Speaker 1: My mic sounds nice.
Speaker 2: My mic sounds nice.
Speaker 1: Let's let's include all the Hello the Internet, and welcome
Speaker 1: to this week trend episodes, weekend trends, weekend trends, it,
Speaker 1: weeknd trends on Like, guys, my mic sounds nice, my
Speaker 1: mic sounds nice. My mic sounds nice. That super producer
Speaker 1: Brian Jeffery louis but he was here, I'm here, We're
Speaker 1: here together. It's gonna be the last weekend trending episode
Speaker 1: of the year of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Damn, what year is it?
Speaker 1: Jack, I've been looking through We're gonna do some best
Speaker 1: of episodes over the break for people to listen to
Speaker 1: in addition to our evergreen ones, and so I've been
Speaker 1: looking back over the past couple years of episodes. I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's not an excuse. I've been only looking
Speaker 1: at twenty twenty three episodes, and for some reason that
Speaker 1: made me say, twenty twenty two, I'm Jack. That is
Speaker 1: super producer Brian Miles is a way on assignment, just
Speaker 1: getting a little relaxatione that's his assignment, and that's going
Speaker 1: to be all of our assignments in three short days.
Speaker 1: But for now, we're still here. We are here to
Speaker 1: tell you what is trending this weekend, but first we
Speaker 1: like to tell you a little bit about ourselves and
Speaker 1: what we think by telling you something we think is
Speaker 1: underrated and overrated. So, Brian, do you want to kick
Speaker 1: us off with something you think is underrated?
Speaker 2: Underrated? I'm going to go very very literal.
Speaker 3: That new Obama movie, Leave the World Behind, is getting
Speaker 3: review bombed on Metacritic.
Speaker 1: I love the Obama movie, calling it the Obama movie.
Speaker 1: He's all up. I mean, you know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to call him an au tour, but his his fingerprints
Speaker 1: are all over that some bitch man.
Speaker 3: I keep calling it the Obama movie because I didn't
Speaker 3: plan on watching this movie, right. I was just I
Speaker 3: was just passing through the living room and my partner
Speaker 3: was putting the movie on and she happened to She
Speaker 3: was like, Obama, that's a lot Obama. And I was like, huh,
Speaker 3: Obama made another movie. And I sat down and I
Speaker 3: watched it. I knew nothing about it, and I found
Speaker 3: it perfectly.
Speaker 1: Enjoyable, perfectly diverting, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, good performances, and uh, you know, it's very good performances.
Speaker 3: Some familiar faces and Yeah, Yeah, I was unaware of
Speaker 3: this movie's existence, and you know, it was like a pleasant,
Speaker 3: little small surprise that it wasn't awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and didn't waste my time.
Speaker 1: The effects are really cool. It's like, it's definitely, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's kind of appropriate to me that it
Speaker 1: is an Obama So so you're saying it's getting a
Speaker 1: review bombed because.
Speaker 2: It's because it's produced by.
Speaker 1: Produced by the Obamas. It's just one of the movies
Speaker 1: that they threw their weight behind as part of their
Speaker 1: Netflix production deal. Basically, and I.
Speaker 3: Have to assume it's based off of some book that
Speaker 3: he likes or some ship.
Speaker 2: I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I think that's right from his reading list. Yeah, guy's
Speaker 1: a fucking dork. It's uh. I think it's my favorite
Speaker 1: trailer of the year. The trailer with the LCD sound system,
Speaker 1: Oh Baby song over It is a blast. I then
Speaker 1: was so overcome by the trailer that I went and
Speaker 1: saw it in theaters and then I won't dig too
Speaker 1: much into spoilers. Love the trailer doesn't love the film
Speaker 1: quite as much, but I highly recommend checking out the
Speaker 1: trailer if it speaks to you, check out the movie.
Speaker 1: It is the number one trending movie on Netflix, and
Speaker 1: that I think means it's probably been viewed more times
Speaker 1: than most films that came out this year.
Speaker 2: I remember what.
Speaker 3: The other thing that caught my attention was that it
Speaker 3: starts with like a banger song. I don't know who
Speaker 3: does the song, but it starts with like hip hop music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just blaring, and I'm like, the fuck are you watching?
Speaker 3: And then throughout the film number one, this score sounds
Speaker 3: like us.
Speaker 2: It sounds like some Colombo type shit.
Speaker 3: There's these weird little piano chords that when somebody said
Speaker 3: something and some spooky happens, it's like a like a
Speaker 3: your piano chord, which was tickling me. And the music
Speaker 3: was like they were playing that one song by next
Speaker 3: about getting a boner while dancing.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the music. Yeah, there was a lot
Speaker 2: to like, I'd say, yeah.
