like
Speaker 1: you should make your shows different and more accommodating. And
Speaker 1: you know when that whatever it was, that that House
Speaker 1: of Dragon episode that was literally unwatchable to me because
Speaker 1: it was so dark. I was like, I couldn't read
Speaker 1: that as anything but an aggressive act on the part
Speaker 1: of the film. It was like, you know that this
Speaker 1: is an issue for people, and you still was to
Speaker 1: do this, I was like, pretty I think it stopped
Speaker 1: watching the show at that point. At the same time,
Speaker 1: would you be, like Christopher Nolan, like you need to
Speaker 1: start making decisions based on the fact that I'm watching
Speaker 1: your movie on an iPhone. You know, there's gotta be
Speaker 1: a middle ground. Maybe, Yeah, there's gotta be a middle ground.
Speaker 1: There's gotta be a middle ground, yeah, or like be
Speaker 1: or like be okay with people saying I'm not going
Speaker 1: to watch your movie because it's too frustrating to watch
Speaker 1: and just like have us you know. But I think
Speaker 1: often it's it's made to feel like it's my fault
Speaker 1: for not having the best TV or watching you know,
Speaker 1: in a certain way or whatever. Yeah, Victim think all right,
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of minutes here, Jody, do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about your show Good Sport and what
Speaker 1: what what happens in the show? Well, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's called good Sport. It's from Ted uh and
Speaker 1: Push Skin has helped make it as well. But it's
Speaker 1: it's an eight part show. It's about kind of like
Speaker 1: exploring a bunch of interesting questions that I've had that
Speaker 1: I feel like sports can help understand and sort of like,
Speaker 1: over the course of making it, it became, I think,
Speaker 1: in a way, like an argument that sports is a
Speaker 1: really good way to understand the world. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: you know, we do episodes about like why stadium deals
Speaker 1: are always such boondoggles, but really it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: well because they reflect what's so messy about democracy to
Speaker 1: begin with. And we talk about getting in the zone,
Speaker 1: you know, and how that mental mental toughness can really
Speaker 1: make the difference between winning and losing, and obviously that
Speaker 1: has parallels for the rest of our lives, and so
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, I say this, I say this
Speaker 1: in the first episode, but kind of a lot of
Speaker 1: the big lessons that I've learned in life I've learned
Speaker 1: through sports, through playing sports and watching sports and just
Speaker 1: sort of being involved in sports. And I just kind
Speaker 1: of like, in a weird way, I feel like the
Speaker 1: show is a bit of a defensive of sports as
Speaker 1: a way to kind of organize and learn about the world.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's eight episodes and sort of narrative. It's
Speaker 1: like very there's some essayistic stuff in there. I kind
Speaker 1: of I'm a little more voicy and personal than than
Speaker 1: I have been in some other of my projects, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think I've always made I've done a
Speaker 1: bunch of sports stuff before, and it's usually like barely
Speaker 1: about sports, right, It's usually about other stuff. I think
Speaker 1: there's actually, over the course of eight episodes, there's I
Speaker 1: think it's literally forty seconds of actually describing sports being played,
Speaker 1: and the rest is just kind of like using sports
Speaker 1: as a as a way to explore some ideas. But
Speaker 1: I'm happy with it. I'm talking about the zones. Does
Speaker 1: the sort of distracting yourself thing that we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier with Yeah, I was thinking and talking because
Speaker 1: like I remember reading somewhere that you know, humming tears,
Speaker 1: humming orself a song or something is like one of
Speaker 1: the ways that with with one picture, doc ellis taking LSD,
Speaker 1: which recommend but it got him to pigeone hitter. We
Speaker 1: talked about that very explicitly, and I actually when in
Speaker 1: that episode talk about how whenever I've played sports, I
Speaker 1: have like this little running song that goes through my
Speaker 1: head over and over and it's like, if you if
Speaker 1: you like, we're to walk onto like a soccer field
Speaker 1: during the mid off, like a big game, and close
Speaker 1: your eyes and just listen it would sound like one
Speaker 1: person is muttering to themselves, one person is humming to themselves.
Speaker 1: Other people are having like a monocuous conversation, another person's
Speaker 1: like fiddling with there. It's you know, everyone's got there,
Speaker 1: just little and and and a big part of it
Speaker 1: is that when you keep your mind occupied but not
Speaker 1: either too high or too low, but just sort of
Speaker 1: at that neutral occupied state, then you're letting you Then
Speaker 1: you're priming yourself to sort of enter that that zone,
Speaker 1: that flow state, and so forth and so not been
Speaker 1: ruined sports like overthinking. That's what choking comes from, this
Speaker 1: total thinking about the thing that their body naturally does.
Speaker 1: Like that, I think I agree, Like that's a great
Speaker 1: metaphor for just like getting out of your own way
Speaker 1: and like the power of the unconscious mind versus the
Speaker 1: conscious minds, Like don't like overrated your conscious mind and
Speaker 1: underrated like get get out of your your unconscious mind's way.
