I just remember at the time, I wasn't fucking with Elton John. I'm like, damn, this fool just wrote a new song for Princess Diana.
Wow.
Wow, Wow, this is like in the era, Like immediately they'd be like by the commemorative Elton John, I miss you, Diana box set? Where get it?
Collective plate?
Yeah, no, for real that you could also play. There's a record.
If you'll turn your attention to this glass case right here, you'll see that I have all of the Diana commemorative editions.
We don't have enough commemorative plates nowadays. I want one with like ice spice.
You know what I mean.
I remember that you remember that? Yeah, that should be Yeah, she showing a painty. That would be like a new kind of merch people should bring back, you know what I mean. Where it's like I don't do T shirts anymore. I do commemorative plates.
From the Yeah, I want something difficult to carer in the parking lot.
Yeah exactly, this ice spice commemorative coin, say special State coin of Spice.
Holy shit, me into the currency as a black woman. Oh my god, watch Kamala is like, I swear to God, we are going to put Ice Spice on the quarter.
Honestly, at this point, I'll take I'll give her my vote for anything. I'm like, listen, if that's the best you can do, at least it's something.
You think you a ship, bitch, You not even the fart grah Ice Spice, you.
Think you a dime? You not even a nickel.
Exactly, I'm a twenty anyway.
Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season three, fifty four, Episode two.
Guys, I couldn't ease And.
It's a production of iHeart Radio. I'm not going to give them a clean take.
That's that is what it is. 'tis what it's.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into america shared consciousness. And it is Wednesday, September fourth, twenty twenty four.
Yeah, yeah, tell us what me nine four four is National Macadamia that day, shout out Maladamia. That's one of the more expensive ones. But they're not my favorite really, something something about the consistency they feel like love because they're great.
Love them.
That's where they break ampart. Oh nice, not a fan. But you like Cashews. I like Cashoes.
I like the static that no shoes Cashoe.
Also National spice classes, spice blend day. We were just talking about ice spice, National newspaper carrier Dation, I don't know the people that deliver the paper, and National Wildlife Papa, Yeah, shout out the newsies Man.
Newspaper delivery boys in the eighties so bad. They're always throwing that shit all over the place, throwing them, throwing them through windows. According to John Hughes Movies, oh yeah, and the video game paper Boy. Yeah, that was a bit that like just America's filmgoers in the eighties could not get enough of delivery boy on bike throwing paper in a while year.
Old having a ninety mile per hour pitch.
Yeah.
Yeah, it goes clean through a kitchen window. Yeah, you're like, what the fuck? Who's funny? Because it's true. You're like, the movie should actually be about this strong armed child just through a fucking whole newspaper through my window. He actually like kills somebody next door.
He just like like now it's like somebody just smacking you in the head with a newspaper.
Yeah, that's right, That's how I'm woking up every morning.
All right.
My name is Jack O'Brien aka cut this Well in two pieces, and stick it on my card. Damn it ret my kids, dang head in plastic, don't give a fuck. I upset some traffic man. That is courtesy of E Seeger Full twelve twenty nine on the discord. Shout out to you, I feel are we am I mispronouncing your name?
S sc geirful? I don't know. Maybe look just wait for the update, just wait for the pronunciation guy to show up on the discord, and I'm like.
Shout out arrow three year row this lesson zero miles zeros.
Ever been in a forum before?
No, no, no, anyways, I'm thrilled to be joined as always.
Buy my co host, mister Miles Gray, Miles Gray, a k got a well on the hood, got its juice, solem min smells like a dumpster. My dad makes me cry. We're getting the thing from all the cars around.
And then there's the roadkill, so much fucking road.
Cad got cause well jo freeks leaks in the windle suff again, Marcus in here plastic baghad. Okay, that was actually a two hander, So shout out one dollar William for the verse. And then my homie, my closest homie, we go way back on Hacker forums lest this zero came through with the chorus and together you got that wonderful AKA. Thank you to all on Discord who participate and give us such creative jemps. Zero beautiful.
They need to put that over the trailer for like some for the Apprentice. Wait, Donald Trump, Oh Jesus right, Paula, are you saying?
That? Actually reminded me? I was at a like we did like karaoke with my family, like a bunch in Japan, so you know, you do karaoke in Japan, and my friend she's sang creep and made like our aunt cry because it was so beautiful. But I was like it was one of these weird things where she just kind of pulled it out of nowhere and like really embodied it. And my aunt, who's like not really fluent English speaker, was like it was just beautiful, and I was like, okay,
what she even saying? That's I mean, the song has there's an emotion to that song that I think is.
