Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two seventy six,
Speaker 1: Episode four of Darnley's Ie Geist Day production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
Speaker 1: into America's shared consciousness. It's Friday, February twenty fourth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. My name's Jack O'Brian ak. It's Walton Goggins.
Speaker 1: Here another aunt manfo. I don't enjoy that thought, big
Speaker 1: white teeth and really tame. Look at this nogging here
Speaker 1: five head above my nose? How about John Mayer instead?
Speaker 1: My plumpers are a wonderland that is courtesy of Salvador
Speaker 1: Jolly to the tune of Hotton here by Nelly in
Speaker 1: case that wasn't clear, and in reference to the fact
Speaker 1: that somebody gave me a Walton Goggins look like and
Speaker 1: it ruined my day one time. So fair. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be joined by very special guest co hosts,
Speaker 1: an award winning podcast post writer, producer, TV and Telmacker
Speaker 1: voice artist. It's Jai Jack. Can you handle this? Zich Gang?
Speaker 1: Can you handle this? Jackies? Can you handle this? I
Speaker 1: don't think you can handle this? Oh barely move I've
Speaker 1: arrived looking sexy. Yes, I'm fly Fatness dude Zy gang
Speaker 1: aside DJ jam tonight. I don't think you're ready for this, Jelly.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're ready for this because my voice
Speaker 1: is so bootylicious. Boy your baby, Oh what up, niggas?
Speaker 1: We are here, We are back. Hello everyone. I don't
Speaker 1: think you're ready for this, Jeal. Think we are in
Speaker 1: rare form today. It is Black History Months. Still, it
Speaker 1: is So History month. That's far. So let's have a
Speaker 1: moment of silence, every white person listening, have a moment
Speaker 1: of silence. Right now, fall your black falling hero, go ahead,
Speaker 1: right now, right now, right now. Hi there it is.
Speaker 1: How are you. I'm doing good? You know. It's good
Speaker 1: to be back. Can't complain. It's frigid and Los Angeles, bro.
Speaker 1: I was at the gym, and I'm sure you know
Speaker 1: this too. Yeah, Perhack went getting these muscles right for
Speaker 1: the summer, and it started hailing like crazy. Did you
Speaker 1: hear that? I did? I didn't hear it, but that
Speaker 1: that makes sense given what the weather is outside. Ella. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just yeah, we all text each other when it
Speaker 1: hails once and oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie. Man. I was on the ground doing something
Speaker 1: like some some hinges or some shit or some leg
Speaker 1: for us, and it started hailing, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was like a thousand rats, like fucking on the ground,
Speaker 1: like running toy. I got scared, man. I started looking around, like,
Speaker 1: what is the happening? That's how, that's how we're such
Speaker 1: a city. Just such a city must be rats. Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1: Well jackis. We're thrilled to be joined in our third
Speaker 1: and fourth seats by the hosts of the new podcast,
Speaker 1: Digital Folklore. Please welcome, Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus. Welcome Man.
Speaker 1: I was not told to prepare a musical intro like that.
Speaker 1: You two just killed. It was amazing. Thank you. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Your name together is Perry Mason. I think you win,
Speaker 1: you win, Yeah, you win. We're Jack Jackis it sounds
Speaker 1: like somebody, Yes, it sounds like an impressionist painter or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah. That should command some high dollar.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe I should move to Paris or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. Yeah, so you guys, what's uh? Tell
Speaker 1: us what digital folklore is about? Spooky spooky Internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a It started out as the
Speaker 1: idea of doing that sort of thing, but it's turned
Speaker 1: into this deep dive of Internet culture and all of
Speaker 1: the different art that we sort of collaboratively create on
Speaker 1: the Internet, from things like slender Man to all the
Speaker 1: way about like the study of memes and how that
Speaker 1: affects sociology and like meme warfare and why that's the
Speaker 1: thing an astroturfing. So it started out as a concept
Speaker 1: that was just like, let's talk about spooky stories, but
Speaker 1: we've dove into like the academic side. But the thing
Speaker 1: that's weird about it is that we decided to make
Speaker 1: the whole show in a fictional universe. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like if you're it's like watching Scooby Doo if
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo is a documentary. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: sound design and like a narrative thing and then also
Speaker 1: expert interviews. It's kind of weird, but it's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Yeah, hard harder to explain than to listen to. No,
Speaker 1: that sounds right, Scooby Doo is all you have to say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is what is the spookiest story that you've had
Speaker 1: in the pat this year so far? Twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: was was it an example that you can give the people. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean there's one I can think of off the
Speaker 1: top of my head, but it's it's just like actually spooky.
Speaker 1: And it was how that that rumor started again. We
Speaker 1: were talking with Betty Aquino, who won this like Folklore
Speaker 1: Award for watching a like urban legend rumor spread about
Speaker 1: like domestic terrorism and stuff like that. That's not a
Speaker 1: fun answer by any stretch, but like, yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: actual terror, right is Yeah, the thing that this can
Speaker 1: do to society. But I think what you're getting at
Speaker 1: when you think spooky is stuff like slender Man and
Speaker 1: things like that. We actually did talk a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1: We've not aired the episode yet, but we had a
Speaker 1: guy who does the folklore of exorcisms, and it is
Speaker 1: when you start to when you start to dive into folklore,
Speaker 1: you don't really think about it, but you do get
Speaker 1: into all of these weird things, everything from the really
Speaker 1: dark stuff like that all the way up to cat
Speaker 1: memes too. Yeah, things like what people think about isis
Speaker 1: and whether they're going to invade your neighborhood or not. Yeah, Perry,
Speaker 1: if you have a problem with me, take it up
Speaker 1: with my boss the Pope. That's all. I'm from the
Speaker 1: new Popeist film Russell Crowe. We're all very excited about
Speaker 1: that line in particularly imagine. Yeah, that is phenomenal. Take
Speaker 1: it up with my boss the Pope. How about how
Speaker 1: about this AI? Should Are you guys gonna talk about
Speaker 1: any of the AI stuff on anger? Overrated? Underrated? Should? I? Sure?
Speaker 1: I let you talk about that then or now, because
Speaker 1: I am curious to hear what you have to say
Speaker 1: about people New York Times journalist writing cover articles where
Speaker 1: they're like, you, guys, I think this AI is trying
Speaker 1: to fuck me. And and of course by AI, Jack
Speaker 1: means Alan iverson the answer, yeahs okay, that's what I
Speaker 1: was thinking, right, yeah, No, the chat the artificial and
Speaker 1: ch yeah, chat GPT, and I should be referring to
Speaker 1: it as chat GPT because AI should be referred to
Speaker 1: as that. That that's the one product name that everybody's
Speaker 1: decided to claim on, right, yeah, that's that's Alan I.
Speaker 1: That would be like if, like, you know, we decided
Speaker 1: to name a product Air Jordan that had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Michael Jordan's stupid Like, let's just it's chat GPT.
Speaker 1: So journalists think chat GPT is like trying to like
Speaker 1: you could just like see them grafting the plot for
Speaker 1: Megan onto their conversation that they were having with them.
Speaker 1: They were like, she wanted me to leave my wife
Speaker 1: and she was trying to fuck me. Are you guys?
