Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: Uh These are.
Speaker 1: Some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited
Speaker 1: together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Well, Miles,
Speaker 1: we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by
Speaker 1: very talented producer, musicians, streamer, esports commentator, one of the
Speaker 1: very first people to work on this show with us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's constantly streaming everything because he is that bitch on Twitch.
Speaker 1: He's a resident gaming expert.
Speaker 2: It's DJ Dannel good.
Speaker 3: Mane aka East Coast Daniel.
Speaker 2: Come in live beep, I'm walking here, New York, light
Speaker 2: of the mess.
Speaker 1: How is it going one hundred in the house?
Speaker 2: Well? That was that was That is incredible? That was good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and some other New York related things. Is Z one
Speaker 2: hundred New York?
Speaker 1: I forget you know, I've lived in some new I
Speaker 1: had a Z ninety three in Dayton, Ohio. Shout up
Speaker 1: to Z ninety three. That was the cool station. When okay,
Speaker 1: like you know twelve, but yeah, that brought me back.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Well, so you're embracing. Look, people who don't know, like
Speaker 2: Daniel is West coasting. You know, he's born and raised
Speaker 2: in LA and now he's living he's relocated to the big,
Speaker 2: big Apple, and we shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Give away actually, we shouldn't give away his location like that.
Speaker 2: That's fucked up.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's in a big city in the East Coast.
Speaker 2: You are in the you're in the Lower East Side,
Speaker 2: and you're going on house.
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to let our guests know that we
Speaker 1: have a tracker on that located.
Speaker 2: Wait but you I'm sorry. The thing that caught my
Speaker 2: attention is you're identifying is he's Goes Daniel.
Speaker 3: Now, it's just kind of a joke because now that
Speaker 3: I've moved to the East Coast, my friends have said
Speaker 3: I'm more salty, and they called me East Coast Dannel
Speaker 3: anytime I pushed back even a little.
Speaker 2: Bit in the wow wow wow, Okay, the East Coast
Speaker 2: Daniel coming out. Yeah, all right, salty. Oh yeah, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 2: I had to wear a jacket today. All right, I
Speaker 2: had to wear a jacket today. Yeah, exactly. My feet
Speaker 2: became Tim's. It's crazy, quite literally, my foot is a
Speaker 2: Tim Now it's all black Air Force one facts.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm really selling drugs out here with my
Speaker 3: all black forces around the corner.
Speaker 2: Have you? I don't know if you saw. There's like
Speaker 2: there's like this whole wave of like older people on
Speaker 2: social media who are discovering what the all like black
Speaker 2: on black air force one means. There's like a teacher
Speaker 2: I saw this like principal TikTok, which was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: my students were like complimenting my sneaker game. And then
Speaker 2: some people just started being like, oh, your trouble, and
Speaker 2: she's like I thought I just had a cool sneaker on,
Speaker 2: and then I found out this is a goon shoe.
Speaker 2: That's what I was associated with.
Speaker 1: Referees and priests, right, they're black on black sneaker.
Speaker 2: Just wait, priests wear black on black sneakers. They're not't
Speaker 2: wearing that leather shoe.
Speaker 1: I mean they like sometimes most often I'd say they
Speaker 1: wear the like etonic all medically designed all black. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you know, got like nurse shoes or whatever. But I've
Speaker 1: definitely seen I remember growing up in the church thinking
Speaker 1: like why do priests and referees shop at the same
Speaker 1: shoe store?
Speaker 2: How can we never and how can we never see
Speaker 2: them together at the same time. My priest is God's referee.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have to tell you this now
Speaker 1: that you're on the East coast. But stay prayed up,
Speaker 1: Stay prayed up, man, Stay right, bro. I doubled over.
Speaker 1: I doubled over in my chair. I'd stay preyed up.
Speaker 2: That stay preyed up.
Speaker 1: I mean that's like a week and a half old
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's fair. Rather than eat, pray love, stay
Speaker 3: preyed up, stay predp thank you.
Speaker 2: What is something from your search history? Man?
Speaker 6: I will tell you I'm such a nerd for skateboarding
Speaker 6: that almost my whole search history generally is filled with
Speaker 6: new skateboard information. I think that's maybe the most unrelatable
Speaker 6: thing an adult man can say.
Speaker 2: But that's just the reality of the situation. I grew
Speaker 2: up in LA in the nineties and two thousands. So
Speaker 2: what do you mean, like we're looking at new just skaters? New?
Speaker 2: Is the search legitimately just skateboard information? Google fresh fresh?
Speaker 2: I should tell you, I am ai.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry that I'm always looking for I always google
Speaker 6: something slash information. No, there's a new primitive video out
Speaker 6: I was watching it's good. Couple of new I just
Speaker 6: see skate video parts usually. So there's a new Primitive
Speaker 6: video that just came out that I was watching?
Speaker 2: What's like? Okay? So I like, I remember I used
Speaker 2: to watch a bunch of toy machine videos, Burnhouse Girl
Speaker 2: all that in the nineties. I feel like it peaked
Speaker 2: with yeah, right in two thousand and three, that Spike
Speaker 2: Jones one. Is there any like for someone who stopped
Speaker 2: watching skate videos?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 2: What what should I watch? Now? Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: Such a huge well, let's see great question.
Speaker 6: I will actually say the last Primitive video that came
Speaker 6: out's not bad. It's three new amps. We don't have
Speaker 6: a Spike Jones today. I don't think there's nobody like his.
Speaker 6: Shit's so creative and fun. Weekend the company called Weekend.
Speaker 6: They put out some pretty good, like sketch based stuff, okay,
Speaker 6: and then like they just came out with the last
Speaker 6: Static video probably which is this really good series by
Speaker 6: this dude, Josh Stewart. But he's been making videos since
Speaker 6: like the nineties. Might you might have seen like Static
Speaker 6: three or something ahead again? Yeah, yeah, good Bobby Pulio part, good,
Speaker 6: Ni Brissard part. So he just put out probably the
Speaker 6: last of that. So that's a good if you're a
Speaker 6: nineties dude, check out the newest static video.
Speaker 2: But you'll like it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, these are videos of people like doing sick shiite, the.
Speaker 2: Sickst Ship dude, Owen Wilson fucking killing it bro or
Speaker 2: was it I don't know, I remember that back in
Speaker 2: the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I mean yeah, right,
Speaker 2: was like the video that like I would make like
Speaker 2: women I was dating watching like yeast left, don't know
Speaker 2: why you kept getting dumped? Yeah, next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: Hey you want to meet up for lunch at Chipotle? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I gotta go. Oh but but was it the part
Speaker 2: with the invisible deck? That shit was pretty cool? Right? No?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: Look, And honestly, in your defense, that's not a bad
Speaker 6: way to say, like, hey, are you down?
Speaker 1: Do you like cool shit?
Speaker 4: Or no?
Speaker 6: I mean it's a tasteful video, you know, don't like
Speaker 6: and watch the whole thing, but show him something fun
Speaker 6: and be like are we cool here?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: And then I started showing them c ky videos because
Speaker 2: there's technically was skating there. They're like, what, no, get
Speaker 2: out of here. Look, look we we had some swings
Speaker 2: and misses.
Speaker 1: But I remember being shown that like as a tape
Speaker 1: that like my friend had like from somebody the like
Speaker 1: Spike Jones one and and then like a few years
Speaker 1: later when Jackass came out, being like, oh they made
Speaker 1: a show out of this.
Speaker 2: Oh like the early early ones. Yeah, yeah, the early
Speaker 2: ones was like the peak.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was the fun though of that whole situation
Speaker 6: was getting Ship on a tape felt so underground and sick.
Speaker 2: You felt like you were getting a little treasure. You know,
Speaker 2: it's cool exactly, Yeah, because that was like the those
Speaker 2: that was bit torrent before bit torrent was like I
Speaker 2: got a fucking ripped VHS copy of this thing that
Speaker 2: someone else paid for. Yeah, sick.
Speaker 1: I still ask teenagers to this day what if they've
Speaker 1: got any videotapes?
Speaker 6: And what I hold about videotapes? They hit, they worked,
Speaker 6: They had gears. Think about how old that is. They
Speaker 6: utilized gears. That's like, you know that feels like pretty
Speaker 6: like barely industrialized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look like ship those things like they really look
Speaker 1: like broke. It looked like they're like made out of
Speaker 1: like a disassembled fax machine or something. You know, like
Speaker 1: just like not not technologically advanced in any way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the v like the VCR decks were so
Speaker 2: if like varied in performance like some like if you
Speaker 2: got the cheap one, it's like you needed a rewinder
Speaker 2: or else it would take like twenty eight minutes to
Speaker 2: rewind it. The race car rewinder you ever had?