Speaker 1: Lots of like the literal the very like intentional off
Speaker 1: putting music cues seems to be a thing that's happening
Speaker 1: like May, if you've seen May December, there's like some
Speaker 1: piano music that is like really strange and draws attention
Speaker 1: to itself, And yeah, I feel like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like little music cuesing this that draw attention themselves.
Speaker 1: My underrated, Brian is the psychological complexity of the home
Speaker 1: alone films. I watched the home alone films over the
Speaker 1: weekend with my children.
Speaker 2: Now, which ones did you watch? Did you watch the
Speaker 2: only the.
Speaker 1: Just the mac ones? Okay, yeah, just the ones from
Speaker 1: that I had seen as a child and had not
Speaker 1: looked at since and viewing it as a parent. This
Speaker 1: seems to be a film about an attempted very late
Speaker 1: stage abortion, Like is what I'm taking from it? Like,
Speaker 1: so I have you know, I've talked before about like
Speaker 1: my my theory, Like we have like different people, different
Speaker 1: personalities inside of us, and like sometimes they're acting without
Speaker 1: the conscious self being aware. So when someone is like, ah,
Speaker 1: I keep sabotaging myself, I think that's literally what is
Speaker 1: happening oftentimes, Like there's a part of you that doesn't
Speaker 1: want the career that and it's like sabotaging that career,
Speaker 1: or like there's a part of you that doesn't want
Speaker 1: that relationship, and so that part of you is actually
Speaker 1: like working outside of your conscious mind to you know,
Speaker 1: get you out of that relationship. By sabotaging it. Anyways,
Speaker 1: this is what I think is happening with Kevin's mom
Speaker 1: in Home Alone and Home Alone too, And I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm at like I think this is all kind
Speaker 1: of what the filmmakers intend, Like I don't think they
Speaker 1: would necessarily call it a movie about an attempted late stage,
Speaker 1: very late stage abortion, But like there's so Catherine O'Hare
Speaker 1: the mom, Like there's a conscious part of her that
Speaker 1: knows she's supposed to be a loving mother and like
Speaker 1: gestures towards that. But I think there's another part of
Speaker 1: her deeper down where like language doesn't reach, that comes
Speaker 1: through in her eyes when she looks at Kevin that
Speaker 1: truly wishes he wasn't around.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: You you see it when she sends him to bed
Speaker 1: without dinner after he like he literally spills milk at
Speaker 1: dinner in the first movie, in like the first ten
Speaker 1: minutes of the first movie and is sent to bed
Speaker 1: in the attic without dinner. And the first thing that
Speaker 1: I noticed about the scene was that Katherine O'Hare is
Speaker 1: like looking at him with the deadest eyes, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: she's a good actor, that's like, why is she And
Speaker 1: she's saying wild shit and while sending this kid to
Speaker 1: bed without eating. The next part I notice is that
Speaker 1: she doesn't realize he's not with them in the airport,
Speaker 1: which they're carrying fuller, who's the other kid who's around
Speaker 1: his age? Which is what you do when you're in
Speaker 1: a hurry at the airport. You pick up anything under
Speaker 1: the age of ten, and you are carrying that shit
Speaker 1: because they are going to get lost otherwise. That's the
Speaker 1: first thing you see as a parent, like traveling with
Speaker 1: kids as hell for a reason they are not for
Speaker 1: one second out of your thoughts.
Speaker 2: You'd be tiny and distractable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I carry my kid on my shoulder, like
Speaker 1: when I'm running late, Like I just like throw them
Speaker 1: over like he's a sack of potatoes. But the real
Speaker 1: thing that I think everyone remembers that kind of proves
Speaker 1: my point is the scene where she leaps forward and
Speaker 1: goes come on, Because so there's part of her that
Speaker 1: knows she left the kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that she she's fully the part of fully aware.
Speaker 1: There's part of her that's fully aware that's trying to
Speaker 1: get through to the conscious part of her mind, but
Speaker 1: not until they're off the ground. It's not, it's not
Speaker 1: getting through until they're off the ground. She doesn't have
Speaker 1: to look in the back, Like she's not like, oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: there's no way we left Kevin, like go back.
Speaker 2: It's only her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's the only one. Yeah, right, because well I
Speaker 1: think that there there is like the dad is among
Speaker 1: the dumbest dad characters we've ever seen outside of like
Speaker 1: a fucking beer commercial or like a I guess not beer,
Speaker 1: like a hardware commercial or something like that. Dads are dumb,
Speaker 1: commercial commercial dumb. Yeah, he's very he's commercial dad dumb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and uh she but so she she realizes it.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh my god, we left him without checking
Speaker 1: in the back because the kids are sitting in coach
Speaker 1: and the parents are sitting in first class. Something that
Speaker 1: she's like, oh my god, don't you feel like a
Speaker 1: heel kind of that we're sitting in first class and
Speaker 1: the kids are in coach. So they're just bad, bad people.
