Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season to eighty five,
Speaker 1: Episode five of.
Speaker 2: Dirtily's Eye Geist Day production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This is the podcast where we take a deep dab
Speaker 1: into America share consciousness. And it is Friday, May fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three Miles May the fifth.
Speaker 2: Be with the yes, yes, no, you messed that one up. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean for a lot of people who are like
Speaker 2: just sort of broad cultural holiday, they're Sinkle to Mile.
Speaker 2: Also National Astronaut Day, also African World Heritage Day.
Speaker 1: Day, Yeah, right, because they don't get enough credit. They're
Speaker 1: not out there doing the hard work of rocketing into space.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we just don't put enough attention, no putting
Speaker 2: on that job, putting their bone density on the line
Speaker 2: by being up in zero gravity. It's also National Space
Speaker 2: Day as well, International Day of the Midwife, National Cartoonist Day, National.
Speaker 1: Hogi Day, Hogie Days by Hagy you gottas to get
Speaker 1: a Hagy school lunch.
Speaker 2: Hero Day, which I'm not sure what that is, but
Speaker 2: it's probably one of the like we'll talk about this
Speaker 2: where we just have a day to recognize a very
Speaker 2: important position in our society. And then y and then
Speaker 2: that's this one day but don't ask about it.
Speaker 1: Lunch hero sounds like one that deserves the day, because
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it is necessarily unless it's
Speaker 1: a hero that you get for, like.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's basically people who work in school cafeterias. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: see that's great. Astronauts. I feel like we're good.
Speaker 1: I feel like astronaut every day is National Astronaut Day, and.
Speaker 2: They're getting there. They're getting there, so yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: But anyways, my name's Jack O'Brien aka. Why are there
Speaker 1: so many songs by wopple House? Let's give someone else
Speaker 1: a try. He's a great poster, he has.
Speaker 2: His own podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's a really good guy. But I've heard
Speaker 1: him too many times to ignore it. There's something that
Speaker 1: I really need. Someday I'll hear it on the day.
Speaker 2: Le Zeitgeist an.
Speaker 1: Ak A written by me that is courtesy of right
Speaker 1: to post. He's exercised his right to post that AKA
Speaker 1: multiple times across the years, so figured might as well.
Speaker 2: Give it up to the end.
Speaker 1: Got to give him his it is national right to
Speaker 1: post to day as well.
Speaker 2: You heard it?
Speaker 1: An AKA written by you, sir, bobble House. Still still
Speaker 1: the King. I'm thrilled to be joined as always by
Speaker 1: my co host.
Speaker 2: Mister Miles Gray. It's like Gray, are you waiting day?
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that because it's raining right now now
Speaker 2: and I had nothing else to say. Also, as your
Speaker 2: boy Kusama the Black Andese experimental artist, thank you so much,
Speaker 2: Jack for having me again. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: We're back out here, so nice to have you. Miles,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for having me. Yes, absolutely well.
Speaker 1: We are thrilled to be joined by an award winning writer, photographer,
Speaker 1: podcast host, editor, whose podcast ten Thousand Things just launched
Speaker 1: its second season with a great episode about names.
Speaker 2: We talked about names yesterday. So baby names, Yeah, board,
Speaker 2: baby names.
Speaker 1: Please welcome to this show.
Speaker 2: It's shit y piey Hi.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great to have you. Thank you for being here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also a fantastic poet and don't you know it? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got We're just classing up the joint today with
Speaker 2: our guest. How are you in Seattle? Correct? Are you? Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm in Seattle, Washington.
Speaker 2: How's the how's the weather up there? What do you
Speaker 2: what are you looking at up there?
Speaker 3: Today? It's really overcast and rainy, and I will be
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night because like the roof
Speaker 3: is just getting pelted with what sounded like hale. It
Speaker 3: was like really heavy rain last night.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, big lover, big supporter of rain because we
Speaker 2: don't get it much down here. But yeah, kind say,
Speaker 2: I woke up.
Speaker 1: To my kids saying, our closet. It's raining in our closet.
Speaker 2: So that was good. Wait, what happened that there's a latch.
Speaker 1: There's like a latch that pops off into the roof
Speaker 1: and it just blows open sometimes, and so it was
Speaker 1: just open all night while it was raining into my
Speaker 1: kid's bedroom.
Speaker 2: Oh so there was quite literally it was raining into
Speaker 2: the closet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was raining into their closet.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love it when you got a handyman like me
Speaker 1: around the house. It doesn't really things like this tend
Speaker 1: to happen.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I'm surprised that Scotch tape didn't hold up.
Speaker 1: Right, you put on there, chingy, your your new podcast,
Speaker 1: or it's not new, it's the second season, but it
Speaker 1: has a new name.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, exactly, And.
Speaker 1: You just did a brilliant episode about names.
Speaker 2: We were talking baby.
Speaker 1: Names yesterday, and how the internet, how social media is,
Speaker 1: how there are now baby name influencers. If you came
Speaker 1: across that during the course of your research.
Speaker 2: Your episode was very.
Speaker 1: Thoughtful and you know, a level up from what we
Speaker 1: do here. But I'm not sure if you came across
Speaker 1: any baby name influencers during your research.
Speaker 3: No, I did not come aros making influencers. I was
Speaker 3: more looking for stories of I think people who had
Speaker 3: made very intentional name change choices and that had been
Speaker 3: transformative to their identities.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, because you said you were you were named
Speaker 2: after Doris Day.
Speaker 3: Really, yes, yes, that's right. My father loved Hollywood movies
Speaker 3: and he felt like Doris Day was virginal and wholesome
Speaker 3: and all American. So that's how I got my birth name.
Speaker 2: Wow, got it, got it? Got it? Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: funny too. My mom's Japanese and when she when her
Speaker 2: and a lot of her friends immigrated here, they also
Speaker 2: had this idea of like, what are American names going
Speaker 2: to be? And like they my one mom best friend
Speaker 2: she was like, I like Stephanie. She kept it with Yoko.
Speaker 2: She came over. She's like, no, I'm mistake with Yoko.
Speaker 2: You know, I thought it would be Stephanie, and other
Speaker 2: ones are like Melanie. There's all like they had all
Speaker 2: the knee endings to it too. I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: you like a bit of a sing song your American name,
Speaker 2: and then you and then you went what was sort
Speaker 2: of like the decision to sort of cast aside Doris
Speaker 2: and then have Shinni beer name. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So for the first five years of my life, I
Speaker 3: actually went by my Chinese name, which is shin Yi.
Speaker 3: And then when I went off to kindergarten, I grew
Speaker 3: up and went to school in Riverside, California, specifically like Hygrove,
Speaker 3: which is like an unincorporated area between the Sammardina and
Speaker 3: Riverside County, so it's a very mixed race, frown in
Speaker 3: black working class community and having a Chinese name really
Speaker 3: marked me as being very different. And there was also,
Speaker 3: I think the challenge that people couldn't pronounce it correctly.
Speaker 3: So until I was five, i used Shiny, But after that,
Speaker 3: between the years of about five and I don't know,
Speaker 3: twenty two, I went by my American name just because
Speaker 3: it was something that people could pronounce and it allowed
Speaker 3: me to just fit in a little bit more easily.
