Azure AsTrends 10/16: Donald Trump, Merlin Bird ID

Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of Azurige Trends.

Oh man, my name is Jack O'Brien.

That over there, well, that is mister Miles Bradna.

Thank you back.

Just going through some historical documents from ancient Azgion.

Oh man, Oh but what a time to be alive. How are you doing here? You're on the East coast.

I'm on the East coast. The weather's crisp.

It suits you, it does?

It does? It? Does? It does? I don't know what else to say.

I'm just so overcome with emotion because it's under seventy degrees, so I'm like.

Oh my god, this is this is heaven.

Just walking through a park, a nice jacket pulling you yeah, exactly, having the scarf, no scarf. It's definitely not that cold.

As much as I want it to be, it is not that cold, and I will start sweating and I don't want to show up to my mother in law's house looking like a sweat show.

Shut your jacket off at the door. They're like, oh, why don't you ring that out before you come in?

Oh this old jacket, splash this old.

Mop.

Well, let's tell the people. A couple of things that are trending. We just we're taking a moment before we started recording to marvel at the past few days of Donald Trump's campaign. We've covered a couple of the highlights. But you were playing some audio. We were referenced one up top the Azurasians.

Yeah, yep, yep.

It was either Arizonans or Assyrians. We don't know. We don't know quite yet.

Which is still a weird thing.

But okayt shout out ancient Assyria and I know, like you were talking about like the music being played at that Oakstown hall where.

He yeah, we talked about the idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but there's just like this moment where, you know, before it starts. I don't know if you got to that clip where Christy Nome's like, oh, okay, so do you want to play your special song, babe, and he like was confused. That's what makes the whole thing, I think again, I think only the Washington Post really had a headline that was like what the fuck just happened?

In Yeah?

Yeah, like the New York Times I think did some more Saine washing where they're like, I know when Fox are like, oh, it's quite an intimate atmosphere prompt improvisational.

Yeah, so this is what leads into the sundown jam.

Yeah, have them in this beautiful factory condition.

Anyway, go ahead, go ahead, Christy.

Well, sir, do you want to play your song and then great a few people or do you want to.

Well, you had said you wanted to close with a specific song.

Okay, let's show a couple of past questions.

So justin, how about a couple of really beauties and we'll sit down relaxed. Let me just give you the bottom line though.

See, the whole thing was I'm pretty the thing was her question answer to yeah that, oh man, I think anybody who's had a grandparent who has dealt with dementia and things like that, there's like this early phase where you're kind of in denial about it. They're a bit into like they're very self conscious about the fact that they their memory is starting to.

Change a bit.

And the tone that Christinoman used, I have definitely used that with an elderly grandparent like yeah, memory said.

I feel but you would not be as condescending as she just was, where she was like remember.

Fuckhead no, But I think it was more to also not to be like what you forgot right?

You know what I mean.

It's like that's the alternative. It's like, don't tell me you forgot this shit already. It's more like oh, she like, nah, Grandma, remember how you said we were gonna I know, I know.

You're playing around.

Let's okay, let's do And they're like, oh, oh yeah, I do remember.

You know.

You want to give them the out to be like you didn't just completely remember, like forget all this shit, did you? And I think that's like the that's like that that part kind.

Of resonated with me a bit.

The way that was because he's like, what song, yeah, and then they played a song.

She's like, you literally just said fifteenth this song to yeah, you want to play the There's also a moment later where he you know, like thirty minutes later after he plays not just one song, but you know, seven of his favorite songs in a row, where he's doing a little like hand dance. I think it's during November rain and she like starts imitating what he's doing.

Did you see that part?

Like I even though she wouldn't knowingly Christina, I think, even though she wouldn't knowingly like do anything to antagonize him, she is just like, down to her bones, such a mean person that she can't be around somebody who's like doddering like this without just being an asshole. She's like, sir, do you remember, And then she was like imitating his

The alternative is elder abuse.

You know, Oh, don't tell me you forgot about the fust song you want you want to play some fucking weird ass you wanted to play the Pavarotti version of its world?

Really Beau auven Maria like twice?

Are we? So it is?

Because then I'm reminded of those videos where like they show like people in old folks homes, like they play the music like of their youth, and like they like they.

Get a far off right up, you know, like they kind.

Of they're like, oh shit, yeah yeah.

But forty minutes of that was clear that he just could not handle doing question and answers. He's just like, lit, can I just stand the music?

Please? Can I take a break? Teacher?

But then yesterday he had this other rally in Atlanta where he's they need to give motherfucker.

All kinds of weird.

First of all, he starts off with such low energy at this one where he's just like talking about like the teleprompter breaking.