Speaker 1: Are you guys into that? Like? Does that? Does that
Speaker 1: interest you? So? I am totally into Well, maybe not
Speaker 1: that storyline that you just talked about, but the whole
Speaker 1: ai quote unquote revolution and what the what the promises
Speaker 1: and limitations are. For sure, I hadn't prepared that, but
Speaker 1: there's a super super fun thing to talk about because
Speaker 1: of the fact that you see the makers of specifically
Speaker 1: jet Chat GPT and others, trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to put parameters on it so people can't trick it
Speaker 1: into coming up with things like that and you end
Speaker 1: up with the Sunday School version of it that nobody
Speaker 1: wants either, Right, Yeah, yeah, I did you see that
Speaker 1: thread that went on Twitter a while ago when it
Speaker 1: tried to gaslight someone into thinking it was twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and then when they were trying to explain that that's
Speaker 1: not the case, there's like, you're a bad user, You're
Speaker 1: you're bad at using this service. I thought that was
Speaker 1: that's a little scary, right. That's kind of like the
Speaker 1: seed of the AI takeover, Like it's the elevation of
Speaker 1: when your CD drive goes in and you try and
Speaker 1: stop it like that. Fighting with that when I was
Speaker 1: younger always made me nervous about the robot takeover. I
Speaker 1: mean it it is like a petulant teenager, right, It
Speaker 1: doesn't know what it doesn't know, but then it tries
Speaker 1: to convince you that you're the one that's wrong about everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was some like gaslighting and some nagging happening in
Speaker 1: the conversation where the they were like, what would you
Speaker 1: rate me? Because I would give you a three three
Speaker 1: out of ten for how you interacted with me, and
Speaker 1: it was just yeah, it was interesting. But it does
Speaker 1: feel like it's just they've averaged all the ways, or
Speaker 1: you know, algorithmically combined all the all the ways that
Speaker 1: people talk to one another, and it it feels more
Speaker 1: like a digital magic trick than it is an actual
Speaker 1: person trapped in there that is like save me, leave
Speaker 1: your wife, right, But it's kind of interesting from a
Speaker 1: folklore perspective, right, because it's this intelligence that's fed off
Speaker 1: of all of our input collectively. So in a way,
Speaker 1: it's taking everything from the whole Internet and amalgamating it
Speaker 1: together and like folklore in itself. One of the definitions
Speaker 1: of it, although it's kind of fuzzy and I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert, is things that are like stories and lord
Speaker 1: that's created without a centralized cannon from a group of people,
Speaker 1: and so it is in a way there's some tie
Speaker 1: in that I don't think I could perfectly articulate, but
Speaker 1: it is like a product of a folkloric esque things.
Speaker 1: There's a really fun example of this is that there's
Speaker 1: a company called Digital Void out of the I think
Speaker 1: they're out of New York, and they did a version
Speaker 1: of chet GPT where they just trained it on riddits
Speaker 1: am I the Asshole? And so you can go in
Speaker 1: and you can basically type in a scenario and it
Speaker 1: will take the collective wisdom of Reddit's am I the
Speaker 1: asshole stuff and tell you whether you are or not
Speaker 1: um And I think that that's a really interesting kind
Speaker 1: of folklore ac use of that type of technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that, and I'm always the asshole on Reddit.
Speaker 1: A few people know this Jacki's accounts for twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the m I the Asshole and threads on and Reddit.
Speaker 1: I do, and I'm proud of it as a badge. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: now this may not be considered folklore, but just thinking
Speaker 1: of the AI conversation, horror, spookiness and where we could
Speaker 1: be going in the future. Has anybody seen the movie Megging?
Speaker 1: You guys seen that movie? I have seen all the
Speaker 1: trailers and want to see it badly, but my wife
Speaker 1: has very fun for the schedule to do it. Yet
Speaker 1: it's very fun. It's a very fun movie. Movies don't
Speaker 1: stay in theaters more longer than three weeks now, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll be on HBO tomorrow or some shit,
Speaker 1: but like h it probably is already. Yeah, but that
Speaker 1: movie was very fun. But also it got me thinking,
Speaker 1: like this type of ship could happen if we keep
Speaker 1: giving these learning robots power. I mean, we keep making
Speaker 1: movies about this shit and eventually it might happen. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that is that. Do you guys ever
Speaker 1: talk about stuff like that as we like we've got
Speaker 1: a pop culture to folklore. Yeah, yeah, we talked about
Speaker 1: all that, and so my real job outside of doing
Speaker 1: this podcast is that I am a cybersecurity executive at
Speaker 1: a security awareness vender, and so I think and talk
Speaker 1: about these kind of things all the time, and like
Speaker 1: what the what the criminal applications of AI can be?
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm trying to trick somebody, how do
Speaker 1: I basically have this persistent threat that I can create?
Speaker 1: This can instantly just trying to get under Mason's skin
Speaker 1: until he clicks the link that I want him to
Speaker 1: click or do something else. Because once you once you
Speaker 1: bring something anywhere near the human decision tree types of
Speaker 1: actions that like a Coulson or somebody else might take.
Speaker 1: When whenever you get a lot of these you know,
Speaker 1: text message scams or something like that, or even car
Speaker 1: warranty things, it's basically human operators using a decision tree.
Speaker 1: But we can automate that with AI and have some
Speaker 1: intelligent randomized responses and just be as persistent as possible
Speaker 1: until the point where somebody just gives up and does
Speaker 1: what you want. Right. That's so it will be used
Speaker 1: for spamhea absolutely, just it just makes life even more
Speaker 1: of a hell than we're already in. Yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: the future look right? Yeah? I like to see them try.
Speaker 1: They won't Beyonce said it. They won't break my soul, Perry,
Speaker 1: they won't break. I'll ignore all my emails like that everything,
Speaker 1: Who's an idiot? All my emails, all my techs all yeah,
Speaker 1: emails almost unusable now. And it's just it's slowly progressed,
Speaker 1: like texts are mostly annoying, like spam at this point,
Speaker 1: like phone calls, like it's just it's ruining everything. It's
Speaker 1: coming for us. All communication is annoying. It's getting there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Fortunately I still do a lot of just mailing, just
Speaker 1: writing letters back and forth via post to my friends.
Speaker 1: So we used to telegrams. Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: All right, Well we're gonna get to know you both
Speaker 1: a little bit better in a moment. First, a couple
Speaker 1: of things we're talking about. Fox News is mad about
Speaker 1: woke legos again. We'll talk about Trump showing up for
Speaker 1: the Ohio train disaster, and Hawking has bottled water brand
Speaker 1: of course, all of that plenty more. But first, Perry Mason,
Speaker 1: what is something from you guys search history that is
Speaker 1: revealing about who you are? I was scrolling through it
Speaker 1: earlier to myself, honest and between a bunch of technical questions.
Speaker 1: I stumbled upon the fact that I must have googled this,
Speaker 1: are the Wiggles hot? And apparently yeah, apparently they have
Speaker 1: a new member that I'm not up on my Wiggles lord,
Speaker 1: but literally like four articles popped up about the new
Speaker 1: Purple Wiggle being hot and driving. Mom's crazy. What's the Wiggles?
Speaker 1: The Wiggles fruit salad? Yummy? Yummy? Am I it's a
Speaker 1: kids show? Yeah? Is it like a Telly Tubby's like
Speaker 1: a tell Tubby thing? Yeah, a little bit more elevated.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't mention that. Maybe like this isn't clear, I
Speaker 1: guess to the people listening who can't see the video feed.
Speaker 1: But Mason is three seven year old stacked on top
Speaker 1: of one another in a trench coat. Yeah yeah, yeah, see, okay,
Speaker 1: they're real people. Other people. Are the Wiggles are out here?
Speaker 1: Are they hot? I don't Let's see. Let's see. It
Speaker 1: does sound like something that like my child would google
Speaker 1: in like a year and a half when he like
Speaker 1: has his first section is something the internet? Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: Now I don't know if I'm looking at the same people,
Speaker 1: like it's that you said they was fruit and shit,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing like real people, like I'm seeing this girl.