Speaker 3: And then at the point where I had an opportunity
Speaker 3: to travel to my parents native land of Taiwan in
Speaker 3: my early twenties. When I came back, I felt like
Speaker 3: I had all these unresolved questions and sort of longings
Speaker 3: to better understand my cultural origins and my relationship to
Speaker 3: Taiwanese identity. And that's when I decided to reclaim my
Speaker 3: Taiwanese name, which had been given to me by one
Speaker 3: of my uncles. And it wasn't just like you know,
Speaker 3: a random pick from like a hat or something. It was,
Speaker 3: you know, he spent some time really doing some fortune
Speaker 3: telling and divination to look at, you know, the stars
Speaker 3: and the planets that were in the sky when I
Speaker 3: was born, and really picked this name that had, you know,
Speaker 3: certain qualities that were meant to kind of offset my temperament,
Speaker 3: I suppose, And so so for me, it's it's like
Speaker 3: a dharma name or a name of great significance in
Speaker 3: that when I used that name and when I carry it,
Speaker 3: it really summons forth these better qualities of myself that
Speaker 3: I hoped better awaken.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's interesting, because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are like oh that name suits you or it
Speaker 1: like fits your personality. The idea of like giving a
Speaker 1: name that offsets your personality is interesting and like very nuanced.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you got too much Stephanie and you,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna need to bring it down a little
Speaker 1: bit and give you something else. But you don't know
Speaker 1: if your uncle consulted a TikTok name baby name influencer
Speaker 1: when doing that divination, so we can't say for sure.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure he likes consulted the eating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, all right, Yeah that's wait. So and how
Speaker 2: does and I just don't like give me an understanding
Speaker 2: because you said your temperament, you come off as very
Speaker 2: calm and very you know, very like stable, Like, so
Speaker 2: what what is just so I can peer in a
Speaker 2: little bit, what is like sort of what's that balance
Speaker 2: of the energies and what is the name sort of
Speaker 2: doing so I can kind of understand that a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so shan Ye translates his happy treasure, and I
Speaker 3: feel like the poetic kind of you knowing of that
Speaker 3: is optimistic jewel and I have fairly strong negative pessimistic
Speaker 3: tendencies kind of like glass half full or empty kind
Speaker 3: of perspective and a lot of catastrophizing, and so I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the counter to that is really to kind
Speaker 3: of like invoke.
Speaker 2: The light wow answer, Okay, I need something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm right there. I'm right there with you with
Speaker 2: the glass half full, although it's slowly getting more or
Speaker 2: half empty, it's slowly becoming half full for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like your name to your name like
Speaker 1: fits your personality.
Speaker 2: Like well, and we were talking about this yesterday. I
Speaker 2: always wanted my name to be DJ DJ does the
Speaker 2: Dumbest and yeah, and I was like, I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I think for me though, too, being black and Japanese
Speaker 2: and being around a lot of white kids. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: I was named after Miles Davis and like a lot
Speaker 2: of kids like what the fuck is that? And I'm like,
Speaker 2: that's the coolest motherfucker ever. But also they're like, but
Speaker 2: like their kids named We're like, oh, this is the
Speaker 2: coolest kid. And I was like, man, I just want
Speaker 2: to be like that. But again, come around to really
Speaker 2: understand like why it's significant to your parents and your family,
Speaker 2: and then you're like, are you right? You know what?
Speaker 2: I got to embrace that, and yeah, and now it
Speaker 2: suits me for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think like DJ Jazzy Jeff's first name
Speaker 1: was DJ.
Speaker 2: I'm potentially like I for a while I thought people's
Speaker 2: name like even DJs were just like, oh DJ okay,
Speaker 2: cool cool.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Shaney, you were going to say something smart and
Speaker 1: I interrupted you and said something stupid.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 3: I will say that Miles Davis was the epitome of cool.
Speaker 3: So you had parents with like high taste.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was funny. The only person at
Speaker 2: my school when I was a kid, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I remember I think I said I didn't like my name,
Speaker 2: and I remember the school librarian shot out, miss Barkley.
Speaker 2: She was like, no, no, she was like she was
Speaker 2: one of those librarians who, like you knew, probably smoked
Speaker 2: wheed and like listen to jazz and shit, and that's
Speaker 2: why they're like they're around books all the time because
Speaker 2: they're like, I like, this is my vibe. She's like, no,
Speaker 2: Miles Davis. She's like she's she's like, who are you
Speaker 2: named after? Like Miles David, but no one knows who
Speaker 2: that is. It's like I know who that is, and
Speaker 2: I think it's really cool. And I was like, thank you,
Speaker 2: miss Parkley, just you helped me feel good in the library. Now.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, I felt like librarians were really important to
Speaker 3: my early sort of formative life, like just in terms
Speaker 3: of the resources and culture that they provided to children
Speaker 3: in a town like Riverside or High Grove, and yeah,
Speaker 3: they were kind of just like cultural agents that really
Speaker 3: opened up the world.
Speaker 2: For me truly. Yeah, because they're the kind of people
Speaker 2: who were like, oh, what are you into? And then
Speaker 2: they can sick they can get you into books, you know,
Speaker 2: and like for the longest time, I was like, we're
Speaker 2: the comics. It's like, well, what do you like? You
Speaker 2: like adventure stuff, you like something like this, Try this,
Speaker 2: try this. And I was like, Okay, I'm seeing the light.
Speaker 2: I'm becoming a little more literate now thanks to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, handpicked curation before a yeah yeah right, seriously, all right, Shane,
Speaker 3: you were going to get to know you a little
Speaker 3: bit better in a moment.
Speaker 1: First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of
Speaker 1: the things we're talking about, just the Harlan Crow hits
Speaker 1: Keep Coming sot.
Speaker 2: The Epstein ones.
Speaker 1: There was a like the Epstein papers, Larry Summers, that
Speaker 1: guy Heart former Harvard president was just like going out
Speaker 1: to dinner with him all the time. We're not going
Speaker 1: to talk about that. We are going to talk about
Speaker 1: the details of the Harlan Crowe paying for Clarence Thomas's
Speaker 1: kid's tuition. Hey, it's not my kid. Yeah, a kid
Speaker 1: he was raising as his son. And he was like, well,
Speaker 1: that was a gift to my son, not me. You know,
Speaker 1: otherwise my six year old would have paid his tuition.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the Proud
Speaker 1: Boys being found guilty of sedition a little little sedish.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Greg Guttfeld, the only the last late
Speaker 1: night show host standing because his writers are not part
Speaker 1: of the WGA, because he doesn't really have writers, because
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have jokes.
Speaker 2: But he is the second.
Speaker 1: Most popular late night comedy show going.
Speaker 2: So we'll look at his background.
Speaker 1: You'll be shocked to learn that his background is Maxim
Speaker 1: magazine and magazine. Ah, yes, the Height of Thought. Yes,
Speaker 1: all that plenty more. But first, SHINYI, we like to
Speaker 1: ask our guests, what is something from your search history?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I looked at my search history last night, and I
Speaker 3: was actually looking at event venues for a friend of
Speaker 3: mine who was hoping to produce like a public event
Speaker 3: in Seattle, and so I was just like pulling information
Speaker 3: for him about some of the venues in Seattle. For
Speaker 3: about twenty years, I was a public programs producer and
Speaker 3: curator and spent a lot of time in the public
Speaker 3: event space, working for organizations like Atlas Obscura and for
Speaker 3: different museum and cultural organizations. And so I was just
Speaker 3: pulling together that information for my friend and telling him
Speaker 3: I don't think that you should pay for the space.
Speaker 3: I think you should find a way to devise a
Speaker 3: pitch that makes you so mission aligned and just get
Speaker 3: the space.