Speaker 1: But once so, once the jig is up and her
Speaker 1: conscious mind is now aware that she left Kevin, she
Speaker 1: makes like one call to the cops. She like, she
Speaker 1: makes a call to the cops. The cops like send
Speaker 1: her to family Services appropriately they're like, well, there's clearly
Speaker 1: something going on here. Then she's like sent back to
Speaker 1: the cops. They they send one cop by to do
Speaker 1: a wellness check on him and are like there's nobody here.
Speaker 1: So my brain before was distracted by those are the
Speaker 1: worst cops in the world. But she's just like okay
Speaker 1: with that. She doesn't like keep harassing. She's not on
Speaker 1: the phone continuously with the local police. I feel like
Speaker 1: she's just checking off the boxes of what a loving
Speaker 1: mother would do so that, like she has, she can
Speaker 1: continue to tell herself she does not want this kid dead,
Speaker 1: but that's I think ultimately what she wants until she
Speaker 1: gets home and sees that he's kept the house neat,
Speaker 1: at which point she's like, okay, you're acceptable, because like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she clearly has big problems with like messiness, and when
Speaker 1: he spilled that thing, she was like, no, fuck this.
Speaker 1: And then the fact that it happens again in a
Speaker 1: second movie at a certain point, you're trying to kill
Speaker 1: this kid. But again when she realizes it, she just
Speaker 1: faints straight away. Like there's the scene probably less iconic,
Speaker 1: but where they're at the bag claim she's like, here,
Speaker 1: give this back to Kevin. It goes down the thing
Speaker 1: and then they're like, Kevin's not here. And the second
Speaker 1: she hears the phrase Kevin's not here, she just screams
Speaker 1: Kevin and then faints dead away. So again she knows
Speaker 1: that they've left him or lost him. In the second one.
Speaker 1: There is part of her that is consciously doing this.
Speaker 1: It's not a coincidence that it happens twice. This is
Speaker 1: a movie about a very conflicted mother who does not
Speaker 1: like her son taking taking matters into her own hands,
Speaker 1: is my theory. Interesting?
Speaker 2: Interesting, I was not that long ago.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I was watching a group of movies because I was
Speaker 3: trying to find the worst movie mother. Yeah, but I
Speaker 3: totally forgot about Home Alone.
Speaker 1: Really not great parenting. The other loose theory that I
Speaker 1: think you could probably also make the case for is
Speaker 1: that she does it all consciously and it is just
Speaker 1: checking off the boxes, just trying to make it so
Speaker 1: that it seems like, you know, she actually gives a shit,
Speaker 1: but full sociopathic like Kevin's not here and we actually
Speaker 1: don't need to. Granted, this is putting all the pressure
Speaker 1: on her and not the dad, but as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: the dad is commercial dumb so you can't. You just
Speaker 1: have to assume she all the weight is on her shoulders,
Speaker 1: which isn't fair and maybe a reason why she's trying
Speaker 1: to off one of these little fuckers. So just just
Speaker 1: my read on the Home Alone franchise. Also just an
Speaker 1: incredible amount of hyper violence in both movies. The second
Speaker 1: one in particular is like it's wild because in the
Speaker 1: second one, he catches them at a like toy store.
Speaker 1: They're robbing a toy store. Everything about like storytelling and
Speaker 1: like who the target demographic is for this movie suggests, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's going to use toys to trap them and like
Speaker 1: torture them, and Nope, Instead he like lures them to
Speaker 1: a kill house and repeatedly kills them, like repeatedly does
Speaker 1: things that would murder any living organism, like a brick
Speaker 1: from like four stories up thrown straight into the forehead.
Speaker 3: All of these stunts individually would kill a man, yes, easily, And.
Speaker 2: It just keeps it keeps going, Yeah, it's yeah, it's something.
Speaker 1: It's wild. I'm really curious if anybody knows the backstory
Speaker 1: to Home Alone two, if there was like a last
Speaker 1: minute rewrite by the guy who would go on to
Speaker 1: direct Saw or something, because everything is leaning up to
Speaker 1: that moment, is like, yeah, he's just gonna like use
Speaker 1: nerf guns to like trap and trick these guys, and.
Speaker 3: Instead McAllister is actually the saw Man when he.
Speaker 1: I think there is a theory online, a loose theory,
Speaker 1: that he is like Jigsaw as a child. Yeah. Anyways,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I'm very curious how how that came about,
Speaker 1: how the Home Alone to Kill House came about, Like
Speaker 1: why they weren't just like, yeah, it would be funny
Speaker 1: if he like used toys, because that was what he
Speaker 1: did in the first one. He used toys like as
Speaker 1: weapons against these guys, and they were like, we gotta
Speaker 1: up it, man, we got to like take the violence
Speaker 1: to like at least the level of the equalizer, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it's like it is really like he just takes
Speaker 1: them into an abandoned house like a murderer and then
Speaker 1: uses just industrial strength weapons to murder them repeatedly.