Speaker 1: It's like mor ingy this thing you you realize, and
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the irony of it is like
Speaker 1: there is so much thinking being done around the zone,
Speaker 1: which is basically we do all this thinking and all
Speaker 1: this work to get to a point where hopefully we
Speaker 1: just turn our brains off and and just play your
Speaker 1: perform and feel and stop thinking. Right, But it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of mental work. Yeah, it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of mental work and focus to get to that unfocused place.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I've loved talking about that stuff, thinking
Speaker 1: about that stuff, and it was nice to be able
Speaker 1: to do an episode about that and sort of get
Speaker 1: into it. But yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, this podcast sounds great.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. And uh, well, if we're in plugging Bote,
Speaker 1: I do have a live event February eight, which is
Speaker 1: the day the first episode comes out at the Bellhouse
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, And I'd love for people to people to
Speaker 1: come by great where where can people where else can
Speaker 1: people find you and follow you? I mean that show
Speaker 1: good Sport is gonna be wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: And then I do this political history show called This
Speaker 1: Day in Political History that's through Radiotopia, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: wherever you get us, so you'll find me, you'll find me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You just had a great episode on Christmas with yesterday's
Speaker 1: guest man. Guest Oh yeah, about about Nancy Reagan's and
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan's dabbling with astrology. We did a whole episode
Speaker 1: about that too. I know. Well, Chelsea, yeah, this is money.
Speaker 1: This is the excuse to finally actually have you know,
Speaker 1: make the connection here. You know, I'd love to have
Speaker 1: you on at some point. Oh my god, I love it. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is so fantastic. Yeah, Jody, is there a tweet
Speaker 1: or work of media you've been enjoying? Oh? I saw it. Actually,
Speaker 1: I did see a tweet the other day which is
Speaker 1: related to good sport. You know, kind of been thinking
Speaker 1: about kind of like how people view sports and how
Speaker 1: it's just sort of like weirdly acceptable that like some
Speaker 1: people are just like I don't care about sports. I
Speaker 1: don't think it matters. It's like that's always been very
Speaker 1: strange to me, Like you don't have to play sports,
Speaker 1: you have to love sports, but to just sort of
Speaker 1: just people don't say, like I don't think music is important, right,
Speaker 1: it's just and but for some reason people say that
Speaker 1: about But anyway, so the morning that the Oscars were
Speaker 1: getting announced and Twitter was like sort of chattering about that.
Speaker 1: I saw someone right a tweet that I think was, oh,
Speaker 1: did a movie's ball happen? Which is just such a
Speaker 1: nice inversion of what a lot of people do when
Speaker 1: there's a big sporting event going on, just being like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't care about sports, like this performative, like, well,
Speaker 1: what's happening? So someone just oh, did a movie's ball happening? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that tweet? Love that Chelsea. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you? Follow you all that good stuff? Um? You
Speaker 1: can find me mostly on Instagram. I kind of have
Speaker 1: stepped away from Twitter so that I can survive my life.
Speaker 1: But at American Hysterio podcast on Instagram and then at
Speaker 1: a mayor Hysteria on Twitter. We're on there sometimes, h
Speaker 1: for sure, but I tend to be more on Instagram.
Speaker 1: There you and is there a tweet or work of
Speaker 1: media that you've been enjoying. Yes, but I feel guilty
Speaker 1: because I didn't write down who tweeted it, So I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but it is doctor. Congrats on the new baby.
Speaker 1: What are you going to name him? Newt Gingrich's mom
Speaker 1: Newt Gingrich. Yeah, that was a decision that was made
Speaker 1: at some point. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Jack Underscore O'Brien, uh tweet I've been enjoying. Chase Rano
Speaker 1: tweeted horrible news and it was like a from the
Speaker 1: Mexican Delegation Office of the Press Secretary statement by Chase
Speaker 1: Rano regarding an embarrassing thing. It is with great disappointment
Speaker 1: and remorse that I admit the following. I ate Arby's today.
Speaker 1: We're still I ate it at ten thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why eating Arby's while the Price is
Speaker 1: Right is airing on television makes it worse than eating
Speaker 1: Arby's after the Price is Right has already ended. I
Speaker 1: just know that it does. I apologize. I apologize to
Speaker 1: my family and to my friends, and to anyone else
Speaker 1: affected by this news. I have to do better. I
Speaker 1: will do better. Please pray for my soul. I think
Speaker 1: it's fine, but to eat Arby's while the Price is
Speaker 1: Right is still on. But you know, we all deal
Speaker 1: with these things in our own way. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily
Speaker 1: Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and
Speaker 1: a website, Daily Zigeist dot com, where we post our
Speaker 1: episodes and our footnotes. We lick off to the information
Speaker 1: that we talked about in today's episode, as well as
Speaker 1: a song that we think you might enjoy. Super producer justin.
Speaker 1: Do you have a song that you think people might enjoy?
Speaker 1: I do um. This is a track from an artist
Speaker 1: Charlotte Do Santos that's called red Clay. Such a good track.
Speaker 1: The vocals on this are top quality, the songwriting is amazing.
Speaker 1: If you want to feel like you are transported into
Speaker 1: like a smokey jazz lounge in the UK or something
Speaker 1: like that, yeah, throw this track on. That's Charlotte Do Santos,
Speaker 1: Red Clay and you can find that song and the
Speaker 1: footnotes foot notes. The Daily sit Gays is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to
Speaker 1: do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to
Speaker 1: tell you what is trending and we will talk to
Speaker 1: y'all then. Height M.