Speaker 1: Ferrari, who was dad, was that into videotapes and he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, we're ever need to We gonna need a.
Speaker 2: Couple of those. Actually, this makes me realize, did you
Speaker 2: ever get yelled at for not rewinding a tape? I
Speaker 2: remember my mom would be like, you're like, you didn't
Speaker 2: rewind the tape, but because like a b a test
Speaker 2: movie we rented in Blockbuster and I watched it before
Speaker 2: She's like, now I gotta rewind it, and wait six minutes.
Speaker 6: I worked at Blockbuster and that was there was I
Speaker 6: think there was a frustrating thing where we had to
Speaker 6: rewind them or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: It's like, sir, could you please?
Speaker 1: We had to ask people, which felt awful.
Speaker 6: It was like I felt like, you're, you know, talking
Speaker 6: to a ten year old, but it was an adult.
Speaker 2: Man, you know, Yeah, I mean what be kind? Please? Rewind?
Speaker 1: Was like the Mantra back then. Yeah, yeah, corporate like charity.
Speaker 1: They're just like, come on, please, we really could our
Speaker 1: bottom line could really use this. So the week have
Speaker 1: enough money to tell Netflix to go fuck themselves in tenures.
Speaker 2: What's something, Jody do you think is overrated?
Speaker 7: This is not exactly exactly overrated because I love it,
Speaker 7: But I was thinking about this past weekend. I conned
Speaker 7: my daughter into alphabetizing my vinyl collection for me, which
Speaker 7: is great. It's been like two decades of mess and
Speaker 7: then I was like, oh, this would be educational to her,
Speaker 7: and you know, really it was just finally getting around
Speaker 7: to do it. So we sat down and wetized my
Speaker 7: vinyl and most of it is like stuff that I bought,
Speaker 7: you know, for like two dollars a record, three dollars
Speaker 7: a record, like many many years, kind of hauled around
Speaker 7: and I love, you know, I love listening to it,
Speaker 7: but I've gotten a little bit into just buying stuff
Speaker 7: on final like a lot of people have lately, and
Speaker 7: it's really expensive, Like it's crazy. And I was something
Speaker 7: yesterday about someone saying kind of like everyone that they
Speaker 7: know who collected vinyl for like the practice of it,
Speaker 7: you know, not not necessarily for the fidelity of the audio,
Speaker 7: but like just it's fun to collect, and it's good,
Speaker 7: it's nice look at the artwork, and it's nice to
Speaker 7: have music collection. All those people, at least this person claimed,
Speaker 7: are moving to CDs now because you still get that
Speaker 7: active collecting, but like, you're not dropping forty dollars on
Speaker 7: piece of vinyl. So I think Vinyl is writing this
Speaker 7: weird like maybe overrated curve or whatever. I think it's
Speaker 7: gonna and I've started to feel that myself too, like, oh,
Speaker 7: it's really fun to do this, but gosh, I cannot
Speaker 7: drop twenty five to forty dollars every time I get
Speaker 7: a new piece of vinyl.
Speaker 2: You don't think, because I've thought about this myself, and
Speaker 2: the reason I've justified my vinyl collection is that if
Speaker 2: there's like the world's electronics go out, my CDs are useless,
Speaker 2: my MP threes are useless, but I can still put
Speaker 2: my ear to a needle and move the rec around
Speaker 2: and still hear the music or like music ground like
Speaker 2: to me, it feels like the one apocalypse proof form
Speaker 2: of recorded music. Yeah, if you had to do that,
Speaker 2: just like hand rotate the record, I feel like that
Speaker 2: would get annoying for you.
Speaker 7: I think there was a whole and the director's cut
Speaker 7: of Station eleven there's like a ten hour section where
Speaker 7: they're just listening to Nita Simone by hand cranking it around.
Speaker 7: It's really an incredible scene.
Speaker 2: Heavy too vinyl, right, at least compared to me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So people are skipping the tapes tapes, which is right, Well,
Speaker 2: that's the other question, tapes.
Speaker 7: But I guess, I guess the tapes aren't as like
Speaker 7: interesting of an artifact and then and so forth. And
Speaker 7: if you're really just in it to kind of like
Speaker 7: be able to flip through stuff or whatever and just
Speaker 7: like you're collecting, then CDs might be the answer.
Speaker 2: But I think like a lot of the hip or
Speaker 2: bands are putting out tapes now too, Like oh yeah,
Speaker 2: is that in LA where they're like, no, dude, put
Speaker 2: an dar demo on fucking cassette. But then it like
Speaker 2: it's I was like whatever, God, I mean, it's cool,
Speaker 2: I get it, you know, do what you want to do. No,
Speaker 2: it's funny.
Speaker 7: You go to band camp and it's like you buy
Speaker 7: it and the options are basically like m P three
Speaker 7: cassette fifty dollars vinyl that'll take eight months to arrive
Speaker 7: because Taylor Swift gets to print all of her stuff
Speaker 7: before any indie band gets the print, all.
Speaker 2: The world's vinyl is going to making. It's true, it's
Speaker 2: a huge shortage.
Speaker 7: It's kind of an incredible thing that all these big
Speaker 7: artists like leap Frog, all the all the other folks
Speaker 7: who want to put stuff out on vinyl.
Speaker 1: Is it the material that there's a Is it like helium,
Speaker 1: like one of those materials that secretly is just like
Speaker 1: we have a finite limit of vinyl in it.
Speaker 7: It's more than manufacturing facilities. But I'm not sure, but
Speaker 7: I think it's that, you know, it's vinyl has taken off,
Speaker 7: you know in the last few years, but not to
Speaker 7: a place where like it's worth opening a vinyl factory
Speaker 7: in you know, in Cleveland or whatever. So there's still
Speaker 7: a limited, limited manufacturing capability, but like a really exponentially
Speaker 7: growing demand. And so then yeah, it's created the whole
Speaker 7: thing where like Taylor Shrift can put out all her
Speaker 7: back catalog on vinyl, you know, have it on shelves
Speaker 7: in a week, and indie bands need to wait like
Speaker 7: eight months in line, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, will there ever be music stores like physical media
Speaker 1: stores again? Like not not you know, used record stores
Speaker 1: like we have now, but like, will there be a
Speaker 1: future where there's a record store? Just like it's not
Speaker 1: abnormal to see one?
Speaker 2: Do you guess think? I think so?
Speaker 7: I mean, at least in New York, there's like I mean,
Speaker 7: I was at the the Rough Trade has like a
Speaker 7: proper record store here in New York, a flagship store,
Speaker 7: and it's like looked like a you know, record Store's
Speaker 7: a bunch of new vinyl and actually there's a cassette
Speaker 7: player I noticed on for sale there too. But I
Speaker 7: don't know, I mean, I don't think there's going to
Speaker 7: be in every neighborhood or on every corner.
Speaker 2: But yeah, right, oh wow, it sounds like too. It's like,
Speaker 2: because CDs, you know, became the norm, all the vinyl
Speaker 2: operations just started to cease to exist, and so you're
Speaker 2: left with like less plants. But also the apparently there's
Speaker 2: a place that The Apollo Masters fire of February twenty
Speaker 2: twenty also had a huge setback on the vinyl industry.
Speaker 2: The only plant in North America equipped to manufacture vinyl
Speaker 2: lacquer discs, which is a key step in manufacturing process,
Speaker 2: had a three alarm fire that completely destroyed its facility.
Speaker 2: That's great. Yeah, so now people going to a manufacturer
Speaker 2: in Japan. Oh yeah, so this shit is Yeah.
Speaker 7: Can I tell you my favorite little fact about vinyl
Speaker 7: records that I learned and just fairly recently, And I'm
Speaker 7: sure I will get corrected by the Reddit page if
Speaker 7: I screw this up, But it's something like this that
Speaker 7: the like physical way that a needle interacts with the
Speaker 7: grooves on a record has a little bit to do
Speaker 7: with the instrumentation on the record, right, And it's basically
Speaker 7: that like higher pitch stuff has shallower or smaller grooves,
Speaker 7: and more base has bigger grooves and Moreover, as the
Speaker 7: needle and the arm gets closer to the middle of
Speaker 7: a record, it becomes a little more unstable because of
Speaker 7: the physics of it or whatever. Which is all to
Speaker 7: say that throughout the like sixties seventies, when they were
Speaker 7: pressing vinyl, it was very risky to put bass heavy
Speaker 7: songs on the towards the middle of a side of vinyl,
Speaker 7: right because it could potentially like throw things off. So
Speaker 7: to me, so like to me, you know, I've always
Speaker 7: been like, oh, I love all these Fleetwood Mac records
Speaker 7: where like the end of side one then's on this
Speaker 7: beautiful acoustic little piece. You know what, wonderful track listing
Speaker 7: in our program And it's actually just because of the
Speaker 7: like a physical problem and they have to do that,
Speaker 7: but it has like defined for me, like so many
Speaker 7: of these records that they end on these little acoustic moments.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, they're like put the Bangers up top.