This is this is just hout. This is early in the in the rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

Two days mister congressman thirty two, she's good and the election will be in thirty two days.

He was talking about a teleprompter, talking about a teleprompter, gaff.

The teleprompter to crash thirty two days.

She kept going. But even like his hit.

This love to you know what kickback and it's called a kickback, like some people know a lot about a kickback.

It's called this is like we're just on some Tony Morrison beloved stream of consciousness and that's I think I'm literary watching.

His his his mental now he's doing he's doing.

You know, this is literally this is art. This is poetic license and I want you to leave him alone.

Oh sorry sorry, And then then he talks about World War two but makes a sound I have never I have, Well, this is this is interesting. This is an interesting way of saying big, we.

Won two beautiful big sorry, too beautiful, big, horrible.

Too beautiful, Brig, brig, what are you?

It definitely is Benicio and Escape from Dan and Moore of vib Don't.

His voice well like it feels like he's a animatronic that's running out of batteries at very point, like do you remembered, yeah, do you remember that having a walkman that would like be running out of batteries?

Was that before your time?

Like the tape?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like they would blind down and then they would like kind of start picking or and then like that feels like he feels like he's straight up running out of batteries, like the adderall is like wearing off and.

Then coming back in and.

He can't get his makeup right.

Then there's another one where he was talking about I think he's trying to say insurrectionists here.

Just again, someone if they can decode this, let me know.

He walked in with a couple of young constituents to show them the capital as I remember it, and they accused him of showing in Russia's what And he became what I said, of most people, they say, oh please what.

But like he really seems like it has the vibe of I recently went to a show, a concert and the singer like the drama of the watching this particular band on this particular night was like, is this motherfucker like too fucked up to be in public right now?

Right?

And like each song you were like always pulled it together, for this one it seems to be falling apart, and ultimately pulled it together, but it was.

What the Fuck's going on?

It was like, Oh, man, is this gonna be really sad and like that feels like the experience of watching Trump right now. It's like he's just you Ruspin. Yeah, but yeah, used him of showing what is I don't know, I don't know.

They just again the fact that there's only like maybe one newspaper, yeah, accurately being like, yo, guys, this is fucking this is this is bad. This is like I'm worried if this was your family, you'd be like, this person doesn't need to be doing this.

The only way I lay down.

Describe how this story would be treated if it were a Democrat doing this ship is this would.

Be a bird story. Yeah. That's again at the very least. I mean, this is how you know where you know that that mainstream media is like we're like, we're kind of okay with covering for a fascist.

Okay, like we do it all the time. We don't want to freak out people.

They are like if you want to understand like the thought process behind the mainstream media, all you have to do is look at the mainstream Democratic Party and like they have just let the Republicans set the terms of the conversation so profoundly that they've become like the old Republican Party. Essentially, they're just like, look at us, we got Cheney baby so fucked man, Yeah, so bad.

I mean it's like both the mirror in the UK is like Trump plays favorite music to baffled crowd as unhinged ex presidents sways silently for thirty minutes.

It was actually around thirty seven minutes. Yeah, so be fair.

Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and then we're going to talk about something that is making me happy. I think that's that feeling. I think that's that like kind of swelling feeling in my chest.

Yo, we didn't get Aliens, but we're getting this, and this is getting something.

This is actually better.

Yeah, this is fun.

We'll be right back.

And we're back and we're talking about bird song.

Wow, you came alive.

All right.

So I've been talking about this Merlin app which is like Shazam for bird song.

I really wish you were getting a check from Merlin.

I know, the most I've ever thrown my weight behind a product.

Ye, so that it's not a like capitalist institution.

It's like part of Cornell's like science lab, and by using it I actually help them because I'm basically recording bird song, and it is helping them train an algorithm that helps them use any bird song that it hears to identify what the bird is. So like, I meditate in my backyard every morning and I fire up the Merlin, and when I'm done meditating, look over and I've got some dark eyed junkos in the backyard.

I got.

The names of birds are fucking.

I know when you when you learn about the animal kingdom, you're like, yeah, I know birds.

There's dub pigeon.

Crow, how about scrub jays, a lesser goldfinches, oh, black red star Indian night jar? Oh yeah, Indian night jar is like that sounds like a name of like some sort of opium orange crowned warblers, Europeans starling. I guess that one's pretty well known, but I don't know it's starlings obviously.

But yeah, murmur.

But it's just I appreciate the artistry and the verve and life that is thrown into the naming of these birds. It's always fun to like find out what the birds are, and then you look at a picture of them, and then you kind of keep an eye out and sometimes you get to see the lesser gold finish the other day, I heard a great horned al in Los Angeles. They were even surprised in the Merlin app They were like, this doesn't seem.