Speaker 2: Nice. That sounds smart.
Speaker 1: That is the most serious search history I think we've
Speaker 1: ever had, like the most practical and like you're getting
Speaker 1: shit done search history that I can remember on that.
Speaker 2: Oh what am I doing. I'm helping friends do some
Speaker 2: things with an events, very cool and strategizing on how
Speaker 2: to minimize the cost for that. Wait, so what did
Speaker 2: you do with Atlas Obscura.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was like the head of the Seattle
Speaker 3: Obscure Society. So I basically established and grew their in
Speaker 3: real life presence in the Seattle market and produced events
Speaker 3: here for four years, but my role grew and expanded,
Speaker 3: so at the point where I was kind of finishing
Speaker 3: up my work with them in twenty twenty, I was
Speaker 3: actually overseeing our events programs in places like Philadelphia, San Francisco, LA,
Speaker 3: and Chicago DC.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh fantastic.
Speaker 1: You're also currently civic poet of Seattle. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: my introduction for you could have lasted forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: It feels like, oh these yes, these are these are plotteds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like all these art installations in background.
Speaker 2: It's really cool. Yeah, Dick driving just want to get
Speaker 2: your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't actually eat wheat. I'm gluten free, so
Speaker 3: I can't eat a burger and they won't customize your burger.
Speaker 3: So like, for instance, if you go there and you
Speaker 3: say I would like to let us wrap no bread,
Speaker 3: they won't do it that way. They only do it
Speaker 3: one way, which.
Speaker 1: Is like if you're a burger and wrap it like
Speaker 1: with the bread and wrap and lettuce.
Speaker 3: No, only make it one way. The fries are not bad.
Speaker 3: My son really loves them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh someone after my own heart. Yeah, people like I like,
Speaker 2: I love the fries there. I have a thing with
Speaker 2: that sort of texture of flock. Oh are they the mushy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're the Mushye they're not crispy, They're not krispy
Speaker 1: soft no potato sticks saturated in oil and green?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes? What is something you think is overrated?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about that. My mind could change
Speaker 3: on this. But I recently tried earlier this week of
Speaker 3: floating float tanks and sensory deprivation, and I had an
Speaker 3: interesting experience, I think, and I'm not quite sure how
Speaker 3: I feel about it as a as a practice that
Speaker 3: could be like relaxing or even like creative or contemplative.
Speaker 3: I was, I just had this really hard time relaxing,
Speaker 3: I think into just trusting that the float staff would
Speaker 3: tell me like when my hour was over, and they
Speaker 3: told me like they would play loud music, you know,
Speaker 3: like when the time was done. And I just kept
Speaker 3: waiting and waiting and the music didn't play, and I
Speaker 3: finally like climbed out of like the float tank and
Speaker 3: it was like an hour past the time and they
Speaker 3: hadn't played the music, And I think I was just
Speaker 3: also like when you're in the tank, you hear like
Speaker 3: this dull drone and I listened to like a lot
Speaker 3: of experimental music and then I was hearing what sounded
Speaker 3: like echoes, like a female voice, and so I was
Speaker 3: just I didn't even know what the music was like
Speaker 3: supposed to sound like. So I just got like really neurotic.
Speaker 3: And so it maybe more like, you know, I had
Speaker 3: an expectation and you know in that way, I I
Speaker 3: you know, I couldn't manage that properly. So it isn't
Speaker 3: really overrated, but I found it a little bit overrated, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because like in your mind half of the time that
Speaker 2: you thought spending to be sort of contemplative and like
Speaker 2: you know, still space, you were just sort of had
Speaker 2: like this anxiety about like do they know like when
Speaker 2: to play the music? And am I hearing it? And
Speaker 2: because I don't.
Speaker 1: Want you were correct, they just left you over time
Speaker 1: and then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they left me over time by four minutes. So
Speaker 3: like by the time I had I was just like
Speaker 3: this is like this is late. Maybe they forgot or
Speaker 3: like the music's broken. So I just like climbed in
Speaker 3: the shower and then they just started playing this really
Speaker 3: loud instrument instrumental music and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I get it, you know, right, there was like this
Speaker 3: other moment where I was like in the tank and
Speaker 3: you know, like you float around, and so there are
Speaker 3: these like buttons where you can access like the lights
Speaker 3: and the music, and you.
Speaker 2: Know, so well, I don't know anything about it, so
Speaker 2: please the stage. I know, Jack, you've done it right once.
Speaker 1: I did it once, I'll talk about my experience after.
Speaker 3: So it's like a giant salt water kind of bath
Speaker 3: design for like somebody who's the size of like an
Speaker 3: eight foot athlete, and they put like ninety four degree
Speaker 3: warm water in this bathtub thing, and they put like
Speaker 3: twenty bags of epsom salt in it and basically you
Speaker 3: float in it. And then there's some buttons on the
Speaker 3: side console where you can basically like turn on like
Speaker 3: the blue light or like you know, kind of like
Speaker 3: constellation style lights, and they recommend that you do it
Speaker 3: in the dark, and I was like really going hardcore.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, they wanted they said, you know,
Speaker 3: the best experience is if you do it in the dark.
Speaker 3: So I'm just gonna go for it, even though that
Speaker 3: might make me anxious. And so I didn't do it
Speaker 3: in the dark. And then there was this point where
Speaker 3: I wanted to turn on the lights and I couldn't
Speaker 3: find them because I kind of like floated off like
Speaker 3: towards the back or the side. And then I got
Speaker 3: like really really anxious and freaked out a little bit
Speaker 3: because then I'm like feeling around the panel and the
Speaker 3: sides and the seam of the thing, and it was
Speaker 3: just like me not being able to relax. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure if I went like a couple more times, it
Speaker 3: might be like a different experience. But it said to
Speaker 3: me a lot about like my need to like control
Speaker 3: and to know and like my challenge is around like surrendering.
Speaker 1: Right right, Yeah, for sure, it's It's there's definitely something
Speaker 1: unnerving about it, and if you have any claustrophobia, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't recommend it, or at least the one that I did,
Speaker 1: I did not have like the Constellation option or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Mine was just it was the closest I've
Speaker 1: ever come to time travel. Like I went in there,
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes and then the music started playing
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, what what just happened? And
Speaker 1: I went out and an hour had passed, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened other than I just like had
Speaker 1: the deepest sleep and like didn't realize I was even asleep.
Speaker 2: It was. It was really weird. It's like the.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a very positive experienced, I think so.
Speaker 1: But then I was like incredibly tired for like forty
Speaker 1: eight hours after that, So maybe it was just it
Speaker 1: reached a level of like relaxation that my body needed.
Speaker 1: But nice, what you're saying you're listening to, good for
Speaker 1: you today. You were listening to experimental music. You said
Speaker 1: that you're kind of into this experimental music or that
Speaker 1: was just part of what was playing in the float tank.
Speaker 3: No like in my in my life, I listened to
Speaker 3: like a lot of drone and experimental music. And I
Speaker 3: think actually the hum that was coming from the float
Speaker 3: tank was just kind of like the mechanism of like
Speaker 3: the machine itself. But I don't know, I hear music
Speaker 3: and a lot of things that just seem inherently musical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've even like I have a newborn and even
Speaker 2: the White Noise machine, like I hear like harmonics in
Speaker 2: the White Noise where I'm like, I was like my
Speaker 2: part was like, hey, I think the garbage truck is
Speaker 2: backing up, and it's like what I'm like, you don't
Speaker 2: hear that beeps, Like, no, it's the white noise machine.