Speaker 1: Yeah that basically the Beatles White album, like opens with
Speaker 1: back in the ussorever or whatever and then amazing.
Speaker 2: What is something you think is underrated?
Speaker 8: Underrated?
Speaker 2: Listen?
Speaker 8: I also knew this question was coming. I'm being in
Speaker 8: the moment, but you mentioned this off the top of
Speaker 8: the show. I was gonna say, a corn Checks, which
Speaker 8: is what I had for breakfast. I think they're simple,
Speaker 8: they're basic, they're gluten free, which is important to me,
Speaker 8: and they feel like little blankies on your tongue, the weave,
Speaker 8: the waffle weave of a corn check.
Speaker 2: But you brought up check but I was like, whenever
Speaker 2: the sensation eOne in my mouth, it's not to let
Speaker 2: that thing chill in my tongue. It's like crusted these
Speaker 2: little I think this, the crunch of it is one
Speaker 2: of the most satisfying ones of the cereals.
Speaker 1: I take each and everyone like a Eucharist wafer.
Speaker 8: Yes, but even if they get a little too soggy,
Speaker 8: they're just sweet little blankets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a kind of a late sweetness to
Speaker 1: corn checks. Also that you know, it's not it's not
Speaker 1: like that's not by the sweetened cereal.
Speaker 2: It's that's not my mistake. Tastes good on purpose.
Speaker 8: Or there's engineers and scientists that know the perfect ratio
Speaker 8: of crunch and sweetness.
Speaker 1: That is what our greatest scientists are doing. Like for
Speaker 1: a while there there were on the Manhattan Project. They
Speaker 1: moved to the moon landing, and then since then they've
Speaker 1: just been making food taste as good as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that one too. It's a mushroom cloud of flavor. Dude,
Speaker 2: in your mind, how the mouth feel those the mouth
Speaker 2: feel exactly? Kaboom.
Speaker 8: Yeah, maybe capitalism isn't all bad, right, it's bringing us
Speaker 8: these snack foods.
Speaker 2: Hey, your words, your words, your words, not ours. I'm
Speaker 2: glad we got glad we got you there, though, glad
Speaker 2: we got very.
Speaker 1: Good at inventing Baja blast, and you know, giving dorito
Speaker 1: nacho cheese flavored doritos, the great experience that they give
Speaker 1: you where you just can't stop eating them. It's bad
Speaker 1: for you in the long run, but you know it
Speaker 1: will kill you, but you'll have that like one moment
Speaker 1: of like vaguely dissatisfied bliss where they I think I
Speaker 1: have to keep eating these forever, and.
Speaker 8: Sciences exactly what it is, vaguely dissatisfied bliss. I'm gonna
Speaker 8: try to remember this. Just housing snacks Trader Joe's usually
Speaker 8: those guys, those scientists are on top of it.
Speaker 2: Instead of death. Yeah, yeah, no, but the Trader Joe
Speaker 2: snacks some of them, like they hit just enough that
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, these are okay, but not quite as
Speaker 2: good as other things.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like, you found the exact middle Trader Jos.
Speaker 2: I don't know how.
Speaker 1: Yeah, their peanut butter filled pretzels are so much better
Speaker 1: than the ones that you get anywhere else.
Speaker 2: I gotta say, Trader Joe's. Really they figured it out, yep,
Speaker 2: but they haven't figured out our phone number for those
Speaker 2: free peanut butter pretzels, So work on that, TJ. I Am,
Speaker 2: do have it out. I'm just waiting, and Trader Joe's
Speaker 2: is an unspoofable number, so I will believe you if
Speaker 2: you call me in Hello, I'm calling from Trader Joe's.
Speaker 2: I need your social Security number in order to send
Speaker 2: you some free stuff. If not, I will transfer you
Speaker 2: to the CIA, who will arrest you.
Speaker 8: The number just comes up, Joe Trader's.
Speaker 2: Damn Miles, big news. Yeah you back up, baby, just
Speaker 2: pick up the phone like this. Well, well, wow, I've
Speaker 2: been waiting for your call a long time. Son of them. Bitch.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, I'm changing my underrated. Underrated is answering any
Speaker 8: phone call?
Speaker 1: Well well, well, well, well, who came crawl in the back.
Speaker 2: I didn't have this on my Bingo card? Or maybe
Speaker 2: I did. Oh god, the Bingo card. Yes, off with
Speaker 2: the Bengo cards please.
Speaker 1: By the way, I do feel like I did a
Speaker 1: bad job and rushed past the three Am Sopranos last
Speaker 1: episode googling a little quickly.
Speaker 2: Did you did you find a theory? I do?
Speaker 1: I feel like this is another Like you know, the
Speaker 1: Internet has wrought so many bad things, but one of
Speaker 1: the highlights was early days Prano's final episode, and then
Speaker 1: everybody immediately analyzes it like every every shot like it's
Speaker 1: a reisance painting, which it kind of was, well, did
Speaker 1: you find anything new?
Speaker 2: Not new?
Speaker 8: You know, maybe new to me because I hadn't really
Speaker 8: gone down that rabbit hole before. I have purposely not
Speaker 8: read anything by David Chase. I'm kind of saving that.
Speaker 8: I get weird like that. I'm like, I'm saving let
Speaker 8: me see what he has to say later. One theory
Speaker 8: I liked was that the member's only jacket guy I
Speaker 8: don't remember. If Tony's at the diner with his family,
Speaker 8: there's a guy that comes and sits down, and people
Speaker 8: were saying, listen, if he's really the assassin, He's not
Speaker 8: sitting there trying to expose his face and let everybody
Speaker 8: remember him, Like, why is he sitting at the diner
Speaker 8: counter for five minutes before all this happens so that
Speaker 8: people can recognize him.
Speaker 2: One theory that I.
Speaker 8: Thought was interesting was that he just happened to show
Speaker 8: up at that diner and was maybe a family member
Speaker 8: of somebody that Tony or Tony's people had whacked, So
Speaker 8: it was kind of spontaneous thing. He just saw an opportunity,
Speaker 8: so he like, took him in and at the bar
Speaker 8: to gather his courage, went to the bathroom, came back,
Speaker 8: made it happen. I thought that was a great idea.
Speaker 8: I also had not considered some people were saying that
Speaker 8: Carmela Carmela gave Tony up because she picked the restaurant.
Speaker 8: I hate to believe that when I refused to.
Speaker 2: Hey, I mean I mean that sound like not like
Speaker 2: he was the best partners. You know, I do, but
Speaker 2: you liked it. You like to romanticize that sort of
Speaker 2: like mob marriage thing where it's like, yeah, till the
Speaker 2: fucking wheels come off.
Speaker 8: I probably do, and I can flate. Unfortunately, I canflate
Speaker 8: Tony Soprano with James Gandolfini, who you cannot help but
Speaker 8: love that act. Yeah, Like his choices are unbelievable. He
Speaker 8: just has to be the most emotionally in tune person
Speaker 8: to be able to act like that. I just love him.
Speaker 8: So I know I'm supposed to hate Tony Soprano, but
Speaker 8: I kind of can't because of that is the sweet face.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That The members the members only jacket, I
Speaker 2: think is the most interesting, like sort of one where
Speaker 2: you really think about it because that's a reference to
Speaker 2: Eugene ponte Corvo, who is the guy who like hung
Speaker 2: himself after he was trying to cash out and move
Speaker 2: to Florida and like then the Feds are like, dude,
Speaker 2: there's no way, like you have to stay in it.
Speaker 2: And remember he was showing his wife like there's that
Speaker 2: whole thing where he's like, this is the house for us, babe,
Speaker 2: and then he like tried his life. Life tragically ends
Speaker 2: and like a lot of people, that theory is like
Speaker 2: because Eugene was a member's only wearing Mobster that it's
Speaker 2: like this is the thing coming back. That's like, that's
Speaker 2: the more interesting one.