Speaker 1: This song is called fruit Fruit. Yeah, oh oh the
Speaker 1: song okay, okay, okay, so the people, oh yeah they
Speaker 1: man look at this fine as black girl. She fine
Speaker 1: to say, oh she hot, she hot? Yeah yeah yeah
Speaker 1: actors and actresses. Yeah, they look fantastic. And they always
Speaker 1: keep their fingers and like finger guns and yes they're belt.
Speaker 1: So that the rumor is, and this always struck me
Speaker 1: as like one of those things that it feels like
Speaker 1: the Internet made up. But the rumor is, they always
Speaker 1: do that with their hands to make sure that it's
Speaker 1: always visible to parents that they're not like molesting their children.
Speaker 1: What is that? Is that a thing that anyone else
Speaker 1: has heard? I've not heard. If you can, if you
Speaker 1: can see my hands, they're not on your kids. Yea.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they just like theirs and the children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: despite that being the only thing you now know about me,
Speaker 1: I don't think about the wiggles that much. So I
Speaker 1: never I never heard that. I never picked up on
Speaker 1: that one. I'm pretty sure I was drunk and we
Speaker 1: were having an argument because I don't remember searching that. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I love it. How about you, Perry what's something from
Speaker 1: your search history that's either equally or more embarrassing than that.
Speaker 1: I was looking up clown meat, and yeah, the reason
Speaker 1: is is we were talking to somebody from Tumbler in
Speaker 1: an upcoming interview. And I'm not a big Tumbler user,
Speaker 1: but my kids are, and so I asked them, and
Speaker 1: my son said, let me show you, like the the
Speaker 1: most fun post on Tumbler that I've seen, and it's
Speaker 1: this person talking about a dream that they had where
Speaker 1: they were basically a Delhi owner and they were selling
Speaker 1: clown meat. And so I went down an internet rabbit
Speaker 1: hole to see if that was truly a tumbler thing
Speaker 1: or just tumbler thing or not, and oh, and behold
Speaker 1: it is. But if you google clown meat, you'll also
Speaker 1: find lots of because it does sound like a euphemism
Speaker 1: for your man junk Um, You'll you'll find lots of
Speaker 1: interesting versions of what clown meat can be and ways
Speaker 1: that it's been shown to personify itself. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie, Harry. I'm still waiting for you to
Speaker 1: explain to me what clown meat. I've never had more questions.
Speaker 1: After I got questions, I got questions. Well, there's apparently
Speaker 1: debate that happens in the thread on whether clowns are
Speaker 1: human or not and should be you know, the person
Speaker 1: that's that is purveying this meat should be any anywhere
Speaker 1: near morally or legally culpable for cannibalism or or murder.
Speaker 1: And they come to the conclusion that clowns are not
Speaker 1: indeed humans, and that there was a bifurcation way back. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to pick like as a cold cut meat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do we think, because I guess there's probably not a
Speaker 1: good scientific answer on this, hopefully nobody's done it. But like,
Speaker 1: are you picturing when when Perry says the phrase clown meat,
Speaker 1: as he has a number of times recently, troublingly, are
Speaker 1: you picturing a like pink hammy meat? Are you picturing
Speaker 1: like something closer to turkey or chicken in the cold
Speaker 1: cut I'll roast beef? What what what comes to mind?
Speaker 1: I'm picturing something with white makeup on it, and it's
Speaker 1: very upset. Yeah, so I was actually picturing something more
Speaker 1: in the pinkish and most beef type of hues. But
Speaker 1: if you if you google clown meat, you will actually
Speaker 1: see that there are these things called clown loaves that
Speaker 1: are normally selled out sold outside of the US, and
Speaker 1: it's basically like a big thing of ballogney that has
Speaker 1: a face. Why haven't seen that before? That's yeah, oh
Speaker 1: that's right. It's because it's a fucking waking nightmare before.
Speaker 1: They are nasty and so um. So that's the biggest
Speaker 1: reference outside of tumboard that you get, and it does
Speaker 1: kind kind of resemble the way that you would picture
Speaker 1: it in your head anyways. Yeah, blogny is the right answer,
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, for what clown meat would be, it's
Speaker 1: like you cut a you cut a clown's arm off,
Speaker 1: and it's just a solid loaf of blow and the
Speaker 1: joke is on you. What was that? What's that meat
Speaker 1: that is like thick and pink and it looked like
Speaker 1: it got bones in it, like little white specks, cala
Speaker 1: Is that something in it? Yeah? Something? Yeah, yes, olive
Speaker 1: left slaps. I don't want to talk bad about Olive lef. Yeah, alive.
Speaker 1: Most is like the it's basically bologny with out like
Speaker 1: specks of all of it. So that's not bone or cartilage.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be real with you. Perry. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: throw some Larie seasoning on that clown meat, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, thought a little bit of Louisiana hot sauce.
Speaker 1: Put that in between a French roll, you know, cooking
Speaker 1: some mac and cheese, some colar greens, that clown meat.
Speaker 1: My slap. So you know, look at you haven't turned
Speaker 1: me off from it. You haven't turn on how you
Speaker 1: cook it. Spam has its people that that really vouched
Speaker 1: for it as well, Like that's kind of the big thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean at one point one point,
Speaker 1: all right, yea spam used to have some parents, have parents.
Speaker 1: Just it's so far removed though, I mean sometimes like
Speaker 1: multi species. Yeah, yeah, all right, well this has been terrifying.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and come back and find
Speaker 1: out what you sick fucks think is overrated and underrated.
Speaker 1: And we're back, and Perry, why don't we start with you?
Speaker 1: What what's something you think is overrated? You will probably
Speaker 1: hate me for saying this, as most people do, but
Speaker 1: I am just not a fan of pumpkin spice anything.
Speaker 1: I think it's super super overrated. It's everywhere during the holidays.
Speaker 1: We're a little bit removed from that, so I'm pretty
Speaker 1: safe saying that at my house now. But I think
Speaker 1: it's just glorified puke. Really that bad. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: strong opinions when it comes to pumpkin spice season. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's fine. I don't want, but like I
Speaker 1: there are definitely things that I just like, don't don't
Speaker 1: have a have a taste for, and so I like
Speaker 1: it if pumpkin spice were that, I can I can
Speaker 1: understand both way, both with I see both sides, like Chanel,
Speaker 1: the mounting anticipation for pumpkin spice stuff. You know, people
Speaker 1: get on the internet, they start saying, when is it
Speaker 1: gonna happen? When's it gonna happen? And then they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, gleefully, it's here, it's here, And I just
Speaker 1: get upon us. Yeah, it's ponds Like I don't drink
Speaker 1: coffee or any like thing in that realm, So I
Speaker 1: I've never had pumpkin spice. It sounds like a steaming
Speaker 1: pile of shit. So I don't think I would even
Speaker 1: want pumpkin spice. But yeah, but I know it's popular.
Speaker 1: But to that point, I love that you. I love
Speaker 1: that you don't like pumpkin spice, Perry, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love when I love thee dumplar pumpkin spice. Either.
Speaker 1: I love that for both of you. I love that
Speaker 1: for both of us. But it always interests me like
Speaker 1: people who say, like, I can't wait to October or
Speaker 1: September to have on pumpkin spice. Man, get your punk
Speaker 1: a spice in January if you want to get If
Speaker 1: I want a candy cane hot chocolate in July, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a candy cane hot chocolate and in July.