Right to like this catastrophic all of these recordings, Yeah, this is going to be really bad. Oh no, no, all these recordings are going back to the central database and it's helping them train to identify what the bird is.

But they're also working on what the birds are saying, right, which is wild. So in some species they figured out the difference between like a mating call and a call about a specific predator that they're afraid of. When it's a snake, they have a different call than when it's a jaguar.

This is from a New Yorker article that everyone should read. It's called how scientists started to decode birds song And like, yeah, to your point, like the thing about the different word, Like they have words for predators, so like the one call made them look up for like an airborne threat, one made them look down for like again, like you said, a snake, and another to chop in a tree as.

A way to do that, I get the fuck out of the nest, just like deuces. But like they're there's just all these details, like some of the time they're singing to the babies in the eggs, like they're singing to the eggs before they hatch. And then when the babies hatch, they have a distinct call because they were listening from inside the eggs. And like the article points out, and human babies do that too, like human French and German babies emerge like crying with accents essentially Jerry Seinfeld.

Bit you ever you ever heard of German baby cry? They're like, you know, what about a French baby? They're like, alright, carnival cruise. I'm making me like Jerry Seinfeld, it's pretty good. That was the first sort of old school comedian.

But no, it is true.

But is amazing that there are these parallels between us.

Yeah, and like they so they all also are talking to one another, like they can understand one another's call. So scientists will like play the thing that they know means leopard nearby, and the other species of birds know that call, so they can like it's you know, each species has its own kind of distinctive calls. Although, like one thing that was interesting to me is that like when you when they're orphaned birds that are raised by a different species, they will use the calls of the species.

That they're raised by.

So they're like learning.

It's not just this, Like they're not just these little bots that are you know, programmed, pre programmed to sing in a certain way. They're learning from one another, one.

Of the things.

So their calls like evolve over time in the same way that like language changes over time. This paragraph kind of blew me away about like how they learn. In the nineteen twenties, tits from Swathing englis and figured out how to open the caps of milk bottles, and by the late forties, tits across Ireland, Wales and England head learned the trick. If language is more a capacity than it is a speech act, it seems possible that birds possess it.

They're fucking talking. Oh, they're cole ephants. There's another about elephants have names and shit, yeah, they're name is specifically for one for each other. Yeah, And it is one of those things you kind of just sort of brush off because you're like, I don't know, are fucking chirping and you're like no, no, no, no, do not disk don't.

It's it's not that simple.

It's almost like too beautiful and complicated. There's just like the world is alive with so much meaning and like our brain isn't able to let it all in because it's just like too overwhelming. So yeah, so we're just like, yeah, no, bird's song is like background music that happens for me.

Some come out.

Yeah, it's like no, they're actually they're in a they're having a crisis, and you just think it's pleasant.

Huh.

Yeah, I don't know the world Like this is just one of those things where I'm just like reminded that the world is so much more interesting and meaningful than the default version that exists in my head when I like wake up in the morning, you know, like yeah, I inherited from just like the accepted wisdom and like public schooling that you know, my brain is built out of.

I just love this one thing they were saying, like from that article, it said, if you record an Australian bird warning of a nearby cuckoo. Cuckoos leave their eggs in the in the nests of other species and often kill their step siblings. Birds in China will understand the call.

Yeah, man, this is like it's we're like because they move so much more than we.

Do, I know, and we're starting to like it's just it's so I said, this is what's so like to your point about that there's so much more meaning to

Yeah, I bet they.

Won't listen to us.

I bet they'll be like, oh they made a little machine and fuck those people.

Yeah, like fucking larparass mother.

Oh and they like jump you like you fake being a gangster and shit, they're like oh really.

There's a really good episode of Radio Lab from a number of years ago where a person like a scientist was studying to do this with a species of monkeys in the jungle, and he got to the point where he knew the difference between the calls, and he's like walking back from where he was studying to like base camp, and he starts hearing the call of the leopard and like it's following him across the jungle and oh shit, like he's hearing the like burglar alarm for like leopard.

Would you so.

There's that movie click and you made reference to it earlier, would way, Yeah, use the fast forward button now, even if there was a chance that you would like skip too far by three years just to like get through this election.

I don't know. I mean it's hard, like with a kid, you know.

Yeah, but this election.

Yeah, all right, look bro, I'm a little bit ahead of you in that timeline.

I was like, you know, you're not missing. They get pretty chilling about three years, you know.

All right, those are some of the things that are trending on this Wednesday afternoon. We are back tomorrow with the.

Whole last episode of the show.

Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourself, get the vaccine, get the flu shot, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

Bye bye,