Speaker 8: I didn't rewatch the whole series, but now that you're
Speaker 8: saying that, I'm like remembering that that that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Miles is up on his on his literature.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, never heard of you know these other weirdos, Like, uh,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was that one book he kept
Speaker 2: trying to get me to read, Jack about the Ravens
Speaker 2: or something. I'm always trying to get you to read
Speaker 2: Edgar Mellen.
Speaker 8: One PM now about the Ravens that.
Speaker 1: Can catcher in the ride whatever. Miss me with that dude,
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back.
Speaker 1: I we'll talk about some of the ship that is
Speaker 1: happening in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. And we're back.
Speaker 1: And so some people are starting to say that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is old. I guess, and I don't know the
Speaker 1: shame them, I mean Trump, I guess, like I said
Speaker 1: something like that. No, this is the main point of
Speaker 1: discussion around the presidential race. If you had told me
Speaker 1: that these were going to be the two candidates four
Speaker 1: years ago, I would have told you that the main
Speaker 1: point of conversation would be this. You know that they
Speaker 1: are both old and mathematically speaking, But the way the
Speaker 1: media is covering it seems to be like they they
Speaker 1: want to catch them like physically stumbling. They want to
Speaker 1: like see see them like stumble, or like it looks
Speaker 1: like Biden pooped his pants. That's like it's it's some
Speaker 1: high school burn book ass shit. Like it seems to
Speaker 1: be the way that they're covering this as opposed to like,
Speaker 1: what are the actual consequences of him? What are we
Speaker 1: saying having been raised in a different time with different challenges.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's like it's like this narrow framing
Speaker 2: of people's discontent around the options for president they basically
Speaker 2: has allowed, especially Joe Biden's allies to respond with pretty
Speaker 2: like elementary defenses, which is like, he's actually very sharp,
Speaker 2: He's so detail oriented. Yeah, he has his head in
Speaker 2: the game. And like, while his age and I think
Speaker 2: cognition are definitely valid concerns for voters, I think it
Speaker 2: misses the larger point that many voters who are not
Speaker 2: senior citizens are actually trying to get at. It's that
Speaker 2: he is old and ideologically out of touch to deal
Speaker 2: with the challenges of our modern world. And I think
Speaker 2: when we just focus on the old part, all it
Speaker 2: has to be like, dude, this dude, this dude is
Speaker 2: like six pushups and eats a breakfast burrito. What the
Speaker 2: fuck are you talking about? Yeah, and we're like, what
Speaker 2: we really need is like when it comes to things
Speaker 2: like climate change, you know, like you know, many people
Speaker 2: have praised the Inflation Reduction Act for its ambitious goals,
Speaker 2: although many people would also argue that it was sort
Speaker 2: of the bare minimum, given like what's at stake with
Speaker 2: our earth and Trump had.
Speaker 1: Won, I think we would have actually seen what the
Speaker 1: bare minimum was but yeah.
Speaker 2: Bare minimum would have been like just fucking just everyone's
Speaker 2: rolling cold. The opposite, every school bus would be like
Speaker 2: legally obliged to it.
Speaker 1: Turns out mad Max vehicles or whatever. Yeah, exactly doubling
Speaker 1: down on making Morton Joe like part of his cabinet.
Speaker 2: But like like right so, right now, like the Bidens administration,
Speaker 2: they just walked back their own emissions goals from the
Speaker 2: IRA in order to placate the big three auto makers
Speaker 2: as GM, Ford, Stilantis. And was the issue that it
Speaker 2: was too ambitious? No, it's because these companies were just
Speaker 2: complaining about this speed at which they would have to
Speaker 2: modernize and not sell currently, Like if you look at
Speaker 2: what these companies offer, they're like gigantic, overpriced, inefficient vehicles.
Speaker 2: When if then if you're talking like is it about emissions,
Speaker 2: is it about what's doing what is best for the environment?
Speaker 2: Do we need to sort of rethink what we what
Speaker 2: kind of a car is best suited for this? And
Speaker 2: I think other people point at the polling in Michigan
Speaker 2: right now it's looking pretty shit for Biden, so they figure, look,
Speaker 2: let's let's get let's help out, let's create some warm,
Speaker 2: fuzzy feelings in Michigan. Maybe that will help us get
Speaker 2: across the line in November. And so you're like kind
Speaker 2: of left looking like, so does Biden want to like
Speaker 2: modernize and improve the auto industry or does he actually
Speaker 2: want to curb greenhouse gas emissions? Because I think most
Speaker 2: people who look at the climate crisis are like, we
Speaker 2: have to curb the it's the fucking emissions. We need
Speaker 2: to fucking get a handle on and how we look
Speaker 2: at these things. And if it's the latter, if it's
Speaker 2: about emissions, then shouldn't we be talking more about like
Speaker 2: fucking better mass transit and things like bike lanes. But like, again,
Speaker 2: we can do, man, we can't both.
Speaker 1: But I used to have lunch with strom Thermon and yeah,
Speaker 1: he exactly, I'm the great compromiser man.
Speaker 2: But like he again, he just wants to maintain the
Speaker 2: status quo of like ignoring the degradation of the planet,
Speaker 2: and like that's fine, but like sort of give us
Speaker 2: these warm fuzzy feelings like well, you know, maybe I
Speaker 2: get these car manufacturers to do this thing that sort
Speaker 2: of misses the point. And when you roll back the emissions,
Speaker 2: that sends a bad message to the younger people who
Speaker 2: will have to inherit this earth. And like another example, right,
Speaker 2: the genocide that's happening in Gaza, where people are facing starvation.
Speaker 2: Biden ignores the polling that shows that a significant majority
Speaker 2: of his own voters want an immediate cease fire. He
Speaker 2: would rather again just preserve the old ways, blindly armed
Speaker 2: like blindly arming like a homicidal regime, and keep arms
Speaker 2: manufacturers happy in groups like APAC from putting money against him.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, this is causing him to hemorrhage support with
Speaker 2: like younger voters or the people that pretty that power
Speaker 2: political campaigns, like you need young people to get behind
Speaker 2: your political campaign to have any kind of ground game
Speaker 2: or success there. And the reason why a lot of
Speaker 2: people are like put off by this again, it's because
Speaker 2: we see that like these are this is the old
Speaker 2: way of doing things, and we see that what the
Speaker 2: status quo has given us inequality, continue depression of marginalized people,
Speaker 2: and a planet that is telling us every single day
Speaker 2: that we need to do something different fast. And the
Speaker 2: mainstream media just talks around these issues by just hammering
Speaker 2: home they like this guy as old as shit talking point,
Speaker 2: and we're not like actually giving to the real issues
Speaker 2: that sort of underpin this observation. So if the conversation
Speaker 2: is he is not equipped to contend with the existential
Speaker 2: threats and understand that American in twenty twenty four is
Speaker 2: actually quite diverse, then the defenses are going to have
Speaker 2: to actually talk about policy. So right now, it's just about,
Speaker 2: like I said, can he do a jump rope? Can
Speaker 2: he do jump rope really good? And does he does
Speaker 2: he know? Does he remember who was in the monkeys?
Speaker 2: And if you want people to see someone as not
Speaker 2: being old at the very least, you can show that
Speaker 2: with policy that shows you know what younger people than
Speaker 2: you are concerned with, and don't just be like like, well,
Speaker 2: the other guy's fucking old too, and he's a fascist.
Speaker 2: And that's what I think is driving a lot of things,
Speaker 2: Like we have real fucking problems. So like, while a
Speaker 2: lot of people are talking about the age thing, I
Speaker 2: think the discussion misses that what that entails. It's that
Speaker 2: we are looking at all these like and we're in
Speaker 2: an omni crisis and we need real sort of substantive
Speaker 2: solutions that feel markedly than what's going on. And you know,
Speaker 2: right right now, the administration just announced like one point
Speaker 2: two billion in student death relief will be forgiven for
Speaker 2: around one hundred and fifty thousand people. That is objectively
Speaker 2: a good thing. But those are the kinds of things
Speaker 2: that this administration can do that doesn't really require risking
Speaker 2: the kind of political cachet that like getting tough with
Speaker 2: oil and gas industries or the military industrial complex would.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, like when I think about it too,
Speaker 2: like we're just looking at what the perspective is of
Speaker 2: this president or being or telling like people who are
Speaker 2: concerned with like earth death or where our tax dollars
Speaker 2: are going, or what we're enabling with our tax dollars.
Speaker 2: It just feels like he's like, look, it's it'll be okay,
Speaker 2: It'll be okay. You guys are just overblowing it. But
Speaker 2: like I was recently, like with some older family members,
Speaker 2: and they all said some version like when we were
Speaker 2: talking about like, oh God, what's going on in this country?