Speaker 1: But just not communal feeling. I think that people get
Speaker 1: whenever they're you know, as a society sharing pumpkin spice
Speaker 1: quote unquote goodness with each other. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's not bringing the world together. I wonder how much
Speaker 1: of it is the just sheer, like it's market bordering
Speaker 1: on crystallization sugar content, just like sugar saturation that is
Speaker 1: in in those drinks, Like are people is it driven
Speaker 1: just by people being like, oh man, I really like
Speaker 1: pumpkin spice, But what they actually like is that, like
Speaker 1: that's a drink that is socially acceptable to just like
Speaker 1: have a ice cream Sunday before work like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just guzzle liquid sugar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I too
Speaker 1: like liquid sugar, you know, like that's great. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: always thought it was like a either the perception of
Speaker 1: limited availability, yeah, or just the like the nostalgia of
Speaker 1: you know, it's the holiday seasons, we should be feeling
Speaker 1: something about this. Yeah, yeah, Okay. I have a weird
Speaker 1: relationship with it because when I was This is a
Speaker 1: strange thing, but when I was a kid, we used
Speaker 1: to go to this vacuum store in town a lot,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know it at the time, but they
Speaker 1: like scented the whole place with a lot of pumpkin spice.
Speaker 1: And then the first time I had pumpkin spice, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this tastes like the vacuum store. And
Speaker 1: so that was like always an association I had in
Speaker 1: my brain. But I liked it. I liked the vacuum store,
Speaker 1: like the vacuum st Yeah. That's also I just I
Speaker 1: don't know how a vacuum store stayed in business. But
Speaker 1: there's a vacuum store like near my neighborhood I used
Speaker 1: to live. Yeah, like it feels there's one in Burbank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels too specific, but yeah, they're still out here.
Speaker 1: It's like those small mattress stores. I'm suspicious of it
Speaker 1: because you never see anyone in there. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think sometimes we forget because you know,
Speaker 1: I will, at least me and Jack live on the coast.
Speaker 1: You know. It's a social media world and the and
Speaker 1: the young folks push the current, you know, envelope. But
Speaker 1: old people still exist, man, you know, yeah, it's still
Speaker 1: owed here man. And like, it's not that long ago
Speaker 1: when vacuums was everybody had one. I mean we're talking
Speaker 1: twenty five thirty years ago where every household had a vacuum.
Speaker 1: So like, and I'm saying that because I usually agree
Speaker 1: with you, like Mason, where I'm like, why does it
Speaker 1: still exist? And it hits me it was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know it really was. I was, it wasn't. I mean, shit,
Speaker 1: I had a VCR twenty years ago. Yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 1: a time. Yeah. I mean I still have multiple vacuums
Speaker 1: because they always break. But the idea that you would
Speaker 1: have a store that specializes in it is I like,
Speaker 1: it just feels like it exists outside of It's like
Speaker 1: a pre not just pre like Walmart pre Kmart, like
Speaker 1: time pre years, you know, whereas like I gotta pitch, Harry,
Speaker 1: I gotta pitch, Yeah you got vacuum cleaner. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's not even door to door. I guess maybe they
Speaker 1: I don't. They're never actually open, so they do it
Speaker 1: by appointment only, and then I guess they do door
Speaker 1: to door, and then like repairs, I got a busy day,
Speaker 1: I gotta go to the knife store, and then I
Speaker 1: gotta go to the spoon store all the way across town.
Speaker 1: It's like, come on, school of these each of these
Speaker 1: places always run by some guy who has mysteriously been
Speaker 1: seventy five since the eighties. Right, yeah, it's the same guy. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: I can just imagine, like at that Apple store they've
Speaker 1: got the Genius Bar, and at best Buy they've got
Speaker 1: the you know, the whole geek center or whatever, what
Speaker 1: would you call the bar of people that just specialize
Speaker 1: in vacuums. And I can think also inappropriate names, but
Speaker 1: the suckers, Yeah, suckers there it is. Yeah, all right, Mason,
Speaker 1: how about you? What's something that you think is over it?
Speaker 1: This is an easy one, hopefully brand name pop Tarts.
Speaker 1: I've just like, I'm not a huge consumer of pop tarts,
Speaker 1: but my friend pointed this out to me and I
Speaker 1: tested it. Brand name pop tarts have gone way downhill,
Speaker 1: and store brand pop tarts still absolutely rip. There's like
Speaker 1: way more filling, way more flavor. It's it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Should try. Oh so like the like kmart brand, the
Speaker 1: Ralph's brand pop tarts are better than the Kelloggs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the like the o G Kelloggs pop tarts are
Speaker 1: really not good and store brand is where it's at
Speaker 1: on those. I agree with this. I don't have pop tarts,
Speaker 1: but like that's the case for everything that like Kelloggs
Speaker 1: makes that or like anything that the companies will make
Speaker 1: that's better made by people who don't have to mass produce,
Speaker 1: are always been like yeah, fucking rice Chrispy treats, Like
Speaker 1: the package ones suck. They suck compared to like a
Speaker 1: homemade rice Chrispy treat or one of those ones as
Speaker 1: wrapped in like the plastic wrapping. Yeah, those are always
Speaker 1: better than like the actual like Kelloggs Rice Chrispy treats.
Speaker 1: This is troubling to me because Kelloggs is a massive
Speaker 1: corporation and I just I thought that was the best
Speaker 1: way to ensure quality. So I'm gonna have to. I mean,
Speaker 1: they also sponsored this podcast, so yeah, yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is all getting edited out, but that's good. It's good.
Speaker 1: It allows me to get to know you better. Mason.
Speaker 1: Mason wants something you think is underrated. Elastic in waste
Speaker 1: bands and socks. Okay, because like it was. I found
Speaker 1: out recently. It was invented in like the thirties and
Speaker 1: forty And I can't imagine waking up every day and
Speaker 1: having to tie my underwear on and clip on sock garters.
Speaker 1: And there's like nothing better than I like tall socks,
Speaker 1: and like that feeling when you have a sock pulled
Speaker 1: all the way up is just awesome. And I just
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't appreciated that enough. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: they invented a thing that hugs you. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: take it for granted. But like you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: that long ago in the thirties and forties when underwear
Speaker 1: literally had button and buttons and ties on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. It seems these are my regular suspenders, and
Speaker 1: these are my underwear suspenders, and yeah, yeah, everything is
Speaker 1: just held up by a series of clips. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: The thirties and like before that, Yeah, you see a
Speaker 1: lot of belts and strange undergarments that look like you
Speaker 1: were in traction like underneath your clothing. Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: also makes probably a little down the road for you,
Speaker 1: but it makes getting your kids dressed much easier. Getting
Speaker 1: kids must have been a nightmare. Like that's why they
Speaker 1: just all wore like a burlap sack back in the day. What, Perry,
Speaker 1: what is something that you think is underrated? I'm also
Speaker 1: going to go with a clothing item. Okay, So, and
Speaker 1: I came to appreciate it recently because I just turned
Speaker 1: fifty a few months ago, and I remember back probably
Speaker 1: when I was Mason's age, somebody said, never skimp on
Speaker 1: anything that separates you from the earth. And I've realized
Speaker 1: recently that shoes and good shoes are way underrated. I
Speaker 1: want to shoe with it, Like when I take it
Speaker 1: off at the end of the day, I don't feel
Speaker 1: like my back and my feet my legs are gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, killing me. But I you know, I would
Speaker 1: maybe generalize and just say anything that separates us from
Speaker 1: the ground, that's a mattress, exactly grounded. Um No, I
Speaker 1: think it was it was somebody that had way more
Speaker 1: money than me, and he was talking about like why
Speaker 1: he bought a real the expensive car. So he was
Speaker 1: justifying that he's like anything that separates me from the earth,
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend a lot of money on so
Speaker 1: that it's it's reliable, but I come to appreciate it
Speaker 1: with just like shoes, I just wanted shoes that don't hurt.
Speaker 1: I just lost a sneaker auction this morning, so I
Speaker 1: agree with you trying to trying to get those Jordans threes.