Speaker 3: I wonder if you could change the the entire tone
Speaker 3: of the film by just changing the score to make
Speaker 3: it feel more appropriate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then just adding like some blood sprays here
Speaker 1: and there with CDs.
Speaker 2: Some spooky piano stingers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that that actually leads into my overrated which
Speaker 1: is the high pitched choral thing that I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just noticed. It's the second verse of Nat King
Speaker 1: Coles Silent Night, which is in heavy rotation around this
Speaker 1: time of year. It goes from Nat King Cole singing
Speaker 1: Silent Night, which you know, great one of the great voices,
Speaker 1: you know, seems like it was built to sing Silent Night,
Speaker 1: and then the second verse is like all of these
Speaker 1: high pitched chral like like just overlapping. It's also in
Speaker 1: a lot of early Disney movies, So I just think
Speaker 1: I think it was a thing that people had seen
Speaker 1: live before recorded music, and we're like this shit goes
Speaker 1: like this is this is a transfixing, transformative experience, and
Speaker 1: then they just tried to like put it everywhere. And
Speaker 1: it's also I think it's the sound that you hear
Speaker 1: when like in two thousand and one the Space Odyssey
Speaker 1: where they see the big black obelesque or is that
Speaker 1: what that thing's called the big black Domino monolith and
Speaker 1: yeah it so it just has like creepy connotations now,
Speaker 1: so I mean not there's I guess nobody's really using
Speaker 1: it anymore for any reason other than to creep people out.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's really a bad one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's firmly in the realm of cliche. Yeah,
Speaker 3: almost to the point where it's like it's reserved for
Speaker 3: like comedy bits.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think though.
Speaker 3: It's shorthand for spooky now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it just feels like I think this is
Speaker 1: the thing that happens still is people underestimate the difference
Speaker 1: between like music that sounds good live and it's fun
Speaker 1: to see and then like recorded music. We're still like
Speaker 1: we're working with that gap, yeah somehow, And so I
Speaker 1: don't know that this feels like the original sin of
Speaker 1: that where they're like, we all love being in church
Speaker 1: and hearing the like a really good chorus, just nail it.
Speaker 1: So here's that experience and then it just sounds like shit,
Speaker 1: just sounds creepy and screechy. What something you think is overrated? Brian?
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm gonna stick with films.
Speaker 3: Film and so I saw another movie this weekend and
Speaker 3: this movie just pissed.
Speaker 1: Me right the way off did cheesey off.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this film is called Soft and Quiet, and
Speaker 3: it is literally overrated. It's got an eighty seven on
Speaker 3: run Tomatoes. It's got an eighty two out of one
Speaker 3: hundred on Metacritic, indicating universal acclaim. And here here's a
Speaker 3: little snippet of a review. A painfully timely, horror fueled thriller,
Speaker 3: Soft and Quiet forces the viewer to confront the ugly
Speaker 3: underbelly of modern American race relations. And to that, I say, no,
Speaker 3: the fuck it doesn't. It really really doesn't.
Speaker 2: It this movie.
Speaker 3: I guess what's really overrated are films that nonsensical and silly,
Speaker 3: that take themselves really really seriously. Because this movie was.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna say it was straight trash.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was not good.
Speaker 3: It was one of those movies where I saw the
Speaker 3: reviews right, and I'm like, I don't watch trailers usually,
Speaker 3: and I see horror thriller. I'm like, Okay, that's the
Speaker 3: vibe I'm looking for horror thriller, and I knew race
Speaker 3: was an element, And this movie ended up being are
Speaker 3: you familiar with mumblecore?
Speaker 2: Jack?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it was ended up being Yeah, it ended up
Speaker 3: being a mumblecore nightmare with everybody talking over each other
Speaker 3: as they do in mumble core movies. And I won't
Speaker 3: get into spoilers but it literally it goes from these
Speaker 3: these Karens essentially meeting up for a racist get together
Speaker 3: that is very blunt and unsubtle and like there's literally
Speaker 3: a pie with a swastika on it. Wow, and it's
Speaker 3: like you didn't need to that's a little too on
Speaker 3: the nose.
Speaker 2: And then it just.
Speaker 3: Gets stupider from there, like and this is basically like
Speaker 3: the Sound of Freedom, but for racism.
Speaker 1: It's that bad right and gets racism wrong.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's it's it totally gets racist.