Speaker 2: There's all some version of, well, I'm glad that I'm
Speaker 2: at the tail end of my life because I can't
Speaker 2: imagine how tough times are going to be for you
Speaker 2: and your kids, you know what I mean? You know,
Speaker 2: And I feel. Biden embodies this perspective like he is
Speaker 2: legislating as if he won't have to deal with the
Speaker 2: ramifications of his own policies and expects those of us
Speaker 2: that will that it's it's not that bad, it's not
Speaker 2: that bad, and being really dismissive.
Speaker 1: And I think that's yeah. It is the thing that
Speaker 1: we see repeatedly with generations as they age out, and
Speaker 1: they're always despairing for the following generation. They're always like,
Speaker 1: your problems are intractable because we did our best and
Speaker 1: we're amazing, So this is fucked like, there's.
Speaker 2: No way you're going to come up with something.
Speaker 1: The reality of the situation is the younger people are generally,
Speaker 1: you know, smarter and have more flexible minds and have
Speaker 1: like better perspective to attack these problems and new ways
Speaker 1: that the elderly aren't able to think about, and they're
Speaker 1: also not able to even like con see that those
Speaker 1: possibilities are are possible.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And so it's just such a uniquely bad time for
Speaker 1: us to be stuck in this eddy of you know,
Speaker 1: forward progress where it's a you know be in the
Speaker 1: same way that all the money is being trapped by
Speaker 1: the people who already have all the money, all the
Speaker 1: power is being trapped by all the people who have
Speaker 1: all the power up until the time that they're dead
Speaker 1: and can no longer continue to acquire power. It's just
Speaker 1: a system that is, you know, designed, like they there
Speaker 1: were very specific things in place, like this was a
Speaker 1: known thing that like when you have this system, you
Speaker 1: have to guard against a gerontocracy, Like that's a very
Speaker 1: real problem. And yeah, slowly they just managed to kind
Speaker 1: of edit all that stuff out of the narrative and
Speaker 1: out of history so that people are now just like, hey.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, how these people get so old? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 6: And I feel and I think it's also endemic of
Speaker 6: like the society generally moving left as it does. Right,
Speaker 6: It's like the more we learn, the more we become educated,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. Environmentalism was not really a
Speaker 6: thing like one hundred and fifty years ago, and now
Speaker 6: it's like this very serious concern.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: So it's like, so when the younger generation is just
Speaker 6: naturally more left, it's kind of horrifying that like what
Speaker 6: when we see what we considered what the government considers
Speaker 6: to be left, it's actually pretty fucking central. Like you're
Speaker 6: saying being sort of owned by big oil in the
Speaker 6: military industrial complex, it's like somewhat horrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was you know, environmentalism was a thing with like
Speaker 1: you know, native civilizations and stuff.
Speaker 2: They had a grasp on it.
Speaker 1: But it's yeah, it certainly shifted very far right to
Speaker 1: a place of just like resource extraction.
Speaker 6: They didn't have to contend like Western colonial exploitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just they just called that being alive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like being naturally imbalanced in balance with stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah, it's wild because like David Axelrod,
Speaker 2: you know, who is a political strategist, you know, responsible
Speaker 2: for getting Obama in office, and you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people like you know, what what what David axel
Speaker 2: were like, what can what can Joe Biden do man
Speaker 2: to help sort of defend against these attacks about his
Speaker 2: age or whatever, And he was just sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: just merely juxtapose his positions with Trumps. Sure, And it's
Speaker 2: like you're but that's not you're not getting the anxiety
Speaker 2: that people feel. It's like I feel increasingly unsafe in
Speaker 2: a world that's like prioritizing like militarism or earth degradation,
Speaker 2: and I have a fucking one year old, and I'm
Speaker 2: even even in my mind like what the fuck does
Speaker 2: it look like for you? Like shit, I mean, I
Speaker 2: plan on being alive a little bit longer, so I'm
Speaker 2: probably we're probably gonna see some shit. But then what
Speaker 2: of like our kids and things like that. And I
Speaker 2: think Biden sort of has like this attitude of sort
Speaker 2: of like I remember when I first took like an
Speaker 2: astronomy class and you learn that the Earth is a
Speaker 2: star and then star die and explode, and everyone's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: when the Earth where the sun? No, no, when the
Speaker 2: sun or when the sun? Sorry, the sun is a star,
Speaker 2: like saying like you know, when the sun dies, it
Speaker 2: will fucking destroy like it will it will destroy the
Speaker 2: earth too when that shit happens. And I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, when's the fucking sun gonna die? And like
Speaker 2: like fucking a billion years, I'm like, oh, fuck the
Speaker 2: fuck it? Then why the fuck do I care about that?
Speaker 2: Like that's kind of like the the attitude that a
Speaker 2: lot of politicians have with a lot of these like
Speaker 2: huge things. We're like, I don't know, we can just
Speaker 2: keep kicking this can down the road and just sound
Speaker 2: like the warning bells about what will happen if we
Speaker 2: don't codify certain laws or if you don't get a
Speaker 2: handle on curbing like emissions or inequality without actually doing
Speaker 2: anything as to them. It's like so abstract, like the fallout,
Speaker 2: and they're insulated. So I don't know. I just think,
Speaker 2: like for all the talk of like it's not me,
Speaker 2: I think it again. I think just for people always
Speaker 2: say it's the age. It's the age, it's the age.
Speaker 2: It just allows to skirt over like the real issues.
Speaker 1: Whatever that be, Like, yeah, is it just that he
Speaker 1: can't do push ups well and you think he's gonna
Speaker 1: fall Like there's a New York Times something like some
Speaker 1: New York Times alert that popped up for me today
Speaker 1: that was like what if Trump and Biden die? And
Speaker 1: that again, if you're covering it from the perspective of
Speaker 1: like a horse race, it is certainly notable that one
Speaker 1: of the two horses that can win could die like
Speaker 1: during the course of the race. But yeah, it's mainly
Speaker 1: that is the way that the Like back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, when I was working at ABC News,
Speaker 1: they were having like this real internal crisis of consciousness
Speaker 1: about like we are only covering this lake.
Speaker 2: It's a horse race.
Speaker 1: We never talk about policy, and but they like continued
Speaker 1: to do that shit like they were like, and there's
Speaker 1: no way out because that is the only way we
Speaker 1: really know how to talk about this in a way
Speaker 1: that makes sense as TV, you know, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like kind of the lowest common denominator, Like look
Speaker 6: at his face, isn't it old.
Speaker 8: That?
Speaker 6: Although I do love this idea, if there was no
Speaker 6: like age cap on like professional sports, like that was
Speaker 6: you were watching a baseball game, and also there was
Speaker 6: there was a bunch of people who are so old
Speaker 6: they might pass away during the level of reentry.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, hit with a ball like right off, right
Speaker 2: off the bat, like oh no, But.
Speaker 1: Again, okay, I do have to push back here a
Speaker 1: little bit. You are only paying attention to the things
Speaker 1: that he's actually doing as president. You're not paying attention
Speaker 1: to the things that people say he is doing behind
Speaker 1: the scenes.
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes.
Speaker 5: He is sharp, and he is so mad and who's
Speaker 5: an asshole? So he called I'm a like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't, I don't. He's cool, dude, He's cool in private, dude.
Speaker 2: He just he fucking he likes trippy red, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, And he listens to he was fucking
Speaker 2: with the last couple of Played with Cardi albums. He's
Speaker 2: actually really cool. But again, I think it's the whole
Speaker 2: point is to keep it, keep that debate there, because again,
Speaker 2: the most of the mainstream media is it really equipped
Speaker 2: to grapple with the policy failures of just America for
Speaker 2: the last fifty years in general anyway. So like, because
Speaker 2: anytime it is brought up, you're gonna have a bunch
Speaker 2: of people who are like establishment politicians are just like
Speaker 2: it's this is fine, the police are great, it's okay,
Speaker 2: these things these are just noisy activists and that's kind
Speaker 2: of like the message you get. But yeah, I think
Speaker 2: like as I experienced more spirited discussions around people of
Speaker 2: many generations talking about the presidential and they're like, people
Speaker 2: got to get over the fact that he's old. It's like,
Speaker 2: it's not it's not just that it's not I'm not
Speaker 2: just saying the fact that he's old, get him out
Speaker 2: of here. It's that this dude has no idea what
Speaker 2: life is going to look like for us, and he
Speaker 2: doesn't give a shit. And that's fucking frightening and none
Speaker 2: of these and none of the many of the people
Speaker 2: in office do not, and without a real sea change
Speaker 2: of that kind of thinking it, things look very dire.