Speaker 2: But it's just it's just weird how I'm the same way,
Speaker 2: like I can pick out a lot of sounds or
Speaker 2: there aren't. I don't know if that's also part of
Speaker 2: like my sort of being up like wound up sometimes
Speaker 2: and being in a state of like sort of like
Speaker 2: like threat assessment on occasion, but yes, yeah, I can.
Speaker 2: I can definitely. Uh, that resonated with me.
Speaker 1: Is there a particular like mechanical object or just a
Speaker 1: sound that you think makes really good music even though
Speaker 1: it's not actually music like a mechanical.
Speaker 3: Object, you know, Like I used to have this really
Speaker 3: cool like heating event in one of the apartments that
Speaker 3: I lived in, And when I could clean the heating
Speaker 3: event with like Q tips, because the dust would get
Speaker 3: like in the metal vents, it would make like these
Speaker 3: really wonderful like pinging noises and mmmmm yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: There are those radiators in New York City apartments and
Speaker 1: they make some of the strangest like little pinging and
Speaker 1: like weird noises because they're just chunks of metal that
Speaker 1: heat up. And that's how you like heat your apartment
Speaker 1: in New York City and like they make these weird sounds.
Speaker 2: Anyways, Wait, so shenew was album coming out Never with
Speaker 2: the Q tip? With the QTIPVN. Do you listen to
Speaker 2: Matt Most?
Speaker 3: I don't know who that is, No.
Speaker 2: Matt Most. They're like these producers who like would do
Speaker 2: like bro. I got into them because they did an
Speaker 2: album that was all just surgical sounds that they used
Speaker 2: to make an album with, and then like they worked
Speaker 2: with like B York and stuff like that. But they're
Speaker 2: they're kind of like in that world of like sort
Speaker 2: of audio sort of artists kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love to shout out a group here
Speaker 3: in Seattle called the Seattle Phonographers Union. So they are
Speaker 3: this like collective of composers who go around gathering found
Speaker 3: sounds from wherever and then they like play them back
Speaker 3: and live mix them in live performances, usually in like
Speaker 3: really weirdo places, like there's this abandoned or repurposed military
Speaker 3: airhannger in Magnuson Park in Seattle. And I hosted them
Speaker 3: once when I was working for Obscura in this place
Speaker 3: called the Georgetown steam Plant, which is this defunct steam
Speaker 3: plant that stopped operating like in the nineteen seventies or eighties,
Speaker 3: so they collected all these like steam plant like noises
Speaker 3: and then they played them live and.
Speaker 2: That was just is that The park that's like right
Speaker 2: on the water.
Speaker 3: Georgetownstein Plant is down by the Dwamish River in South Seattle,
Speaker 3: south of downtown, and it's owned by Seattle City Lights,
Speaker 3: and it's not operable, but it's this historic space that
Speaker 3: people do activate with like arts and music and dance
Speaker 3: and it's super cool if you come here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'll be sure to hit that up along
Speaker 2: with my Dick's driving fries. There you go.
Speaker 1: All right, you make Seattle sound very cool?
Speaker 2: It is it, dude, Seattle. I can't, honest I always
Speaker 2: I'll say this. I love Seattle like I had been
Speaker 2: once when I was really young, and I went recently
Speaker 2: in October, and I just love like how rich it's
Speaker 2: history and the muse. It's such a music I feel.
Speaker 2: It's like obviously people know about like the music that's
Speaker 2: come from Seattle, but when you're there, like seeing live
Speaker 2: music in Seattle. I was so blown away to the
Speaker 2: Sea Monster and I saw like a really good band
Speaker 2: there and like, and I was like, what's up with these?
Speaker 2: Like what band is this? They're like, oh, these are
Speaker 2: some locals who like to jam. And I'm like, this
Speaker 2: is like the best band I've heard, but they're just
Speaker 2: doing this for fun. Okay, yep, I'm here, I'm here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have wonderful musicians. Tomo Nakayama did the music
Speaker 3: for my podcast ten Thousand Things, and he's just like
Speaker 3: Seattle indie rock Darling that's been like touted by the
Speaker 3: New York Times. And we live in an incredible city
Speaker 3: of music and musicians and people who are so deeply
Speaker 3: invested in the arts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to hit that next tour, Jack, We've
Speaker 2: got to go there. Ever since I.
Speaker 1: Started this show, you've been talking to the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: calls to you, Miles.
Speaker 2: I as a just like urban concrete boy from North Hollywood, California.
Speaker 2: I fantasized about the forest as a kid, like I
Speaker 2: think a. It started with Endoor from Return of the Jedi. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I was like, wait, there's places where it's just
Speaker 2: trees like this, And then I remember I went to
Speaker 2: the Sequoias once. My grandfather took me to the Sequoias
Speaker 2: and I blew my mind. And then I've just I
Speaker 2: just have I don't know, a connection with like very
Speaker 2: wooded places and you know, cooler climates. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: love the love the Northwest.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: We'll come back.
Speaker 1: We'll do underrated and talk some news. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back and we're back and shiny. We like to ask
Speaker 1: our guests, what is something that you think is underrated?
Speaker 3: I think that running is underrated.
Speaker 2: I used to hear problems or.
Speaker 3: No, like long distance running, Oh okay on a trail, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, yes, fair enough. That's the kind
Speaker 2: of running. Jacks used to are you were you? Were
Speaker 2: you not running before? And you got into it and
Speaker 2: now you're like, wow, are you just sort of like
Speaker 2: a running advocate overall?
Speaker 3: I got into it during the pandemic. I used to
Speaker 3: be a swimmer, and then when the pandemic came in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, I just felt like I needed to take
Speaker 3: a break from it. So I just started running because
Speaker 3: I needed to be outdoors kind of just processing and
Speaker 3: moving around. And I run about three miles four times
Speaker 3: a week. And for me as like a creative person,
Speaker 3: as a writer, I feel like it's when some of
Speaker 3: my best ideas come to me, or like things that
Speaker 3: I'm trying to process, they somehow shake loose in a
Speaker 3: way in that time, and it's just like really beautiful
Speaker 3: self care time that I love for myself. And there
Speaker 3: was a time when I really hated running when I
Speaker 3: was a kid, Like I feel like it took me.
Speaker 3: It used to take me when I was like a
Speaker 3: young person, like fifteen minutes to like run a mile,
Speaker 3: and I just hated it, every part of running. And
Speaker 3: I grew up in southern California, where you don't really
Speaker 3: want to run in that heat anyways, But here it's
Speaker 3: just a really beautiful experience of like being with the
Speaker 3: birds and the rabbits on the trail and just like
Speaker 3: paying attention.
Speaker 2: Right, how do you? How do you? Kind of cause
Speaker 2: I'm just sort of the same way. Like we had
Speaker 2: to run the mile in pe Yep and I hated
Speaker 2: it drag I would just because when I did it,
Speaker 2: I was like, why are we doing this? That was
Speaker 2: like my first thought. And then when they said all right, go,
Speaker 2: I'm like and then like a.
Speaker 1: Whole while like Paul Rudd and Wet Hot America, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: exact limp exactly would I wouldn't even drive my arms.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even drive mynd they would be limp in
Speaker 1: front of me, like and in the in the same
Speaker 1: thing in the pandemic. I also would got into running,
Speaker 1: mostly just as a way because I was like one
Speaker 1: of the only excusable reasons to be outside. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll take advantage of that.