Speaker 1: That Sound of Freedom gets human trafficking around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just there are simpler, less stupid and embarrassing
Speaker 3: ways to depict uh racism in America than what they chose.
Speaker 2: It's really baffling.
Speaker 3: So yeah, a literally overrated film, soft and quiet piece
Speaker 3: of shit.
Speaker 1: There you go. All right, let's take a quick break,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Talk about news, and we're back.
Speaker 1: And there's a story coming out of Gaza that I
Speaker 1: feel like could get lost in the avalanche of devastating news,
Speaker 1: but I think it's worth stopping and just acknowledging. So
Speaker 1: IDF snipers killed three innocent Israeli captives who had escaped
Speaker 1: and were trying to get rescued, and they came out
Speaker 1: with their arms raised Torsos Baird literally waving a white flag,
Speaker 1: and were summarily executed by the IDF. Only later was
Speaker 1: it revealed that they were innocent Israelis and not innocent Palestinians,
Speaker 1: at which point it became news. But this is like acknowledge.
Speaker 1: This is being reported on from like by the Sun,
Speaker 1: like the UK newspaper The Sun. Not exactly a pro
Speaker 1: Palestinian rag. No, it's just worth acknowledging that, like this
Speaker 1: is what is going on. They seem to be out
Speaker 1: of the bombing everything to rubble phase and Gaza and
Speaker 1: have moved into the shooting everything that moves phase. And
Speaker 1: if three Israeli hostages waving a literal white flag can't
Speaker 1: like even be spoken to before they're killed, and Israeli
Speaker 1: hostages are the reason they're there is supposedly it's probably
Speaker 1: trying to ask what they're actually doing there and whether
Speaker 1: they should be there, But it's yeah, it's horrifying, this
Speaker 1: writer Moyn Rabani roach. The incident confirms yet again that
Speaker 1: Israeli soldiers are authorized to shoot dead both surrendering combatants
Speaker 1: and civilians waving flags of surrender under current conditions in
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip, and despite the Israeli military being fully
Speaker 1: aware it may encounter live Israeli captives, ostensibly a key
Speaker 1: reason for their presence there. May additionally be the case
Speaker 1: that soldiers are being encouraged by their commanders to shoot
Speaker 1: anything that moves. So, yeah, it's it's not great. It's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty fucking horrifying, Like those are That's that's war crimes.
Speaker 1: That's you can't you can't shoot people waving a white
Speaker 1: flag of surrender.
Speaker 4: Look, we're well past that, jack, Yeah, Like, yeah, how
Speaker 4: bad of a war crime do you think someone would
Speaker 4: have to commit for people to start giving a ship
Speaker 4: about war crimes?
Speaker 1: Again, they seem to be in search of an answer
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 3: You think white phosphorus or the nape home like, because
Speaker 3: that that that goal post kid shifting.
Speaker 1: Of like Biden saying Israel's we want you out of
Speaker 1: there by Christmas, which doesn't seem likely at this point.
Speaker 2: Also seems kind of arbitrary.
Speaker 3: Why not now, yeah, right, Like, oh, so they can
Speaker 3: play soccer like in World War two?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think On the other side, wanted to do
Speaker 1: a quick check in with Donald Trump's rhetoric over the weekend.
Speaker 1: He quoted Vladimir Putin and Victor orbon in speeches saying
Speaker 1: that he's innocent of his crimes. He used the term
Speaker 1: hostages to describe people charged with violent crimes on January sixth,
Speaker 1: and like he's he just seems to be ramping up
Speaker 1: his rhetoric. The week after. Everyone was like, man, this
Speaker 1: guy might be an authoritarian. He's just gone full like
Speaker 1: dictator and yeah, they were like, he's ramping up that
Speaker 1: authoritarianism almost like he wants to be a dictator. And
Speaker 1: he responded with the Jack Nicholson like nodding and smiling
Speaker 1: crazily mean.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, well, I mean this is a surprise to
Speaker 3: no one.
Speaker 2: Actually seems late, like he's been an authoritarian for a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like some of the stuff is like he's also
Speaker 1: using blatantly like white supremacist eugenesis language around undocumented immigrants,
Speaker 1: claiming they are quote poisoning the blood of our country.
Speaker 1: But like in the past he had just made that
Speaker 1: statement to hard right conservative outlets, but this time he's
Speaker 1: like using it in his political speeches, and like the
Speaker 1: thing that people are grasping at for hope is also
Speaker 1: kind of depressing to me, Like there is people were
Speaker 1: like Nikki Haley's gaining on Trump in New Hampshire, Hell,
Speaker 1: that just means she's at twenty nine percent to his
Speaker 1: forty four percent. In Iowa it's fifty eight to thirteen.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I guess you got to start somewhere.
Speaker 1: But I also feel like the two factors are not unrelated.