Speaker 2: And that's I think what merely people are asking for
Speaker 2: is like, can you least wink at the fact that
Speaker 2: you know what things could look like? You know, like
Speaker 2: if we just keep keep maintaining this course.
Speaker 1: And just again, you know, behind the scenes on Biden
Speaker 1: expert here, Okay, he tried winking yesterday and his eyes
Speaker 1: started to bleed, So we're gonna actually.
Speaker 2: Hold off on that one. Eyelashes got caught and got
Speaker 2: tangled to each other. He couldn't open the eye anymore
Speaker 2: because we function effectively as spider webs at this point,
Speaker 2: so he can't close his eyes or else. You know,
Speaker 2: they're like, no, that's just not the thing. Just help
Speaker 2: help me understand about what we're gonna do to make
Speaker 2: things better. Don't just be like this guy sucks too.
Speaker 2: And that's why I think there's increasing, yeah, just increasing
Speaker 2: apathy and frustration around this because like even when people
Speaker 2: feel like, can we can we talk about these issues
Speaker 2: like na, we can talk about how shitty Trump is though.
Speaker 6: Well, dude, and there's a whole we are foundationally and
Speaker 6: this is not unique what I'm saying, but just foundationally
Speaker 6: addicted it to oil and automobiles, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Thinking of what is required to actually like upend this
Speaker 6: entire foundational situation here with our dependency on just cars alone,
Speaker 6: is like it's policy. It's got to be policy change
Speaker 6: and structural consciousness change, Like people have to start to
Speaker 6: understand that there's going to have to be sacrifices. We
Speaker 6: have the tools to do it, like we could work
Speaker 6: from home, We have the internet. We can get so
Speaker 6: much done, right, you know what I mean? If it's
Speaker 6: so we kind of like we just need to, but
Speaker 6: it's hard when the you know, automotive industry is such
Speaker 6: like an aspect of the backbone in the American economy
Speaker 6: in certain states.
Speaker 2: You know, right, yeah. Or even just thinking about like
Speaker 2: how our justice system works. Are foreign policy, it's always
Speaker 2: like this patriarchal like, well, someone's got to get fucking hit, yep,
Speaker 2: you know, And that extends to the militarism, that extends
Speaker 2: to why we see no real improvement in like how
Speaker 2: our justice system works. It's like, yeah, because it requires
Speaker 2: us to really again to abandon these fucking archaic ideas
Speaker 2: to move into something different and yeah, and I think
Speaker 2: I'm sure obviously not everyone is a high value or
Speaker 2: high information voter. I was getting into high value mail
Speaker 2: because you were talking about the manisphere powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but high information voters like but people do sort of
Speaker 2: in their bones feel like something has to fucking change
Speaker 2: on some level. And it's like when when we aren't
Speaker 2: able to really get those ideas out of have those debates, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're sort of doomed to just stay in this cycle
Speaker 2: and then you know, shaking our fists at the sky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah. It's one of the most consistent things
Speaker 1: you see across history is like it, and it gets
Speaker 1: written out because in the same way that you know,
Speaker 1: the people who are speculating on like the stock market,
Speaker 1: they don't a year from now, are they're like being
Speaker 1: completely wrong, you know, like that shit just like gets
Speaker 1: memory hold. One of the consistent tropes throughout history is
Speaker 1: the people who are like aging out, just having severe
Speaker 1: pessimism and cynicism about the future. And you know, they're
Speaker 1: just too old to understand it, too old to like
Speaker 1: approach the problem with fresh eyes, and it's we are
Speaker 1: at like a major crossroads for the species, like one
Speaker 1: of the one of the most difficult crossroads of our
Speaker 1: species in generations. And we really like this is the
Speaker 1: worst possible time to have people who are just like
Speaker 1: cynical and pessimistic about our ability to solve these problems
Speaker 1: and to think about these problems.
Speaker 6: Yeah, completely, because human beings are actually incredibly capable, Like
Speaker 6: we're actually capable of doing incredible things if we're allowed
Speaker 6: to make those decisions for ourselves.
Speaker 2: You know. The thing that makes me.
Speaker 1: Feel like sometimes like positive about the future is just
Speaker 1: like thinking right before World War Two, as you know,
Speaker 1: there's like this massive dust cloud devouring like the farmland
Speaker 1: in the middle of the country. There's the Great depression,
Speaker 1: Hitler is rising, Like all of these horrible things are happening,
Speaker 1: and you know, the world is going to like come
Speaker 1: together and like get through it and like build the
Speaker 1: future for in a lot of ways, like the highway system,
Speaker 1: all these different like dams and all these various things.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't through listening to the very old people
Speaker 1: who were you know, just like fuck right, you had
Speaker 1: to you had to get some new blood in there.
Speaker 2: So all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 2: come back and talk about some good news. We'll be
Speaker 2: right back and we're back. Yeah. I think that's a
Speaker 2: really good point.
Speaker 1: I was about the like democratization of all these different
Speaker 1: forms of media. Like I feel like with movies, we've
Speaker 1: seen like there was a lot of excitement around like
Speaker 1: oh man, there's like all these sketch groups online and
Speaker 1: like that, you know you're discovering new talent that way
Speaker 1: and that. But I feel like that's like kind of gone.
Speaker 2: Away a little bit.
Speaker 1: But with gaming, I feel like I could see that
Speaker 1: just theoretically, not not knowing much about the industry at all,
Speaker 1: but like that's what is exciting to me is that
Speaker 1: like as coding becomes more and more you know, boosted
Speaker 1: by AI like it, it feels like it's going to
Speaker 1: be easier and easier for people to, like everybody to
Speaker 1: like come up with an idea, like an iteration on
Speaker 1: an existing game and just like make it happen. As
Speaker 1: opposed to with movies, I feel like it's still still
Speaker 1: need like good performances, right, you still need like these
Speaker 1: things that are hard to get, and like usually you
Speaker 1: need a lot of money. So like gaming is still
Speaker 1: this like writing based, idea based thing that I could
Speaker 1: see in the near future just becoming like more democratic
Speaker 1: than any of the other like major forms of media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to highlight one other thing about the
Speaker 3: gaming space right now that I think is really fun
Speaker 3: and is is what kind of like adds to that
Speaker 3: or what adds to the what I started with about
Speaker 3: how it is so open to any kind of experience
Speaker 3: you want to have. There's lots of games that are
Speaker 3: developed these days that are developed by one person just
Speaker 3: because they're super excited about this one prospect. A very
Speaker 3: famous example is a game called Stardy Valley. Stardi Valley
Speaker 3: is developed by one person. I wrote on this person's name,
Speaker 3: Eric Concerned Aped barone. Now Eric made this one game
Speaker 3: himself as a farming simulator, but it's also slightly relationship simuliar.
Speaker 2: He's Italian.
Speaker 9: Wow pronunciation Yeah concerned Wait why is he concerned ape?
Speaker 2: That's not like that's just.
Speaker 3: That's just his username, concerned Ape. It's kind of like
Speaker 3: player unknown. Yeah, I just can't remember playing. It wasn't
Speaker 3: like an NFT play they go exactly. Stardi Valley, a
Speaker 3: game developed by one person. As of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: has sold twenty million copies. It's a game that struck
Speaker 3: a nerve with people who wanted to make a farming
Speaker 3: simulator type game, and it's just one person who's doing
Speaker 3: something they love at a time when a genre wasn't
Speaker 3: exactly like it's. That is not a game that was
Speaker 3: a drilled down version of a genre that was super
Speaker 3: super popular at the moment. That was just something that
Speaker 3: struck people really strongly. Another genre of game, or another
Speaker 3: developer who made a game that, again was not something
Speaker 3: that people something people were looking for, is a guy
Speaker 3: named Bennett Foddy. He's made a web game you may
Speaker 3: have heard of called quap q w O.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the running one, the running one.
Speaker 3: He developed the run game where all you have is
Speaker 3: qwop to control the knees and legs of a runner,
Speaker 3: and your point is to do one hundred meter dash
Speaker 3: and it is so poorly controlled, it is so punishingly
Speaker 3: slow and stupid that people love doing it because it's
Speaker 3: just so hard to do. He made another game called
Speaker 3: Getting Over It, where you are a naked person sitting
Speaker 3: in a black kettle with a hammer and your whole
Speaker 3: goal is to climb up a mountain by using your
Speaker 3: hammer to propel yourself up the mountain, and the entire
Speaker 3: time Bennett Foddi is narrating why you shouldn't be doing
Speaker 3: this and why it's frustrating and how punishing the whole
Speaker 3: process is. Where does that fit on the scale of
Speaker 3: these video games? How is that a Battle Royale like Fortlite?