Speaker 2: But it took me a really long time for like
Speaker 2: to shift it from feeling like it was exercise or
Speaker 2: something to kind of I'm still not quite at that
Speaker 2: place where people get that like real stillness like you're
Speaker 2: talking about like you can process. Is that because you
Speaker 2: found your right pace to run at or you just
Speaker 2: engage with in a way where you're like, I need this.
Speaker 2: This is how like you're saying, this is how I
Speaker 2: just shake things loose.
Speaker 3: I think it's like it's it's a practice of just
Speaker 3: kind of like synchronizing the breath and the body and
Speaker 3: the mind. And if I can just like stay off
Speaker 3: my phone and just like pay attention to what I'm doing,
Speaker 3: it comes, you know, fairly quickly. And I think that
Speaker 3: was probably aided in part because I had for a
Speaker 3: long time have had a meditation practice, and so it
Speaker 3: has in a lot of ways supplemented that or replaced
Speaker 3: that in that I have that body memory of what
Speaker 3: that can feel like, and so it just kind of
Speaker 3: clicks in.
Speaker 1: That was when I was running a lot. The thing
Speaker 1: like it was a big improvement for me to go
Speaker 1: from like trying to listen to podcasts or like read
Speaker 1: books on tape while I was running to just like
Speaker 1: not doing anything while running and just like focusing on
Speaker 1: breath and just like mindfulness while running, which is a
Speaker 1: lot of time to spend, Like if you're running a lot,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of time spent. But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: if that can kind of supplement a meditation practice or
Speaker 1: you know, be your meditation for the day, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually helpful and you run. I found that I ran better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always had headphones in. So I think that's
Speaker 2: probably the reason why. I mean I was probably splitting
Speaker 2: my attention from like sort of entertaining myself because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: it can be so boring, rather than kind of like
Speaker 2: you're both saying, let it be a little more meditative. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I find that to be like a really interesting
Speaker 3: gender difference, Like for me as a woman running alone.
Speaker 3: I will never run with head headphones, right, yeah, I
Speaker 3: get safety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah when I run now, I need some distraction from
Speaker 1: the pain of running. But that's what I was really
Speaker 1: good at running that Like I was able to just
Speaker 1: be like, ah, this is I'm like, I can't. I
Speaker 1: can just focus on my breath and then I get
Speaker 1: a little better at running. Anyways, all right, let's get
Speaker 1: into a little bit of news. Yeah, I'm glad we
Speaker 1: have a poet on because the star of this first
Speaker 1: story I think has a poet name that I don't
Speaker 1: think his uncle came in and was like, we got
Speaker 1: offset what you've got going on there, and instead this
Speaker 1: is like the perfect if you were creating a villain
Speaker 1: of his type for a film, you would name, and
Speaker 1: you consulted a poet, you would the name that would
Speaker 1: come out the other end is Harlan Crowe.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a Mark Twain character for sure.
Speaker 1: Yes, Texas billionaire Harlan Crowe. Who is you know? It
Speaker 1: has been the great Expectations style benefactor to fucking you know,
Speaker 1: multiple Supreme Court justice but specifically Clarence Thomas for the
Speaker 1: past two decades. Nobody's nothing was being reported. Pro Publica
Speaker 1: has been reporting on it for a couple months now,
Speaker 1: and people are like, the audacity of these people trying
Speaker 1: to stir up shit just because I'm giving him presence.
Speaker 1: I'm just a nice person. Who oh, who's interested in education?
Speaker 2: You don't buy Frederick Douglas's Bible? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: this is the latest thing to come out is like
Speaker 2: first it was like, oh, they go on trips together. Oh,
Speaker 2: he bought him like their friends keep him. He bought him,
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln bust. He bought Frederick Douglas, Frederick Douglas's Bible
Speaker 2: at an auction and gave these things to him. And
Speaker 2: then the next thing was, wait, he bought Clarence Thomas's
Speaker 2: mother's house and then she was living in there rent free,
Speaker 2: and he renovated the bathroom and some other stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh, he works in real estate. He didn't even know
Speaker 1: it was his.
Speaker 2: No. His answer was, I wanted to make a museum
Speaker 2: to honor a great American Clarence Thomas by having his
Speaker 2: boyhood home. Fact check, he did not grow up in
Speaker 2: that house with his mother. So missed us with that explanation. Now,
Speaker 2: the latest one to drop is drum roll please. Harlan
Speaker 2: Crowe has been paying for Clarence Thomas's son's tuition, right.
Speaker 1: OK, yeah, his nephew who he raises as his son.
Speaker 1: Six thousand dollars a month?
Speaker 2: Is that right? Damn they're saying it's been at least
Speaker 2: a year's worth going to Hogwarts where the fuck? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But people are like, well, Harlan Crow has come out
Speaker 1: with come out strong and been like this is disgusting.
Speaker 1: Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of
Speaker 1: quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially
Speaker 1: at risk youth. Again like as though he didn't know
Speaker 1: it was Clarence Thomas's nephew. Grand Yeah, is Clarence Thomas's
Speaker 1: child who he's raising an at risk youth? That right exactly?
Speaker 1: That is unlikely to make.
Speaker 2: Is that a knock against Ginny Thomas and Clarence Thomas
Speaker 2: Like we're growing up in that home that's at risk youth.
Speaker 1: It's disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try
Speaker 1: to turn helping at risk youth with tuition assistance into
Speaker 1: something the fairy us or political I have to assume
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas is like yo, He's like yo, call him
Speaker 1: at risk because he's my child at risk?
Speaker 2: What are you talking about? I mean it's very coded too,
Speaker 2: at risk youth, you know what I mean. And because
Speaker 2: this is Clarence Thomas's nephew, had to like serve a
Speaker 2: prison sentence and as a result, like they had to
Speaker 2: figure out what to do with his son. And in
Speaker 2: his biographer, you know, he talks all the time about
Speaker 2: how Clarence Thomas his own father wasn't there and how
Speaker 2: he was taken in by his grandparents. So this felt
Speaker 2: like a thing for him and Ginny to do. And
Speaker 2: you know, they're telling his nephew like, yeah, he's gonna
Speaker 2: have a great life with us, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But yet when it comes down to reporting it, suddenly
Speaker 2: he's like that ain't my kid. I don't know him
Speaker 2: from Adam, Like that's a something.
Speaker 3: So I work in county government in the Seattle area,
Speaker 3: and I've also worked in philanthropy, and there are often
Speaker 3: really rigorous policies and practices around conflict of interest, and yeah,
Speaker 3: are people talking, you know about like the violation of
Speaker 3: those policies.
Speaker 1: Well, the only partisan people who hate freedom. That's Crow's
Speaker 1: interest in at risk youth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he did. Obviously. There's this lawyer that
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas has worked with ever since, like the Anita
Speaker 2: Hill stuff, and has also been like, you know, at
Speaker 2: Ginny's side when she was doing all that January sixth stuff.
Speaker 2: And let me forget his name is Mark Poletta, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Mark Palletta. Yeah. So he has come out and basically
Speaker 2: done this thing. Just I'll just read you how he's
Speaker 2: sort of describing it. He's like Harlan Crow's tuition payments
Speaker 2: made directly to these schools on behalf of Justice Thomas's
Speaker 2: great nephew did not constitute a reportable gift. Justice Thomas
Speaker 2: was not required to disclose the tuition payments made directly
Speaker 2: to Randolph Macon and the Georgia School on behalf of
Speaker 2: his great nephew because the definition this is where they
Speaker 2: start getting into it, of a dependent child under the
Speaker 2: Ethics and Government Act does not include a quote great nephew.