Speaker 1: Like Trump is saying this wild shit and getting more
Speaker 1: popular because you know, his base is you know, there
Speaker 1: are enough people who are racist, and there is I
Speaker 1: think a broad sense among people that there's just been
Speaker 1: years of ineffectual leadership where like the president is clearly
Speaker 1: not acting on behalf of people, but like instead on
Speaker 1: behalf of corporations. And so you know, for a while now,
Speaker 1: there's been this unstated in the mainstream media. I hope
Speaker 1: that like someone's going to come through and step outside
Speaker 1: of that system. And like, I don't know, I feel
Speaker 1: like there are probably a lot of people who are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go with an authoritarian at least.
Speaker 3: Well that's well, that's the interesting thing because Okay, so
Speaker 3: with like your Joe Biden's they have shareholders essentially, like
Speaker 3: there's a bunch of people in line ahead of the
Speaker 3: constituency that he has to appease, right, Yeah, so with
Speaker 3: an authoritarian he's free to just throw that out the
Speaker 3: fucking window and do whatever he wants. Now that doesn't
Speaker 3: that might not be good for a lot of the constituency.
Speaker 3: But it's oddly closer, I want to say, because.
Speaker 1: In theory seems like it could be close.
Speaker 2: Because it's not.
Speaker 3: He's not He's not necessarily going to appease the shareholders first.
Speaker 3: He's going to appease his ego right much better, and
Speaker 3: that there might be a little more crossover with the
Speaker 3: people who are into what he's throwing down. You have to,
Speaker 3: you know, get something out of it. I don't know
Speaker 3: what that's something is, but they're getting something out of it.
Speaker 3: They're and I think white supremacy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for white supremacists, this is you know,
Speaker 1: the answer to a lot of like long held beliefs
Speaker 1: where they're like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Speaker 1: Everyone's acting like whites aren't supreme and the But I also, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's something that's very real there with people
Speaker 1: looking at you know, Joe Biden trying to forgive student
Speaker 1: debt and like throwing his hands up and being like,
Speaker 1: it's out of my hands. Guys are like trying to
Speaker 1: pass like this progressive legislation that he promised, and you know,
Speaker 1: just repeatedly saying it out of my hands.
Speaker 3: And if anything good happens, it's like some weird little
Speaker 3: rider on some other ship that's for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know. I just think the
Speaker 1: it's being treated as like Trump is succeeding just despite
Speaker 1: the authoritarian like him saying these authoritarian things. And I
Speaker 1: think it's probably more accurate that he's succeeding at least
Speaker 1: partially because of that, which is fucking scary, a scary
Speaker 1: place for the country to be. So yeah, not great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back.
Speaker 1: And we're back, and Arlington National Cemetery will remove their
Speaker 1: Confederate memorial this week, So there we go. Years. That's right.
Speaker 1: It sits an Arlington National Cemetery and it is set
Speaker 1: to be removed later this week out by the end
Speaker 1: of the year, per a Department of Defense directive on
Speaker 1: renaming and or removing Confederate monuments. Republicans, of course, not
Speaker 1: happy about this, claiming the memorial should stay because, according
Speaker 1: to a letter signed by more than forty House Republicans,
Speaker 1: it does not honor nor commemorate the Confederacy, this Confederate monument,
Speaker 1: but rather the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity. Uh huh?
Speaker 2: And who what is the statue of it?
Speaker 1: I believe there are slaves involved in it, and so
Speaker 1: even the Arlington National Cemetery website admits the sculpture includes
Speaker 1: a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy with highly sanitized
Speaker 1: depictions of slavery.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: And among those calling for the statue's removal include the
Speaker 1: family of the original artist, who said in a statement
Speaker 1: that quote, this statue intended to rewrite history to justify
Speaker 1: the Confederacy and the subsequent racist Jim Crow laws. It
Speaker 1: glorifies the fight to own human beings, and in its
Speaker 1: portrayal of African Americans, implies their collusion. So it seems
Speaker 1: like not a great statue that you'd think they would
Speaker 1: be removing by breaking it to pieces or like putting
Speaker 1: it in a mysterious warehouse next to the Arc of
Speaker 1: the Covenant. But actually it's just moving to a different park.
Speaker 1: Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is going to move it to
Speaker 1: a new Market Battlefield State Historical Park where video DA
Speaker 1: has no power.
Speaker 3: So one of my favorite battlefield parks, good one.
Speaker 1: The water slides are sick there. Oh oh man. All right,
Speaker 1: So there's this New York Posts article that they just
Speaker 1: continue to try and sweatily dunk on young people to
Speaker 1: just I think they're just like harvesting boomer rage clicks
Speaker 1: by being like, look at it, look at these helpless youngs.