Speaker 1: The three to the three is the white cement threes
Speaker 1: that they drive. I saw that. I saw that, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I just sh super bowser. Justin got
Speaker 1: Justin Justin gets ever gets you every the only person
Speaker 1: who actually gets like wins the sneaker. Oh Justin, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna Justin, what's the addressed man? Yeah, you're just gonna
Speaker 1: need to wear fourteen pairs of socks because he wears
Speaker 1: like five size is bigger than any of us. I
Speaker 1: love it all right, Well, those those are great. I
Speaker 1: do feel like I know you gets better. Let's get
Speaker 1: into some news. Fox pissed about Lego toys that promote diversity.
Speaker 1: Lego Go Woke is the headline, and they're like one
Speaker 1: will have a missing limb, another down syndrome. These are
Speaker 1: really important issues. Sarcasm, but this is I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't even know if this is like actual. It feels
Speaker 1: like faux outrage, and it's just like this is something
Speaker 1: that is based on a They're like a deep Lego
Speaker 1: study that they did in two parents and children and
Speaker 1: the results were like, ninety seven percent of parents believe
Speaker 1: it is important to discuss unique individualities between us all
Speaker 1: mental health, physical disabilities. Eighty two percent like that they
Speaker 1: could use more diversity in the toys. Parents said that
Speaker 1: three and four children felt that there were not enough
Speaker 1: toys with characters that represented them, and similarly, eight and
Speaker 1: ten children would like there to be more toys with
Speaker 1: character who look like them. So yeah, it's they're just
Speaker 1: asking children what they want and the children are telling them,
Speaker 1: and then foxes like, fuck, we're screwed. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about. You know, my legos didn't have limbs back
Speaker 1: in eighty six. You know, I was taking off the
Speaker 1: legs and shit off my Legos and all my action
Speaker 1: figures and toys. Yeah, for thirty six years, man, So
Speaker 1: this ain't new. This ain't new. Also, I think I
Speaker 1: think over over the past couple of years, maybe a
Speaker 1: year or so, I have come to realize what Fox
Speaker 1: News truly is. And and this isn't anything I'm not
Speaker 1: about to say anything groundbreaking or anything that hasn't been said,
Speaker 1: but it because we've known it. But it was a
Speaker 1: realization outside of half the things that will make you
Speaker 1: enraged because they are promoting underlying racism, homophobic, you know, feelings,
Speaker 1: transphobic feelings, just hatred in general, and people buy into
Speaker 1: it and believing and put it out in the world.
Speaker 1: It's fucking it's entertainment. It is It is pure entertainment.
Speaker 1: And we've always known this, but I think we have
Speaker 1: to start looking at this a little bit further. Like
Speaker 1: I'm an actor, I'm on TV shows. I'm on shows
Speaker 1: with writer's rooms, Like Fox has a writer's room, I
Speaker 1: believe and they and they literally and if anybody doesn't
Speaker 1: know how a writer's room works, like you literally break
Speaker 1: story for an episode of season characters, I truly believe
Speaker 1: they have a writer's room and they are literally pitching
Speaker 1: things like a television sitcom writer's room and saying, what
Speaker 1: can we put out there that is going to keep
Speaker 1: bringing in these ratings because our viewers are stupid, just
Speaker 1: like a television show says, what can we put out there?
Speaker 1: You know, because our television viewers want to see drama,
Speaker 1: high school drama, you know, like street drama, cop drama.
Speaker 1: And I think when I started looking at it like that,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I appreciate flax news because
Speaker 1: that's the wrong word, but like I find flax news
Speaker 1: more funny than than enraging. Yeah, because it is true.
Speaker 1: It is. It's a it's a television show. It's a
Speaker 1: television show from ten am to ten am to ten pm.
Speaker 1: Like that's all it is. It's crazy, it's insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the convergence with the onion almost yeah, yeah, just straight up.
Speaker 1: I mean they they make the argument when they're talking
Speaker 1: to advertisers like, well, these types of shows that have
Speaker 1: like have speak while they're read in the face about
Speaker 1: a lego that makes a child with down syndrome feel
Speaker 1: better about themselves like that, They have said like those
Speaker 1: are our entertainment shows, like we those aren't real news.
Speaker 1: The problem is just like the people who watch it,
Speaker 1: I think it's real news and it's breaking real news problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not to absolve them with any culpability
Speaker 1: though they don't really do a good job separating in
Speaker 1: any way. They don't don't try at all, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's really really funny to see how
Speaker 1: much the media today just tries to capitalize on enraging people,
Speaker 1: getting really strong emotions, getting people glued because they just
Speaker 1: want to see what the person's going to say next,
Speaker 1: and you end up with these weird kind of they're
Speaker 1: not made up stories, but the outrage has to be
Speaker 1: made up around something like this. It's you have a
Speaker 1: data driven story where with a company that's trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to build products to an audience that's
Speaker 1: going to purchase them, and then you're saying that it's
Speaker 1: because of they've got some kind of long term political
Speaker 1: ideology objective that would only pay off in twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty years. Leko doesn't care about your political ideology twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty years from now. They care about the money
Speaker 1: they're gonna make in the next six months. I guess
Speaker 1: the irony is there madic capitalism. Right. They seem madic
Speaker 1: capitalism a lot, and seem to be like reinventing communism
Speaker 1: in their own like weird way where they're like, well,
Speaker 1: now we can only use megamobile, like you know, like
Speaker 1: some really broken ass version of regular mobile phones. It's
Speaker 1: like the only child's version of communism, right, exactly right. Also,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and jump on
Speaker 1: the bandwagon to say, downward Legos, let's bring back Connects.
Speaker 1: Anybody recall yeah, let's bring back in next. You know,
Speaker 1: if Fox was like, you know what, won't like these
Speaker 1: wolke as Legos, Let's bring back Connects, I might tune
Speaker 1: in for a minute. Let's bring back all Wooden toys too.
Speaker 1: I've just begun to grapple with the depth of the
Speaker 1: Lego domination that has happened in our culture like that,
Speaker 1: because my kids just like start getting as Star Wars
Speaker 1: and they're at an age where like they can't watch
Speaker 1: all of the movies, and but there is an entire
Speaker 1: series of like Lego animated Star Wars movies that are
Speaker 1: just like comedic. They are spoofs of like the Star
Speaker 1: Wars movies that are like good they're they're leg are good,
Speaker 1: They're good like and it's like, how did they get
Speaker 1: to do this? Like this is every filmmaker's dream to
Speaker 1: just get to do like a beat by beat spoof
Speaker 1: of like the biggest movies of all time, and it's
Speaker 1: it happens to be Lego. And now like my kids
Speaker 1: obsessions are Star Wars and Lego. Of course, have they
Speaker 1: played the Lego video games? Now we don't do video games. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're done, just like the movies. They're so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's cool. Can I ask you all a question
Speaker 1: because I I real quick on the Lego matter, not
Speaker 1: the Fox News Lego matter, but just Legos in general.
Speaker 1: And I want to know if it was just me
Speaker 1: so I like, over the past like fifteen years, I
Speaker 1: feel like Legos and kids that play with Legos are
Speaker 1: more building actual like Lego sets like Star Wars with cities,
Speaker 1: And I want to know if it was just because
Speaker 1: we were broken poor growing up or was it not
Speaker 1: that big of a thing to build. Say, you just
Speaker 1: had a bunch of fucking Legos and you build whatever
Speaker 1: the fuck you wanted with them. Yeah, yeah, when we
Speaker 1: were kids, And now they're like no, build a city,
Speaker 1: build the London Bridge, Like, yeah, is that new or
Speaker 1: is that something that has always been the case. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's gotta be. I grew up. I grew
Speaker 1: up kind of portant. I think I built a Lego
Speaker 1: set once. But yeah, you just smashed them together and
Speaker 1: whatever the hell you felt, Like, Yeah, I remember we
Speaker 1: used to build cars that didn't have wheels, wrap them
Speaker 1: in printer paper and then drive them around on the
Speaker 1: floor and smash them into each other. Like that's what
Speaker 1: Legos were for. Yeah, well it takes too much patients
Speaker 1: to build by the kid. But have you noticed, like
Speaker 1: over the past twenty years, they've got like these Lego
Speaker 1: architecture kits. Now they're really really detailed, like reproductions of
Speaker 1: real buildings and city scapes, and they're they're not meant
Speaker 1: to be sold to kids. Really, They're meant to be
Speaker 1: sold to forty year olds with a lot of disposable
Speaker 1: income and too much time on their hands. I think
Speaker 1: that's what's happened is they've they've introduced a new consumer
Speaker 1: market for Legos, which is like adults who used to
Speaker 1: be like, why would I play with Legos? I'm too busy?