Speaker 2: It is limited to a son, daughter, step son, or
Speaker 2: step daughter. Justice Thomas never asked Harlan Crow to pay
Speaker 2: for his great nephew's tuition, and neither Harlan Crowe nor
Speaker 2: his company had any business before the Supreme Court. Okay,
Speaker 2: that is that is the defense to all of those
Speaker 2: And while that might be true, I think this whole
Speaker 2: idea of like, well, none of his companies had business
Speaker 2: before the court. All of these wealthy conservative donors, they're not.
Speaker 2: It's not about their specific business. They're trying to change society.
Speaker 2: That will be a more yeah, it will be a
Speaker 2: more inviting place for the kind of business that they
Speaker 2: want to do. They want to change the environment they're operating.
Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with this. So that's sort
Speaker 2: of the line they're taking.
Speaker 1: We're in a period of like unprecedented flagrant abuse of
Speaker 1: you know, normal like workers' rights in favor of billionaires
Speaker 1: and corporations, and like this is what is happening at
Speaker 1: that time, Like it's it's not like so this is
Speaker 1: a thing that could sway him. He is like part
Speaker 1: of a Supreme Court that has been doing just disregarding
Speaker 1: like any sort of pushback on these sorts of people
Speaker 1: for decades. And right, he also had previously disclosed a
Speaker 1: gift of five thousand dollars for this kid's education from
Speaker 1: another friend, but he suspiciously didn't do the same with
Speaker 1: Crows because I think he knew that once you like
Speaker 1: pull at that thread, you start to see that Crow
Speaker 1: is giving him so many gifts, and then it could
Speaker 1: be a bad look. So yeah, it really feels like
Speaker 1: this is the one where they have like absolutely no
Speaker 1: leg to stand on.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, it's really like most people of legal observers
Speaker 2: and analysts were like, it's pretty clear that you would
Speaker 2: want to report this, Like you'd have to be really
Speaker 2: disingenuous to try and bend your mind and redefine what
Speaker 2: a dependent is to try and avoid reporting this, because
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, they're like this is merely a
Speaker 2: ward of their home, Like you know, like they're trying
Speaker 2: to distance themselves from this person despite the fact that
Speaker 2: they're they've been patting themselves on the back for raising
Speaker 2: this kid, like publicly and in written interviews and things
Speaker 2: like that. So again, it's just a yeah, terribly frustrating situation,
Speaker 2: especially when you have like all the Republicans who are
Speaker 2: like in line to be like, we're not gonna have
Speaker 2: any ethics standards. Let's not we're not voting for that.
Speaker 2: So let's just keep this going because this is our
Speaker 2: most useful tool in combating any kind of progress that
Speaker 2: we've made in this country is to you know, rig
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The only yeah, the only possible excuse for not disclosing
Speaker 1: these gifts would be the argument that the payments were
Speaker 1: to his grandnephew, not Thomas directly. But everybody points out
Speaker 1: like it's minor. Children rarely pay their own tuition. Although
Speaker 1: if the GOP has their way, as we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: with what they're doing that count the laws, then you know,
Speaker 1: this kid would be able to pay his own way
Speaker 1: with just working forty hours a week.
Speaker 2: He was consulting. He was consulting with Harlan Crowe's real
Speaker 2: estate business as a ten year old. Okay, and that's
Speaker 2: where the money came from. Any other questions, Can we
Speaker 2: move on? We have serious business in front of the court,
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 1: Uh Sidish? Should we talk about the sedition by the
Speaker 1: Proud Boys?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well yeah, I mean it happened. I thought that
Speaker 2: for a second. I remember, I think one of the
Speaker 2: people in the jury is like, what happens if we
Speaker 2: don't all agree? Like was a note that came out
Speaker 2: of the jury and I was like, oh, no, what's
Speaker 2: happening now? But no, turns out they've delivered a guilty verdict. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Four members of the Proud Boys, including Enrique Ontario, were
Speaker 1: found guilty of conspiracy. The conspiracy counts alone could carry
Speaker 1: a sense of fifty years in prison. The case hinged
Speaker 1: on testimonies of two former Proud Boys who made deals.
Speaker 2: With the Feds.
Speaker 1: Testified that the group were intent on staging and all
Speaker 1: out revolution to stop Biden. Which this is why it's
Speaker 1: always tricky when you're like rooting for the side that
Speaker 1: the Feds are on.
Speaker 2: Because they're shady. That's shady as fuck.
Speaker 1: Whenever they the FBI is like basically being like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna put you away for life unless you tell us
Speaker 1: these things that are on a list that we want
Speaker 1: you to tell us. But I don't know, like it
Speaker 1: also seems like these are bad people, so oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeh one hundred percent. I mean, like you
Speaker 2: know also too, like I think when the prosecution was
Speaker 2: telling them, they're like, we don't have to prove that
Speaker 2: they had anything specific they were going to do to
Speaker 2: prove conspiracy. They just we just have to know that
Speaker 2: they had like sort of an agreement, whether that's verbalized
Speaker 2: or not to execute X, Y and Z. But I
Speaker 2: think it's you know, for all of like the nice,
Speaker 2: nice nice of seeing some of these people who had
Speaker 2: a huge role in January sixth, like you know, have
Speaker 2: to answer for it. It's like we're still you know,
Speaker 2: we're still waiting for that other shoe to drop. Because
Speaker 2: one of the things that uh Tario's lawyer was saying
Speaker 2: was like this is all because Donald Trump, though, right,
Speaker 2: so like this isn't it's not his fault Donald, It's
Speaker 2: like Donald Trump gave them the motivation. I don't even
Speaker 2: know why we're here, man, it's so unfair. Okay, well
Speaker 2: maybe maybe that shoe will drop. We'll see, yeah, probably not,
Speaker 2: probably not. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And people are pointing out that, like it's wild to
Speaker 1: see these people who like it seems like hadn't even
Speaker 1: contemplated the idea of facing consequences for their behavior, like
Speaker 1: face consequences, right, But in terms of the practicality of
Speaker 1: like taking down the leaders of these two groups, I
Speaker 1: think these groups got a lot of attention, but the
Speaker 1: majority of the people on the far right aren't part
Speaker 1: of specific groups. They're just like connecting through social media.
Speaker 1: But you know, law enforcement mainly knows how to go
Speaker 1: after formal organizations. So this is the strategy they're taking.
Speaker 1: But well, we'll have to wait and see what the
Speaker 1: what the consequences are of taking.
Speaker 2: What does sociologists say are their roots of extremism? Does
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the inequality, right or like a
Speaker 2: really unstable economic situation. No, no, no, no, no, lack of
Speaker 2: those kinds. Okay, all right, so let's focus on these groups.
Speaker 2: It was stop the steal. The main thing. Has stopped
Speaker 2: the steal, right right, sorry, sorry, all right, let's.
Speaker 1: Take a quick break and we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: about Greg Guttfeld. Yeah, and we're back, and the w
Speaker 1: GA strike has continued. And one of the most noticeable
Speaker 1: consequences for you know, people who aren't in LA or
Speaker 1: who aren't in the w g A is the absence
Speaker 1: of late night comedy shows since they're normally on TV
Speaker 1: every single night. But one late night show that's still
Speaker 1: going strong despite the strike is Fox News is Gutfeld Sorry.