Speaker 3: How or Fortnite? How is that like a farming simulator
Speaker 3: like Starry Valley.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 3: This is a guy who has a passion for making
Speaker 3: these unique experiences the ability to do so just by
Speaker 3: being a coder and with these gaming tools. I think
Speaker 3: he made it in Unity, which is another engine similar
Speaker 3: to the Unreal engine, and it's decided to make this
Speaker 3: game that has now sold millions of copies. It is
Speaker 3: another one like he.
Speaker 2: Also profoundly hates humankind.
Speaker 1: You might say that like a Larry David style outlook
Speaker 1: on Yes humanity.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly, that everybody should play it. I missed looking
Speaker 2: like Jordan bel for Belle fort on Kwaylud's trying to
Speaker 2: run on that thing been my man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's just one of these things where it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, the world of video games almost feels, you know,
Speaker 3: less like TV and movies and almost like the world
Speaker 3: of music, where the tools to create it have become
Speaker 3: so easy to access that like, while you have people
Speaker 3: who are making who are trying to be the next
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift or trying to be the next Dead Mouse,
Speaker 3: or trying to be the next Kendrick Lamar, you have
Speaker 3: people who are also just like I made this weird
Speaker 3: song and all of a sudden that sound pops all that.
Speaker 3: You have people who are one hundred gecks comparatively, or
Speaker 3: you have people who are just doing something that is
Speaker 3: complete who is so different and completely off the wall.
Speaker 3: You're Sophie's of the world. You're like, you're you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, there's another like very peculiar or like
Speaker 3: a unique artist right now, you get what I mean.
Speaker 3: My point is is that like the tools are so
Speaker 3: easy to access and democratize, they.
Speaker 1: Go people are good. Originally it was a version of that.
Speaker 3: Right yeah, yeah, but people who are taking these tools
Speaker 3: to make something that is unique to them, that is
Speaker 3: not necessarily being asked for at the time, but finding
Speaker 3: the right audience for it such that it becomes super popular,
Speaker 3: even if at the time it's like, what is this
Speaker 3: even for video games? Offer that lane, and that is
Speaker 3: something that makes me really excited about the future of
Speaker 3: video games. We just keep getting more stuff like that
Speaker 3: because the tools are so easy to act, right.
Speaker 2: Because it's almost like so like when someone makes a game,
Speaker 2: it's like because I know music production, video production pretty well.
Speaker 2: It's like because I remember if you wanted to make music,
Speaker 2: Like it's like, did you have these old school production
Speaker 2: keyboards that had the sounds that you wanted that you
Speaker 2: were hearing on the thing, And yeah, exactly do you
Speaker 2: have that core? You got a triton, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: you have all that. And then but now you have
Speaker 2: more like effects packs that come out like you know,
Speaker 2: SAMP like whatever, VSTs that give you certain keyboard sounds
Speaker 2: that you didn't have before. Is that how people are
Speaker 2: kind of making games too, Like where these are sort
Speaker 2: of like modular and you can kind of be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I need a little bit of this. I need I
Speaker 2: need my version of Massive for lack of a better
Speaker 2: comparison to making like electronic music, and so I can
Speaker 2: use that for for the physics will be the game engine,
Speaker 2: and then I can use these other things. So it
Speaker 2: does feel like kind of like if you're savvy enough
Speaker 2: there there is a way to sort of like execute
Speaker 2: on like an idea because just like those elements are
Speaker 2: just there versus years before. It's like, well, do you
Speaker 2: have a seven hundred person team.
Speaker 3: This is one of the last things I want to
Speaker 3: talk about, and it's one of the things that get
Speaker 3: out of the episode.
Speaker 2: Short. Okay, I going for about like an hour or so,
Speaker 2: but anyway ahead, this is this is the last thing
Speaker 2: you're going to talk about. All right, It's it's related
Speaker 2: the last time I'm telling you. Another question that Jack
Speaker 2: posed was about Disney throwing money at Epic. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to see where it was in here because I just
Speaker 2: like I saved a place for it. Cut all this,
Speaker 2: this is all bullshit. Here we go. Okay, are you
Speaker 2: reading through my notes? No? No, no, no, this is
Speaker 2: and you know it's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 9: You know, let's just mute night channel thinking.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is kind of going back to Fortnite and
Speaker 3: the Unreal Engine and all of and all of that
Speaker 3: and what you know they're creating with Fortnite. Disney just
Speaker 3: threw one point five billion dollars, which is about like
Speaker 3: a four to five percent stake in Epic.
Speaker 2: Why are they that's wait, that's a four percent steak
Speaker 2: in Epic is one and a half. It might be,
Speaker 2: it might be less. Honestly, yeah, I didn't. I don't
Speaker 2: know how much stuff is worth anymore. They're they're an
Speaker 2: enormous company. I know shock Tank though. Yeah you say,
Speaker 2: if you said if you came out one point five
Speaker 2: billy for four percent, I'd be like, get the fuck out.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay huge. It is a huge amount for not
Speaker 3: that big of a steak. But what Disney is getting
Speaker 3: out of that is this connection of their IP to
Speaker 3: things like Fortnite, the ability to use on real five
Speaker 3: to help make movies, and just like this connection into
Speaker 3: a world that people are already in all the time.
Speaker 3: Now you've heard the term metaverse being thrown around, so
Speaker 3: we love it and like Facebook wanted to make one,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah want to make one, but they're not
Speaker 3: crazy that he got to it first.
Speaker 1: And now, like for so many people when they hear
Speaker 1: meta metaverse, they're like they picture Mark Zuckerberg with no legs,
Speaker 1: Like up, Mark Zuckerberg's little avatar floating around with no legs.
Speaker 1: Things that's like, no, this is the future. This dude
Speaker 1: just like fucked it up in the main street.
Speaker 3: He just completely fucked it up. But it is funny
Speaker 3: how the branding of that kind of came to him
Speaker 3: because people don't think of Fortnite as the metaverse. But
Speaker 3: when you can be Lebron James or Soske from Naruto,
Speaker 3: or Alloy from Horizon Zero don or Peter Griffin from
Speaker 3: Family Guy aside character in Fortnite, that is the metaverse.
Speaker 3: When you and your friends are jumping into the Fortnite
Speaker 3: launcher and playing Fortnite traditional Fortnite Fortnite with no building,
Speaker 3: or a racing game developed by Psionics, the people who
Speaker 3: make Rocket League, or they're playing a rhythm game developed
Speaker 3: by Harmonics, the people who made rock Band, or they're
Speaker 3: making the survival crafting game in collaboration with Lego, all
Speaker 3: within one game, all within Fortnite. Fortnite is not trying
Speaker 3: to be like the best shooter. Fortnite is trying to
Speaker 3: be Nintendo. When your mom used to say, oh, are
Speaker 3: you playing that? Nintendo? Fortnite is trying to be or
Speaker 3: are you play that Fortnite? Fortnite is so many different
Speaker 3: git and it kind of is now not only that
Speaker 3: like Fortnite has their own tools built into the Fortnite
Speaker 3: engine for you to create your own game. Like if
Speaker 3: you open up Fortnite, you'll see the main games Fortnite, Fortnite,
Speaker 3: Note Build, Lego, Fortnite, Rocket Racing, harmont or it's I
Speaker 3: can't remember what it's called. It's the Rhythm game. It's
Speaker 3: like main Stage or some shit like that. But then
Speaker 3: you have fifteen or sixteen other most popular user created
Speaker 3: modes that you can just play that are completely different games,
Speaker 3: all built within the Fortnite engine, like Fortnite is, or
Speaker 3: rather Epic Games is using Fortnite as the tip of
Speaker 3: the spear for Unreal Engine five to show people what
Speaker 3: you can do with this tool.
Speaker 1: Right, people who are building those games making money? Like,
Speaker 1: are they taking out the Wait?
Speaker 2: Can't you can't you make money off of like a.
Speaker 3: Map you can make money off of? You know, I'm
Speaker 3: actually not sure. Okay, because I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know. This is bullshit.
Speaker 3: Check that, because if you can make money off a
Speaker 3: Fortnite map, that'd be interesting. But I'm pretty sure they're
Speaker 3: just user generated and it's like if people are playing them, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well no, the only reason I know this is because
Speaker 2: there's a player at Arsenal in the academy. He's not
Speaker 2: like in the main team yet. He's like a teenager
Speaker 2: named Rouel Walters, and he like like they're like, before
Speaker 2: he got signed his professional contract, They're like, this kid
Speaker 2: was already making money on Fortnite because he was he
Speaker 2: made like a super popular map.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, well there you go. I mean like if
Speaker 3: then if they're making i mean, if kids are making
Speaker 3: money off that, then that's even more awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But yeah, it's so.