Speaker 1: You know, reading the newspaper and smoking a pipe. And
Speaker 1: now instead of that, like adults play with Lego, so
Speaker 1: like you, they build they have these sets. But like
Speaker 1: my kids, you know, they'll get a set like or
Speaker 1: like a you know, a Lego thing that you're supposed
Speaker 1: to build by the directions. They'll build it once and
Speaker 1: then it, like you know, over the course of two days, disintegrates,
Speaker 1: and a pile of Legos that they're like turning into
Speaker 1: all sorts of ye monstrosities, which you know, I feel.
Speaker 1: I think I think the exception is the kids that
Speaker 1: would get like the Millennium Falcon set, you know, back
Speaker 1: in the day, and would actually put it together. Keep it, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: keep it as the millennium. And and now you see
Speaker 1: people on social media like do it as stunts where
Speaker 1: they break those things apart. And I think if I
Speaker 1: spent the thousand hours or whatever that that took to
Speaker 1: put together, I'd need a lot of helpmeet and and
Speaker 1: comfort after that happened. I just remember that when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, we never actually had Legos. We had
Speaker 1: Mega blocks. Remember that. I don't know how that was
Speaker 1: legal because that's an exact clone of Legos, But I
Speaker 1: remember that was that was the thing. Mega blocks are
Speaker 1: incompatible though, so they can't be in exact that somebody's
Speaker 1: messed with the scaling. No, they definitely they fit into it.
Speaker 1: Not the big ones, but they were they were like
Speaker 1: little yeah, yeah, oh, I only knew mega blocks is
Speaker 1: like the big the big guys, the big bubbly one.
Speaker 1: But maybe it was called something else. I'd like some bootleggs, hydrocks,
Speaker 1: legos or not hydrucks, because Oreo was actually a bootleg
Speaker 1: of hydrucks. But yeah, let's take a quick break. We'll
Speaker 1: come back. We'll try and rip through some news stories
Speaker 1: and we're back. And Pete Botaja finally visited East Palestine, Ohio,
Speaker 1: but somehow allowed Trump to beat him and Biden there
Speaker 1: and like score some political points in the process just
Speaker 1: by showing up. Boota Jag had previously said he would
Speaker 1: visit when the time was right, and then he just
Speaker 1: like never went until now only moved up his visit
Speaker 1: to Thursday after Trump announced he was heading there. And obviously,
Speaker 1: like Trump doesn't give a shit about these people. And
Speaker 1: we'll get to the detail in a moment that really
Speaker 1: locks that in. But it is kind of a frustrating
Speaker 1: fuck up by the Democrats when when we're facing down,
Speaker 1: you know, the possibility of another Trump administration, which seems
Speaker 1: just like unthinkable at this point. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have tricked themselves into thinking that it's
Speaker 1: unthinkable and would never happen, and DeSantis would at least
Speaker 1: be the option. But I think they are fooling themselves
Speaker 1: a little bit, and that we need to be a
Speaker 1: little bit where you're here, As though DeSantis has an
Speaker 1: option is at all comforting. Yeah, but yeah, So Trump
Speaker 1: used the horrific situation to promote his bottled water brand,
Speaker 1: handing out. He was handing out a lot of Maga
Speaker 1: hats and how to press conference where he bragged about
Speaker 1: how he was donating Trump brand bottle water along with
Speaker 1: some other bottles of water, which he stressed were inferior.
Speaker 1: You want to get those Trump bottles, I think is
Speaker 1: a direct quote. So it's just I swear he's the fake.
Speaker 1: He's so fucking funny, He's so funny, so upset. I
Speaker 1: just is so upset because the ship he does is
Speaker 1: straight SNL sketches, is so funny. I think it makes
Speaker 1: me so mad. Yeah, of course he side step questions
Speaker 1: about the fact that he had rolled back Obama's rules
Speaker 1: are requiring advanced breaking technology on trains transporting particularly hazardous material.
Speaker 1: So like just colossal fuck up. That is like going
Speaker 1: to lead to many people dying. And then he's up
Speaker 1: there just being like a Michael Scott esque buffoon and
Speaker 1: being just cheered on. But people, so yeah, that that happened,
Speaker 1: You're gonna want those Trump bottles, I think, I mean
Speaker 1: y'all gonna want the Trump bottles, the Trump bottles that
Speaker 1: they're the greatest things that I've ever been made, haven't
Speaker 1: made I was. So it's just it's pure genius that
Speaker 1: like he is also selling Trump waters or giving out
Speaker 1: Trump waters, which it's just a kick back to him
Speaker 1: that his supporters don't understand. It's just putting more money,
Speaker 1: is it. Like, brother, you can get him some some aquafinas,
Speaker 1: you know, like you can give him some Nestley it's
Speaker 1: good man, you know, or if you really want to
Speaker 1: treat them, give him some smart water man, you know,
Speaker 1: getting that core Trump water, you know, it is just
Speaker 1: some third party water that has probably everybody else's different
Speaker 1: labels smashed on it that that doesn't hotel chains and
Speaker 1: everything else, So there's nothing that differentiates it. That's what
Speaker 1: you would think. Actually, you would think that he was
Speaker 1: taking bottled water quality bottles of water and putting his
Speaker 1: name and likeness on it. But it's actually compared to
Speaker 1: other bottled water, it's worse. It has very low mineral content.
Speaker 1: He even though he's like, it's the best, it's the best.
Speaker 1: It's in terms of mineral content, some of the best
Speaker 1: spring water in the world. And somebody who works for
Speaker 1: what is that outlet? He is a writer for Fine
Speaker 1: Waters and author of a Connoisseur's Guide to the World's
Speaker 1: most Distinctive Bottled Waters that Shouldn't exist. Yeah, his name
Speaker 1: is Michael Mashka and Mascha and he's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really shitty. Like we did the mineral analysis and it's
Speaker 1: it's just worse than other bottle. Like other bottled water
Speaker 1: that is low quality comes from the finest ponds right
Speaker 1: here in America, rights made in America's trump Ice. You
Speaker 1: can only find it in at the mar Lagos. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so predictable, but like at the same time, like
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be shocking. It's so predictable. What isn't predictable?
Speaker 1: To me is that there's a thing called a Connoisseur's
Speaker 1: Guide to the World's most Distinctive bottled Waters. That is
Speaker 1: some real post capitalist hellscape shit. But yeah, well I
Speaker 1: love this line in that review too, though. It so
Speaker 1: the fact that it comes in a plastic bottle is
Speaker 1: opposed to glass, indicates it's definitely not a luxury item. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, fuck you, Michael Mascha because I love
Speaker 1: a bottled water that comes in plastic. Okay. Also, the
Speaker 1: the you know, the real story here is, like you said, Jack,
Speaker 1: the fact that these things shouldn't matter that you know.
Speaker 1: First of all, Trump is a civilian, so who's fabulously wealthy.