Speaker 2: I mean Gutfeld. Yeah, it has exclamation points. Jacket's all
Speaker 2: caps and an exclamation point, so yes, please please, still.
Speaker 1: Gut felled still on the air because his writers are
Speaker 1: all non union.
Speaker 2: Because of Wow, do you think do you think that's
Speaker 2: because anyone in the union would be too talented to
Speaker 2: take a job on Gutfeld, or that the business practices
Speaker 2: of Gutfeld is to only use non union.
Speaker 1: Writers, probably like a chicken radiation and like Fox News
Speaker 1: being like, I can't believe, I can't imagine. Fox News
Speaker 1: is very a very friendly place for unions. But like
Speaker 1: Nick Depolo, do you remember that guy from like Tough
Speaker 1: Crowd with, Yeah, he's one of the writers.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, and that's okay killing it? Wow, how
Speaker 2: the Mighty fall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just that this gave us a chance to
Speaker 1: our writer JM checked in with Guttfeld to see, you
Speaker 1: know what we've been missing when we're tuning into Fallon
Speaker 1: and all.
Speaker 2: Those other late night shows.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you if you tuned into Guttfeld,
Speaker 1: you were able to hear him talk about the seventh
Speaker 1: anniversary of seeing Kim Kardashian's butt in person.
Speaker 2: He wait, that's a that's an an that's a celebration
Speaker 2: for Greg.
Speaker 1: That's something that he said, and he was like, her
Speaker 1: butt is so big it kind of felt like it
Speaker 1: was staring back, which I feel like it was like
Speaker 1: a nineteen eighties joke. He also made some Joe Biden
Speaker 1: fart jokes, so that's just killing it. A Brittany Griner
Speaker 1: weed joke called CBS News is Gail King a lesbian?
Speaker 1: And he is just behind Colbert and ahead of Fallon
Speaker 1: and Kimmel in the ratings, which is, yeah, crazy.
Speaker 2: Your your face just dropped hearing that. Yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 2: that's where that's where this, this powerhouse of late night
Speaker 2: is And yeah, what I know, like he's always We've
Speaker 2: talked before he like on this show. He would always
Speaker 2: be on Fox saying stuff like I hate radio Head.
Speaker 2: It's like it's not even a band, like radio Heads
Speaker 2: not music, and we're like what, yeah.
Speaker 1: His so his background also, by the way, if you
Speaker 1: tune in, it's it's interesting, like hell, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe they don't have union like people who
Speaker 1: like warm up the crowd for him, because his audience
Speaker 1: like doesn't even seem.
Speaker 2: To like him.
Speaker 1: Like there's like no jokes where like one person laughs.
Speaker 2: There's I'll play the script for you because he's talking
Speaker 2: about the Dante Wright protests in Minnesota and I'm talking
Speaker 2: about some serious shit going on in the country. And
Speaker 2: then like he has like a punchline. And I think
Speaker 2: that's what's so weird is because he pivots from I'll
Speaker 2: just let you hear kind of like the slight setup
Speaker 2: and punchline, if you want to call.
Speaker 4: It that, protests and looters nail a bunch of stores,
Speaker 4: and the destruction spreads.
Speaker 2: It's now part of the process.
Speaker 4: Video followed by outrage, followed by coverage of outrage. It's
Speaker 4: as predictable as CNN's programming, because it is.
Speaker 2: It's a scene that's.
Speaker 4: Gone from shocking to expected to gleefully anticipated by the media,
Speaker 4: as familiar as a rerun of Friends, except it's the
Speaker 4: one where Rachel sets central perk a blaze.
Speaker 2: The explanation for.
Speaker 1: I mean, he paused for laughter at one point and
Speaker 1: there is nothing, so he just pressed on. And then
Speaker 1: on that one, they were like, okay, okay, here, I'm
Speaker 1: ready for this one.
Speaker 2: Okay, anybody else? Can we add that? In post? No?
Speaker 2: All right? Moving on? Where was I? Where was I? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's not the height of comedy like we thought. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right wingers are claiming that gut Field is gut Gutfeld
Speaker 1: is evidence that the right is starting to get better
Speaker 1: at comedy. And it's making lefties nervous shy.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, like, as as someone who's like a creative person,
Speaker 2: a writer and everything like that, how do you look
Speaker 2: at the chasm between like sort of these like conservative
Speaker 2: of hateful people and how when they try and engage
Speaker 2: with creativity or art and like like why like there's
Speaker 2: this like dynamic We're like we got to prove that
Speaker 2: we can do funny too, or we can do art
Speaker 2: or whatever. What How do you see what's holding them
Speaker 2: back or what do you see is the difference in it?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like to us, we're like it's there's
Speaker 2: like just this mindset. I feel like that's just maybe
Speaker 2: so exclusionary or something that they're unable to think past
Speaker 2: like these like sort of backwards tropes in our culture
Speaker 2: and like these stereotypes as humor or whatever. But I'm
Speaker 2: curious to hear from your perspective, like the the darth
Speaker 2: of creativity and the right wing.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's like a performative ego show that
Speaker 3: is completely based on sensationalism. And yeah, I I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's it's not like a humor that is like humanizing.
Speaker 3: I don't think there is anything humor riss about it.
Speaker 3: I think it's kind of like the it is very
Speaker 3: do you've now kind of approach that is really about
Speaker 3: getting attention more than anything. So it isn't about comedy
Speaker 3: or craft or writing or using a specific genre to
Speaker 3: make a certain point. There is no critique, There is
Speaker 3: no sophistication about it. It is just a misuse of language.
Speaker 2: Oh I like that misuse.
Speaker 1: Misuse of language is like very love that misuse of language.
Speaker 1: And also his confusion of like that'll get their attention
Speaker 1: with comedy is really like that perfectly sums up his
Speaker 1: background too, because his background is as the editor of
Speaker 1: early two thousands Cringey Bro publications like Stuff and Maxim,
Speaker 1: which kind of explains everything. When he was at Stuff,
Speaker 1: he once hired little people actors to disrupt a meeting
Speaker 1: of magazine editors with potato chip bags and cell phones
Speaker 1: and clearly thought it was like the funniest goddamn thing
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's a yunny because they're little and they have
Speaker 2: potato chip bags.
Speaker 1: But again, it's just like making noise to annoy people
Speaker 1: instead of comedy.
Speaker 2: What are you saying here with this?
Speaker 1: One of the other funny things was recording audio of
Speaker 1: women in bathroom stalls and then printing it without their consent.
Speaker 1: He created a monthly photo spread called the Women of
Speaker 1: thirty ninth and six purely so he could meet women
Speaker 1: who lived in his apartment building, which, yeah, that's like stalker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's just running around pulling people's hair on the playground.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's like his whole approach. That that's
Speaker 1: the level of sophistication of his comedy. One of his
Speaker 1: contributions when he moved over Left Stuff went to Maxim.
Speaker 1: He just like started to personally harass other magazine editors.
Speaker 1: He like published the phone number of GQ editor Dylan
Speaker 1: Jones and encouraged readers to abuse him. And yeah, just
Speaker 1: being annoying is like his.
Speaker 2: Version of comedy.
Speaker 1: It seems like right, being the most unpleasant, obnoxious person.
Speaker 1: But I think like that is a thing that really
Speaker 1: appeals to the right. Is like, oh man, he's owning
Speaker 1: the libs by recording them when they're in the bathroom
Speaker 1: and printing transcript I.