Speaker 2: So let's see who wrote this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, somebody who probably just knows what their
Speaker 1: editors want. But one of their articles that made the
Speaker 1: social media rounds this weekend blasted gen Z's menu anxiety problem.
Speaker 1: Kids today are just quote too scared to order their
Speaker 1: own meals. Gen Z suffers from menu anxiety when dining out,
Speaker 1: with many too scared to order their own meals, is
Speaker 1: the tweet from the New York Post. So the science
Speaker 1: is there. I mean, this is based on a study
Speaker 1: conducted by British pizza chain, which is where most of
Speaker 1: our most of the science that we cite on this
Speaker 1: show is studies from various pizza chains, not always British,
Speaker 1: but because British pizza chains don't make pizza that anyone
Speaker 1: wants to eat. They have one of time for research.
Speaker 2: I was wondering. I was like, is that going to
Speaker 2: be any good?
Speaker 1: Best pizza I had in the like time that I
Speaker 1: spent living in Ireland, which I know is not Britain,
Speaker 1: but uh, it was pizza Hut up Pizza Hut personal
Speaker 1: pan pizza. So ouch, that's maybe maybe it's changed. That
Speaker 1: was a long time ago, but I hope so. And also,
Speaker 1: like the menu, anxiety was reportedly triggered by, uh, the
Speaker 1: increasingly exorbitant cost of a meal out. Like even the
Speaker 1: study says that, so, like the headline makes it sound
Speaker 1: like anyone under thirties just like irrationally afraid of an
Speaker 1: inanimate object like the menu.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I hate the framing of this, Like yeah,
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's clearly that. I mean, you look
Speaker 3: at the the author's page, and they clearly have some
Speaker 3: sort of mandate to work gen Z into at least
Speaker 3: at least thirty percent of their headlines. What else you
Speaker 3: got on there, Well, there's one that says gen z
Speaker 3: ers hate email, but so do the rest of us.
Speaker 2: What do we do now?
Speaker 1: And it's like, what.
Speaker 2: The fuck does that have to do with anything?
Speaker 1: But that's amazing. Yeah, but I mean that like, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just anxiety around how much it costs to eat out,
Speaker 1: which is very understandable, understandable and common to everyone. Like
Speaker 1: hatred of email, everybody can identify with that, and also
Speaker 1: like anxiety around decision making has always been a thing,
Speaker 1: like choice overload. Choice fatigue has been studied for decades.
Speaker 3: I've had many, many people in my life who, yeah,
Speaker 3: like eating out with like a group of people and
Speaker 3: that that for some people, that's pressure, like having everybody's
Speaker 3: ordering in a circle and you gotta be ready when
Speaker 3: the person gets to you. And yeah, it's just that
Speaker 3: some people out just eating out the side. So it's
Speaker 3: like I can totally see.
Speaker 2: How Yeah, yeah, let me see.
Speaker 3: I mean I don't really go out to the new
Speaker 3: places unless I check out the menu first.
Speaker 2: It's just what you do. I don't know.
Speaker 1: To me, I if yelp didn't exist, I wouldn't know
Speaker 1: what to order. I yeah, ordering that is a thing,
Speaker 1: Like ordering at a restaurant is a skill, and some
Speaker 1: people have it, and some people use yelp to cheat
Speaker 1: at it and I am in the latter category, but
Speaker 1: like in the same way that you know they say that,
Speaker 1: like Chuck Close, the great portrait artist, had face blindness,
Speaker 1: but like in having face blindness, you like break the
Speaker 1: face down into its component parts and like do an
Speaker 1: amazing job of like painting a portrait. I because I
Speaker 1: don't have the skill, like I look at a menu
Speaker 1: and I don't see music. I see like a bunch
Speaker 1: of choices of like things ways that this could go
Speaker 1: horribly wrong, And so I recognize in other people like
Speaker 1: this is a great skill that some people have, and
Speaker 1: I will just cheat off of their order. I'll be like,
Speaker 1: you order first, and then I'll be like, I'll have
Speaker 1: what he's having, because they are better at it than that.
Speaker 3: Like I work with like archetypes, Like I'm very habitual.
Speaker 3: So it's like if I go to a certain genre
Speaker 3: of restaurant, I already have an idea in my mind
Speaker 3: of what sort of thing I'm gonna get, whether or
Speaker 3: not whether or not I've been there before.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm going to Italian. You know.
Speaker 3: I like creamy sauces and like salty meats and stuff
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Man, that's also what I like. But saying creamy sauces
Speaker 1: and salty meats just grosses me up for some reason.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what do you have? Do you ever do
Speaker 1: you ever verbalize it that way? What do you have
Speaker 1: that's creamy sauce and salty meat?
Speaker 2: It only when I want to embarrass my partner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. You having a salty meat?