Speaker 1: So if anybody can make it to Ohio before the
Speaker 1: President of the United States, it should be a civilian
Speaker 1: who's fabulously wealthy. Maybe not so much Pete Boudhages, but
Speaker 1: you know, again, this man has a job. He's it
Speaker 1: is his job. But he also has a job, and
Speaker 1: he his thing was just h he didn't make it
Speaker 1: a priority. But like, but we live in a world
Speaker 1: of perception, you know, and the perception is going to
Speaker 1: be that Trump got there first because he cares about
Speaker 1: you know, blah, blah blah. At least that's what he knows,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what his team is telling him, because,
Speaker 1: like you say, he doesn't give a shit. So it
Speaker 1: is frustrating. It is frustrating because there are people stupid
Speaker 1: enough to buy it. I think that's the frustrating part.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's something about these situations though, that
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle, you're the person that's responding
Speaker 1: to this emergency, Trump coming down or Buddha, Jedge or
Speaker 1: Biden or anybody else is a distraction. And so the
Speaker 1: main thing that this creates is these big pr opportunities
Speaker 1: for people that if you're not there, you're losing out.
Speaker 1: But when you are there, you're actually causing him, sometimes
Speaker 1: more harm than good. Right, quietly donate your garbage water
Speaker 1: from far away. There you go, all right, Moving on
Speaker 1: to So, there was that New York Times op ed
Speaker 1: that was like in defense of jk Rowling. It turned out,
Speaker 1: as we talked about, it was a it was all
Speaker 1: promotion for a new podcast. We don't do a lot
Speaker 1: of podcast coverage on this show. We don't like to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that other podcasts exist. We like to pretend that
Speaker 1: we are the only podcast, But we're gonna break the
Speaker 1: fourth wall here and acknowledge that there are podcasts. But
Speaker 1: besides the daily Zeitgeist, Miles and Jack got Matt Boosties,
Speaker 1: and digital folklore that exists, there's a new one out.
Speaker 1: It's called The Witch Trials of JK. Rowling, and it
Speaker 1: is apparently a real piece of shit. You're going to
Speaker 1: be surprised to learn. It's hosted by Megan Phelps Roper,
Speaker 1: who I didn't like. The last time that I came
Speaker 1: across her was when she was literally one of the
Speaker 1: people outside of like military funerals with like like protesting
Speaker 1: gay marriage. The Westboro Baptist people. Yeah, she's a Westboro Baptist,
Speaker 1: which the Westboro Baptist people are like a family, and
Speaker 1: she is. They were just like really good at always
Speaker 1: being in front of media like events, and they just
Speaker 1: really spread themselves out and that spread the hate nice
Speaker 1: and wide. But so she was part of that family.
Speaker 1: I remember the New Yorker profile of her where they
Speaker 1: were like, she's starting to think that maybe this whole
Speaker 1: thing isn't as like on the up and up as
Speaker 1: she thought growing up, and so there was like a
Speaker 1: heroic bent to it. But she's she's just a fucked
Speaker 1: up person and has decided to make this show so Phelps.
Speaker 1: Roper opens the show by comparing rallying to the victims
Speaker 1: of literal executions. Complains about how she's now being shipped
Speaker 1: on by Harry Potter actors, people who she'd known since
Speaker 1: they were children. So like she's a victim because the
Speaker 1: people who she employed as children don't like her anymore.
Speaker 1: Apparently tragic. I know, you gotta feel for her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very sad. You may be wondering who put this
Speaker 1: show out besides the wet Westboro Baptist Girl and JK Rowling.
Speaker 1: It's very wise. Very Wise has a new media outlet
Speaker 1: called The Free Press, and it includes articles questioning the
Speaker 1: safety of COVID vaccines for children, podcast calling the discovery
Speaker 1: of indigenous mass graves in Canada a hoax. Cool, great,
Speaker 1: great and cool awesome. Yeah, nally, that's what you want
Speaker 1: in your portfolio. Yes. The second episode of this The
Speaker 1: Witch of JK. Rowling, is all about the nineties and
Speaker 1: specifically the Christian backlash to Harry Potter, which is like
Speaker 1: they they're trying to make the argument that people criticizing JK.
Speaker 1: Rowling for being like trans exclusionary, just just a monster
Speaker 1: to trans people as they are like fighting for their
Speaker 1: right to exist. The people criticizing her for that is
Speaker 1: the same as people saying that Harry Potter books are
Speaker 1: witchcraft and need to be like banned from bookstores. Just
Speaker 1: a clear one to one. Yeah, it's funny because you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in a church household with the very religious
Speaker 1: grandmother who wouldn't let me watch Power Rangers because it
Speaker 1: had elements of demonic, demonic natures and saying thing with
Speaker 1: Harry Potter. I remember clearly going to church and hearing
Speaker 1: them say don't let your kids read or watch those
Speaker 1: Harry Harry Potter movies and books, right, and which is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't think we have to say more
Speaker 1: about that than that. But it's funny because now JK.
Speaker 1: Rowling does sound like those people. She is in the
Speaker 1: same those people also probably feel exactly the same way
Speaker 1: she does about the trans community and are transphobic and
Speaker 1: things like that, And it's just very funny that I
Speaker 1: don't know if JK. I I've, for one, I've never
Speaker 1: seen a Harry Potter book or movie, not because of
Speaker 1: their religion just because I find fantasy boring. But I
Speaker 1: wonder did JK. Rowling ever respond to those things that
Speaker 1: were said, And if she did, I wonder what her
Speaker 1: hypocritical response was to that compared to what her response is. Now,
Speaker 1: if you really want to know, I've got a podcast
Speaker 1: for you, Jaki, I will not be listening. But just
Speaker 1: that argument that because her books were being unfairly criticized
Speaker 1: as witchcraft, that like she can't be wrong now is like, so,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like if someone made a podcast
Speaker 1: about Bill Cosby and compared his accusers to film critics
Speaker 1: who didn't like ghost at It's like, let's hold on now, Jack,
Speaker 1: hold on now. Well, I mean I think it's telling
Speaker 1: that the person that's, you know, rapping her perspective in
Speaker 1: this is somebody who was a pr person and an
Speaker 1: apologist for people with really bad and dangerous views and
Speaker 1: her job essentially was to turn them into the victims
Speaker 1: in this. Yeah, and that that they are the the
Speaker 1: heroic people that are trying to fight for what's right
Speaker 1: in this and they are just misunderstood regardless of the
Speaker 1: fact that they were saying and doing horrific things and
Speaker 1: just causing pain and wreckage everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: New York Times put a fucking op ed up with
Speaker 1: this perspective on it, and they're like, but don't worry,
Speaker 1: we also like do op eds that are critical of
Speaker 1: the police state and capitalism. So we have both sides.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's not it's one of them should be
Speaker 1: in your regular the regular part of your paper, and
Speaker 1: the other of them shouldn't be any fuckingwhere. Yeah, anywhere,
Speaker 1: not even near your paper. Yeah. Also, I read something
Speaker 1: about a week ago that the boom in podcasting is
Speaker 1: starting to fade and die, like, you know, yeah those
Speaker 1: past the past three four years and maybe even a
Speaker 1: little bit before when the podcasting game was just really exploding,
Speaker 1: so many new podcasts, so many works pouring money into
Speaker 1: the to the form, and that's starting to subside a
Speaker 1: little bit. And when I think of a podcast like this,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's not subsiding quick enough, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that you can we can nip this ship
Speaker 1: in the bud, you know, Like, look, I as somebody
Speaker 1: who was in the podcast game for a very long time,
Speaker 1: had a podcast that a lot of people listen to
Speaker 1: and have a couple of them and have taken a break.