Speaker 2: Think, well, because I think at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: there's no there's no such thing as humor. There's no
Speaker 2: such thing as like a philosophical victory or like rhetorical victory,
Speaker 2: because the only thing is just to see the reaction, yeah,
Speaker 2: of their counterpart. That's really all it is, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all couched and like this is a comedy show,
Speaker 2: but really you're making a show that you hope like
Speaker 2: that from their perspective, like a lib would see it
Speaker 2: and it would crush their spirit, Okay. Rather than being like,
Speaker 2: I'm informing people about what's happening in a funny way,
Speaker 2: they're trying to be like and guess what this is
Speaker 2: liberal tears manifested into a nightly show, Okay, And I
Speaker 2: guess that's not a very good guid principle.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's a strong element of toxic
Speaker 3: masculinity at play too, to be honest, that dominating.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, there's like there's all so
Speaker 1: the two things are hey, look at me pulling hair
Speaker 1: and then just like thorough and consistent misogyny just from
Speaker 1: his trying to recording, like bugging women's bathrooms and like
Speaker 1: recording and reprinting transcriptions what they say against like without
Speaker 1: their consent, to creating a monthly photo spread of like
Speaker 1: women in his apartment building like.
Speaker 2: That is just so predatory too, you know. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: is the waters. Yeah, he's chumming the waters with the
Speaker 2: promise of like being in this magazine as a way
Speaker 2: to like introduce himself and then like dangle that in
Speaker 2: front of someone. Yeah, and then cut to the second
Speaker 2: most highly rated late night talk show in the country
Speaker 2: right now. Yeah, so all.
Speaker 1: Right, well that's that show is still own folks.
Speaker 2: So you know, you can't misuse of words every night
Speaker 2: on Fox.
Speaker 1: That's right, misuse of words.
Speaker 2: Excellent caps that explanation point.
Speaker 1: Well, shany it's been such a pleasure having you on
Speaker 1: the daily Zeitgeist. Where can people find you? Follow you
Speaker 1: all that good stuff?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my podcast ten thousand Things is available on
Speaker 3: all the major podcast apps. You can listen on NPR
Speaker 3: or QW dot org slash ten thousand things spelled out.
Speaker 3: And I'm on Instagram it's just my name et shiny
Speaker 3: Pi on Facebook as well, and I have a website
Speaker 3: and yeah, people can find my books through small press
Speaker 3: distribution or Amazon, but I don't like Amazon. I prefer
Speaker 3: that people buy through small presses and support small businesses.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you have a Kickstarter, right.
Speaker 3: I have a Kickstarter right now that I'm running for
Speaker 3: a book that I'm publishing this fall of hi Q
Speaker 3: Comics with Blue Cat Press, which is a woman led
Speaker 3: Bipock Press and Tacoma, And it's a collection of haiku
Speaker 3: poems that are illustrated by a LATINX illustrator in Oregon,
Speaker 3: and their poems about just my experiences of like the
Speaker 3: boredom and kind of just loss of identity during pandemic
Speaker 3: and the rise of anti Asian hate crime and just
Speaker 3: the weirdness of the last three years while also mothering
Speaker 3: a young child. And Yeah, it's an incredible collection of
Speaker 3: sequential art that is going to come out this fall,
Speaker 3: and we're hoping to raise some production funds to support
Speaker 3: the printing of it.
Speaker 2: Nice, so you go and contribute to that.
Speaker 3: It's on Kickstarter and the campaign is through Blue Caractus
Speaker 3: Press for the book Less Desolate. And I'll share the
Speaker 3: u r L with you later so that you can
Speaker 3: put it in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Great, And is there a tweet or work of media
Speaker 1: that you've been enjoying.
Speaker 3: Last night, I saw the comedian Jenny Yang post some
Speaker 3: photos of verse at our Writer's Guild strike and she
Speaker 3: had this fabulous sign that said give up just one yacht.
Speaker 1: A lot, so good asking a lot just Clarence. Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas loves the yachts, So what are we gonna do
Speaker 1: if we give up the yacht that Clarence Thomas likes,
Speaker 1: you know, then makes it harder for us to hang
Speaker 1: with him. Amazing, Miles, where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Follow you? What is the working media you've been enjoying? Oh?
Speaker 2: Find me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Gray.
Speaker 2: If I'm doing anything there, chances are I kind of
Speaker 2: might be. And also find Jack and I on our
Speaker 2: basketball podcast, Miles and Jack got Man Massa And if
Speaker 2: you like Trash reality show, which is where I go
Speaker 2: to find refuge from this chaotic world, check me out.
Speaker 2: And Sophia Alexander talking about ninety Day Fiance on four
Speaker 2: to twenty Day Fiance a tweet I like actually goes
Speaker 2: hand in hand love Jenny. Shout out Jenny, She's the
Speaker 2: home girl. This is actually from at Lisa Cohen, Lisa
Speaker 2: Takeuchi Coullen that tweeted. A producer told me he heard
Speaker 2: that all the yacht rentals were booked for the month
Speaker 2: of June by studio execs who'd long expected a writers strike,
Speaker 2: and it would be it would be haha funny if
Speaker 2: a resourceful reporter hunted this lead down. Wow, yeah, that
Speaker 2: would like. When I hear that, I'm like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: that sounds like they're kind of Hollywood cynicism. I'm used
Speaker 2: to like, Well, there's gonna be the strike anyway, So like,
Speaker 2: where are we going to go? Chanto Beeck.
Speaker 1: Built in vacation for the billionaires?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Uh tweet I've been enjoying Pessimist Prime Respawn edition tweeted.
Speaker 1: My editor dislikes my use of contractions.
Speaker 2: But it's what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we we We love saying that.
Speaker 2: It's it's what you say that all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's what it's. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien.
Speaker 2: You can find us on.
Speaker 1: Twitter at Daily Zeikeeist. We're at the Daily Zeikeeist on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We have a Facebook fanpage and a website Daily Zekeist
Speaker 1: dot Comboy post our episode odes and our footnotes. We
Speaker 1: link off to the information that we talked about in
Speaker 1: today's episode as well. It's a song that we think
Speaker 1: you might enjoy, Miles, Is there a song that you
Speaker 1: think people might enjoy.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a group called the Holy Drug Couple,
Speaker 2: and there are these artists from Santiago, Chile and their music. Man,
Speaker 2: their music sounds, it's it's like spooky but cool like
Speaker 2: i've i've I've described other artists are like if this
Speaker 2: like the World ended in Aliens sound like an old
Speaker 2: mixtape and like tried to get the like the tape working,
Speaker 2: it would sound like this. This is like this is
Speaker 2: just I don't this is just really their their music
Speaker 2: is really really cool. This track is called lu and
Speaker 2: I think it's from like a it's from an album
Speaker 2: of like demos from another album they had, so you're
Speaker 2: getting like so they're even like more low fi than
Speaker 2: what the album cuts are, but they're just like you know,
Speaker 2: like any anytime you hear demos, they're really interesting to
Speaker 2: me just as a musician because you kind of hear
Speaker 2: these like musical like it's like a musical note that
Speaker 2: they're just like put jotting down to come back to
Speaker 2: and already has so much like texture and flavor to it.
Speaker 2: It's really dumpe. So this is by the Holy Drug Couple.
Speaker 2: So check that out, all right, well. The Daily Zeitgeist
Speaker 2: is a production by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for us this morning, back this
Speaker 1: afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you all then.
Speaker 2: Bye bye,