Speaker 1: They're the engine that makes all of this creation possible exactly,
Speaker 1: and they're making a big chunk of the money. But
Speaker 1: like the people who are going on there and being
Speaker 1: creative are able to like.
Speaker 2: Get some part of it. He said in this article
Speaker 2: in The Athletic. It's like, yeah, because of the creator
Speaker 2: code or whatever.
Speaker 3: Oh that's different. Oh what's that's different. Creator code is
Speaker 3: basically a way that you can say this person brought
Speaker 3: me here. So if you enter a creator code when
Speaker 3: you're buying a skin on Fortnite, there's a little kickback
Speaker 3: to the creator who did that to you. So he's
Speaker 3: probably streaming on Twitch and said, use my creator code
Speaker 3: and and then you buy skins. It's a kickback to me.
Speaker 2: He said. Two hundred and fifty million people played his
Speaker 2: map in one week. That's fucking crazy. That's awesome. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I was just like, yeah, I knew there was like
Speaker 2: some way, but yeah, maybe not if there's a way, sorry,
Speaker 2: go on, right, no, but still but but that but
Speaker 2: that is a whole other thing.
Speaker 3: That's that's just the It's just these little tools that
Speaker 3: like Fortnite or Epic Games offers, just within the Fortnite
Speaker 3: engine where it's just like, oh, yeah, use my code,
Speaker 3: type in my name so that you kick back to
Speaker 3: me who you like to just buy whatever skin you're
Speaker 3: gonna buy, right, And sometimes those skins are actual people
Speaker 3: like I said, Lebron James or even random streamers who
Speaker 3: are you know, part of the animal community such that me.
Speaker 3: Could you yeah, could you imagine the boring skin. But
Speaker 3: then you have people like the Weekend, and then you
Speaker 3: have Peter Griffin, and then you have Pickle Rick. You
Speaker 3: just have all of this ip that is within the
Speaker 3: world of Fortnite, so that you can be whoever you
Speaker 3: want in the world of Fortnite. Whenever you're playing any
Speaker 3: of those games, right, like that is what they're That
Speaker 3: is the world that they're creating, that they're fostering. That
Speaker 3: is like it's it's it's.
Speaker 2: Wild how like interchangeable it can be, you know, because
Speaker 2: there's so many times like I'll be playing a game,
Speaker 2: I'll be like, man, I wish there was just a
Speaker 2: Star Wars version of GTA, right, Like why can't I
Speaker 2: just have this look like Star Wars? And they're that
Speaker 2: game is coming out. But like with the flexibility of
Speaker 2: these other games, it's like, well, yeah, we we can
Speaker 2: already just map this ip onto it. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you want to play like stud versus Peter Peter, then
Speaker 2: exactly do it.
Speaker 3: There's a Darth Vader, there's a Darth Vader. There's a
Speaker 3: Luke Skywalker. There's an Anakin Skywalker skin in Fortnite. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: it's so what have a lightsaber?
Speaker 2: So it sounds like obviously there's like there's ease in
Speaker 2: which that people are being able to make games, and
Speaker 2: that's you know, AI has a certain hand into that
Speaker 2: is the is like the main risk, just like the
Speaker 2: voice acting stuff, because that's the one thing I've saw
Speaker 2: consistently from like voice acting people who are like, get
Speaker 2: the fuck away from my gime with AI, because that is.
Speaker 1: A huge, huge earner for voice actors.
Speaker 3: It's a huge thing. And that was one of the
Speaker 3: things that I wrote down is what really worries me
Speaker 3: about AI. You know, my fears is the less human actors.
Speaker 3: If the AI is going to take over, there's no
Speaker 3: way you can script for it right now. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a meme that if you're thorough, you'll talk to
Speaker 3: an MPC until you're just hearing the same prompts over
Speaker 3: and over, and that means that you've exhausted all the
Speaker 3: dialogue options and what you're you know, the person you're
Speaker 3: talking to, Like, there's only so much that you can
Speaker 3: script with a real person. But for an actor who
Speaker 3: would then be kind of prompting an AI voice, You're
Speaker 3: going in doing one day of work, maybe even only
Speaker 3: like an hour of work, and then that AI prompt
Speaker 3: is then generating an infinite amount of responses forever, right,
Speaker 3: And that's scary. That's scary. That's taking the human element
Speaker 3: out of the the you know, the interaction side of
Speaker 3: video games, and that's something that's kind of you know,
Speaker 3: it's a bridge we're going to have to cross it's
Speaker 3: going to be you know, it's going to be a
Speaker 3: contract that needs to be signed. It's going to need
Speaker 3: to be some sort of agreement that we have. That's
Speaker 3: that is you know, how we kind of control this
Speaker 3: forthcoming storm that is AI actors being part of video
Speaker 3: games because that is real, that is very real. What
Speaker 3: is going to happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right, it sounds like more and more the more you
Speaker 1: describe it, the more it reminds me of like the
Speaker 1: media kind of content economy ten years ago on the Internet,
Speaker 1: where it's like it's very user driven and like it's
Speaker 1: like all all these creative people who are somewhat anonymous
Speaker 1: are driving a lot of the innovation, and it's just
Speaker 1: like kind of a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Are doing it for the love of the game.
Speaker 1: And that turned out well. I think we you know,
Speaker 1: now we have really great websites full of top tier
Speaker 1: user generated content, and no, it obviously went horribly wrong
Speaker 1: because nobody could like really figure out how to monetize that,
Speaker 1: and so they just like kill I guess. So, I
Speaker 1: don't know difference was helpful until I had that thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it'll just continue innovating it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it is one of the ideas that was thrown
Speaker 1: out in like in reading up on AI is like
Speaker 1: they're like, well, one of the problems we have with
Speaker 1: AI is that we don't have a body.
Speaker 2: For this AI.
Speaker 1: This are you know, chat GPT to go walk out
Speaker 1: into the world and like start getting data and feedback
Speaker 1: like learning with its body and with its ability to
Speaker 1: move around in space. So that was just another thing
Speaker 1: that occurred to me as we were talking. It was
Speaker 1: like the NPC chat GPT model, Like in addition to
Speaker 1: being like a cool thing to play with, I could
Speaker 1: see that being prioritized by the company's, the AI companies,
Speaker 1: because that is something they're looking for, is like something
Speaker 1: some mechanism for it to like go out and interact in.
Speaker 2: The real world and like be able to kind of
Speaker 2: move around on the phone and just get like free
Speaker 2: R and D from Yeah. Yeah, in these games, it's
Speaker 2: like a character out in this like open world. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's gonna come away thinking like they believed I
Speaker 2: was African American due to the outsized use of racial
Speaker 2: slurs I hear from young gamers, like, I don't think
Speaker 2: that data set is going to.
Speaker 3: Be fucking poison. It's gonna be bad. It's gonna be bad.
Speaker 1: Well ship, Uh, Daniel, I feel like we could keep
Speaker 1: talking about this for weeks.
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on. That's my pleasure. Thank you for
Speaker 2: having me.
Speaker 1: Making me less afraid of all the gaming ship that
Speaker 1: I hear?
Speaker 2: What do you? I don't know what any of it means? Jack,
Speaker 2: did you come out of this? Is there a game now?
Speaker 2: That's obviously because you're you're up on on the Nintendo.
Speaker 2: We are Switch that bitch from Switch Switch exactly, the
Speaker 2: bits with the switch. Yeah. No, I'm all of them.
Speaker 2: I'm I mean Power World. You know I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: all over this ship for Fortnite. Hell yeah, man, Fortnite.
Speaker 1: Fortnite is scary to me because I feel like I
Speaker 1: just like go in and get shot in the head,
Speaker 1: like immediately. But if like that, there are all these
Speaker 1: very derivations like racing games and stuff like that is
Speaker 1: intriguing to me.
Speaker 2: You'll be like, Yeah, we'll be playing together and you're like,
Speaker 2: can we not do the battle? Can we just do
Speaker 2: like the the racing on the Good and.
Speaker 1: N You can't shoot me in this this is the
Speaker 1: racing one you said specifically, hell yeah, all right, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it.
Speaker 2: For this week's weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Please like and review the show if you like, The
Speaker 1: show means the world to Miles.
Speaker 2: He he needs your validation, folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to him Monday.
Speaker 4: Bye, sing nothing,