Speaker 2: Good sir, I'll have your finest salty meats please.
Speaker 1: Well, I does not like salty things, and so it
Speaker 1: has been called to my attention that I eat some
Speaker 1: saltyes meats. I ate some salty s everything.
Speaker 2: I love me some pan chetta, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so good, get that chetta. By chetta, I
Speaker 1: mean pan chetta. Finally, the Pope has okayed same sex
Speaker 1: blessings with a massive asterisk, but the formally approved same
Speaker 1: sex blessings in a new document that also stresses that
Speaker 1: people shouldn't be subject to exhaustive moral analysis.
Speaker 2: Which is weird coming from Catholicism.
Speaker 1: But it seems to be like a eternal machine of
Speaker 1: exhaustive moral analysis.
Speaker 3: I can't think of a better definition for Catholicism than that.
Speaker 1: But this is the cool Pope. This is the come
Speaker 1: on man, just love one anothers dope, that's right, has it?
Speaker 1: Do we know? Has this pope smoked weed? Has he
Speaker 1: comment I'm come out soon enough.
Speaker 2: Smoking a blunt.
Speaker 1: Guy like that? Come on, No way, he's not getting high,
Speaker 1: not token up. But yeah, so seemingly a far cry
Speaker 1: from the Vatican's previous Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course that we all we remember when that bomb
Speaker 1: dropped and we were all just eagerly reading. But that
Speaker 1: one stated the Church can't bless the unions of two
Speaker 1: men or two women because God cannot bless Sinkay, let's
Speaker 1: just say they say the same shit about like any
Speaker 1: couple that had premarital sex. You know. But the Church
Speaker 1: is not the coolest hippist of institutions. But so the
Speaker 1: new document follows up on a letter that Pope Francis
Speaker 1: published in October which suggested that there could be ways.
Speaker 1: There could be ways, and I've been talking to God,
Speaker 1: there might be some ways to bless same sex unions,
Speaker 1: like maybe if I do it with my eyes closed,
Speaker 1: maybe I do it with my eyes up closed. Sorry
Speaker 1: for South America or.
Speaker 2: Whatever wherever he's from. I don't know where he's from.
Speaker 1: The Brazilian Argentinian. He's from he was just Italian, just
Speaker 1: a couple tiny massive caveats here. The document reaffirms the
Speaker 1: church's position that marriage is only between a man and
Speaker 1: a woman, and stress this is that any blessings conferred
Speaker 1: upon a same sex couple can't be done at the
Speaker 1: same time as a civil union, or using set rituals
Speaker 1: from a civil union, or even with the clothing and
Speaker 1: gestures that belong in a wedding. So the church can
Speaker 1: now bless a gay couple, but they'd better not be
Speaker 1: dressed in formal wear. Is essentially the rules here.
Speaker 3: So it's the church's version of civil union. They just
Speaker 3: they changed all the trappings. But you can still get it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's just we can't call it what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Use God will get mad, Yeah, and he'll send locusts.
Speaker 1: He will, he will send locusts and various boxes upon
Speaker 1: your house. The document also underscores that any quote irregular
Speaker 1: unions are in a state of sin, So these couples
Speaker 1: can still receive a blessing, which is like a nice
Speaker 1: wave from the pope on their way to hell, according
Speaker 1: to the Catholic Church, Like all right, well that was nice.
Speaker 2: He's like, all right, have a nice chipsy.
Speaker 1: Next exactly anyways, So unclear where this all shakes out.
Speaker 1: I would say we'll continue to pay attention and try
Speaker 1: and like rank all the orders of importance of the
Speaker 1: blessing versus the statement that it's still a thin But
Speaker 1: I have been advised against exhaustive moral analysis, so I
Speaker 1: think I'll just you know, ignore the ship and continue
Speaker 1: to try and just be kind to people. Seems like
Speaker 1: maybe a way to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what are you getting out of it though?
Speaker 1: That's right? I don't know. Yeah, Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: go back to the Catholic Church way, because that way
Speaker 1: I can just like read up a lot on these
Speaker 1: all these doctrines and then sound smart as hell and
Speaker 1: maybe find a way to tie in Taylor Swift to
Speaker 1: my condemnation of the modern world. All right, Ryan, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for us. On this Monday, December eighteenth,
Speaker 1: we are back tomorrow with a whole last episode of
Speaker 1: the show. Where can people find You? Follow you any
Speaker 1: of that good stuff?
Speaker 2: You can't find me?
Speaker 1: Can't find me? Yeah, leave them alone? How about that?
Speaker 2: And you can't fool me again?
Speaker 1: Can't fool me again? We want shame on you pool
Speaker 1: me twice. You can't get fooled again.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, all right back tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves,
Speaker 1: get the vaccine, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and
Speaker 1: we will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Bye bye