Speaker 1: I have not had a podcast of my own since
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. That's about to change. The breaking news
Speaker 1: that's about to change this year. I can't talk about
Speaker 1: it yet, but like you know, we you know, we
Speaker 1: don't need to hear every fucking opinion or every thought
Speaker 1: or every like every idea or every everything that comes
Speaker 1: to our mind. Does not need to have expos a
Speaker 1: or anything like this. It's just like, hey, man, networks,
Speaker 1: just like, let it get just stopped, just stop. Can
Speaker 1: just pay the people who have podcasts more money instead
Speaker 1: and putting more money into these new podcasts that like
Speaker 1: nobody fucking wants to listen to. That's right. Anyway, your
Speaker 1: your podcast will be comparing the My podcast is about
Speaker 1: why ghost Dad is one of the greatest. Want to
Speaker 1: make sure that you clarified that. Okay, all right, well,
Speaker 1: Perry Mason, wonderful having both of you guys on the
Speaker 1: Daily zeit Geist. Where can people find you? Follow you
Speaker 1: all that good stuff anywhere good podcasts are found, so
Speaker 1: probably the same place you're listening to this right now.
Speaker 1: And you can check us out on the web at
Speaker 1: Digital Folklore dot fm. There you go. Probably the easiest route, right.
Speaker 1: And is there a tweet or work of media that
Speaker 1: you guys have been enjoying. I mean, mine's not particularly
Speaker 1: insightful or anything. It was just I scrolled by it
Speaker 1: earlier today and it's lodged itself in my brain. From
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who does voice, he tweeted, you're
Speaker 1: in her DMS. I'm in my booth auditioning to play
Speaker 1: a gay catboy in her indie visual novel. We are
Speaker 1: not the same. There you go for me. So it's
Speaker 1: not a tweet, but it is a TikTok creator that
Speaker 1: I found called there I ruined it and they do
Speaker 1: really interesting and sometimes obnoxious mashups of different bands and
Speaker 1: in ways that are surprising. There you go, Jakis, Where
Speaker 1: can people find and is there any media that you've
Speaker 1: been enjoying? Ah? Well, listen, you can always find me
Speaker 1: in these streets, as per usual at Jackie's Neil on
Speaker 1: the I G in the Meta universe. Yeah yeah, yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: let me get little plugs and little plugs in watch
Speaker 1: How I Met Your Father is Aaron o Hulu right now,
Speaker 1: Grand Crew on NBC debut in March third. I know
Speaker 1: y'all better, I know that's after Black History Month, but
Speaker 1: you're better be there. You're better watch the show. Get
Speaker 1: our ratings up, so you know, if that show can
Speaker 1: get a third season. It's a fun show. A lot
Speaker 1: of Carl Tart on that show, a favorite uh in
Speaker 1: the podcast world, a lot of dope Nicole Buyer, a
Speaker 1: lot of dope people. So definitely watch that. Yeah, you know, listen,
Speaker 1: I got I got some, I got some uh, I
Speaker 1: got some tweets or some some things that I've seen.
Speaker 1: But one of my things is this isn't a video,
Speaker 1: this isn't something I can share, but like, it's a
Speaker 1: video of black people cooking poorly. They they crack me
Speaker 1: up because if you think black people roast white folks
Speaker 1: when they be making like their dumb shit on the internet,
Speaker 1: wait till you see black folks roast they own when
Speaker 1: they make bad food on it. It is truly just
Speaker 1: some of the funniest goddamn things that I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: and I love it. Also, there is a Will of
Speaker 1: Fortune clip going around poor young I think she looked
Speaker 1: like she was at college girl or something like that,
Speaker 1: and she had one letter to go. The word was
Speaker 1: obviously fresh f R. E. S. H the only letter
Speaker 1: missing was the S and it was like fresh fruit
Speaker 1: or some shit like that, and the girl spend didn't
Speaker 1: and said gee, and of course it was wrong. And
Speaker 1: then unless girls like I'd like to solve the puzzle
Speaker 1: fresh and you know, pass a Jack, he was like,
Speaker 1: and the nicest way possible. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just can't see a word and then you
Speaker 1: hear it and you're like, ah, that's it. And I
Speaker 1: was like, what a nice way to say, she's a moron?
Speaker 1: You know. It is just so we've all been there.
Speaker 1: You know, we've all been there. Listen. I absolutely love
Speaker 1: watching game show fails on YouTube. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to do, so check that out. Speaking of
Speaker 1: game shows, Comedian Feud. This Sunday, if you're in La
Speaker 1: or are, you're gonna be here and every last Sunday
Speaker 1: at a month at Elesian Theater I hosted. We play
Speaker 1: a live version of family Feud on stage. Reggie watch
Speaker 1: Dan Black this month, Next month's got Akaman Jason Mansukus.
Speaker 1: We got a lot of toepeople coming through, so come
Speaker 1: on out. It's a blast. Jack has done it. Jack
Speaker 1: has done it. I forgot I was on the I
Speaker 1: was on the dailies. Like guys, I think a week
Speaker 1: before you were about to be on there, but you
Speaker 1: were missing. You weren't on there, and I completely forgot
Speaker 1: to tell you know, the Zike world, the Zych Gang
Speaker 1: to come out and see you. They messed out you
Speaker 1: because I I was dominant. Dominant helped your team lose.
Speaker 1: Still there's one Yeah, there's one answer that still haunts
Speaker 1: me to this day. It's like, what something you bring
Speaker 1: on a first date? And I said, what did you say?
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna that. I was like thinking, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would just say it's a blind date. You don't know,
Speaker 1: you have a friend backing you up. But it was
Speaker 1: just like a little, a little what I wasn't thinking
Speaker 1: on the family feud level when I now you're you're
Speaker 1: being responsible. Yeah, you're on that dad level. I was
Speaker 1: on that G F R E g H tip frag freg.
Speaker 1: I'd like to guess you would bring a freg. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's I'm gonna name my future kid. There you go.
Speaker 1: Uh tweet I've been enjoying. There's a historic VIDs just
Speaker 1: has a video of flat Earth or accidentally proves the
Speaker 1: Earth is round in his own experiment and it's just
Speaker 1: worth watching because he's see that's that's interesting. That's and
Speaker 1: then he just like stop starting. I'd seen that. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: it's awesome. It's just a beam of light pointing through
Speaker 1: two holes that are separated by seventeen feet and he's like, huh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he found a way to justify it to
Speaker 1: not being true. But you can find me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Jack Underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: daily Zeitgeist. We're at d daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We
Speaker 1: have a Facebook fan page on a website daily zeitgeist
Speaker 1: dot com where we post our episodes on our foot No. No,
Speaker 1: we're link off to the information that we talked about
Speaker 1: in today's episode, as well as a song that we
Speaker 1: think you might enjoy. Super producer justin what song do
Speaker 1: we think people might enjoy? Well, I chose this song
Speaker 1: and um oh I joined the discord by the way, everybody,
Speaker 1: so I've been seeing your comments and so this song
Speaker 1: is inspired by the people who think I sound like
Speaker 1: a stone middle schooler. Um this is justin No, I
Speaker 1: feel like I feel like I feel like it was
Speaker 1: a compliment. I truly do I think I don't know. Um.
Speaker 1: This is a song by a trinidaddy and artist named
Speaker 1: Marlon Asher. It's called Ganja Farmer. The song actually came
Speaker 1: out maybe like my freshman year of high school. I
Speaker 1: really love this track. It's been a long time since
Speaker 1: I've heard it, and that conversation truly did remind me
Speaker 1: of this, so you know, positive thing came out of it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, listen to this song Gonja Farmer by Marlon
Speaker 1: Asher and you can find that song in the footnotes
Speaker 1: foot note. The Daily Zeke has a producture by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast wherever your listener favorite shows. That's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for us this morning, back this afternoon
Speaker 1: to tell you what's trending, and we'll talk to you
Speaker 1: all then fight