Under any That's why I got famous in the first place.
My least favorite thing about Radiohead is that they don't like that song. They're very dismissive of it. They'll never play it live, like, come on, man, you should have better taste than that, your radio head Miles. We are thrilled to be joined in air third seat by a hilarious stand up comedium writer, acurate improviser. You can catch her on stage the monthly Facial Recognition comedy show, which she also produces.
It's probably all right.
I prefer the Steve Winwood for.
That isn't shot directly at me. I didn't even know if you guys were referencing the dance track, was like, is that Michael McDonald Winwoods? Some classic Winwood.
Are well done? Those backstories. He a good guy, Steve Winwood.
I don't know.
I looked him up and related names included Eric Clapton, and I just stopped looking because.
Well, he is one of those other guys where like you hear it and you're like, oh ship, Like I forgot this guy was white because sometimes he had those soul songs. You're like, oh, hold on, Steve Winwood.
Hold on, what a name for an artist, you know, for a musician? Wind would yeah, just take the woodwind and flip.
A neighborhood in Miami. Yeah, it's all there, It is all there. How you do it's good to say.
I didn't realize the whales when I heard jack spell song, I was like, that's interesting, and then I realized it was about r Junior. I was talking about his dad. What is it with like weirdo Republicans? Like remember Mitt Romney's dog and then the other lady with her dog?
Like what you know?
How Like they're like, oh, one, are the signs of sociopaths or whatever?
Is that they kill animals?
Oh?
Yeah, Like I think you've answered your own question.
I think that's.
That's like a test to become Republican. It's like, what would you do if you found a bear?
Cub?
Do this puppy? They hand you a handgun? Yeah, something splash this motherfucker? What reach them?
Oh? Paint or what was it? Paint them or paint the walls or whatever. Trump recently was asked in some interview. I can't remember what it was what he liked about his sons, and what he said about Donald Trump Junior was that he was a good hunter. Like that's such a fucking weird thing to say about your kid. He kills good Yeah, he loves the blood and goods.
Well, that's like shows how involved a father you are when you sort of you just reference gifts that your assistant bought for them to be like, that's what I love about them. He loves hunting. He's a good hunter. My other boy, he loves Catan, settlers of Catan. That's what he's No, it's not even gifts.
It's like things he found mounted on his like around the room and this waller so saying.
Person looking around at pictures on his desk that he has to keep.
There for a very good at lion. He loves lyon lion.
He's great smiling, could smile and saying cheese.
He's very good at love.
He's very good at cocaine. Oh, I'm not supposed to say that one.
He's very good at being an owl or street lamp with this cocaine. I just learned that from a friend of Van Damn owl man. They're on the front porch. That was really good and this looked good. No, no, no, no, not at all. Okay, it's like nothing else. Huh.
All right, Paulay, we're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple of the things we're talking about today, Kroger admitted they admitted that they raised prices without you know, the costs, demanding it in a leaked email that they're having answer for weirdly not really getting picked up by The Washington Post, which mocked Kamala Harris for suggesting corporate greed played a significant role in inflation.
So we're just gonna look at that. Check in with that story. Check in with the latest Polby. When you were filling in for Miles, we talked about schools banning phones. Some schools in England are just like straight up buying their students dumb phones and being like here, just just do that and then stop stop asking us for your phones back. This is getting more and more widely adopted in the US, specifically a ban on smartphones.
So I just want to look at.
That story, because The Daily did an episode about that that I.
Don't know, I thought.
I thought it was a little it was kind of weird where they landed it. They kind of landed it as like, I don't know, both sides really have some interesting points here, So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about that.
We now have proof that said smartphones are listening to us. And using AI to capture what they call real time intent data, which basically means that they're able to brainwash you in real time on your talk about Yeah, we'll talk about the Reagan movie also, which was a huge hit regularly very old white people and based on artificially lowered standard.
Is this the Nancy Reagan porno? Is that what this?
Yeah?
That one hasn't hit theaters yet, but yeah, it's pretty good.
It's getting rare, getting imaginations everywhere.
Absolutely, it's getting raves in the comment section of porn.
Getting raves on chat GPT as people try and recreate it.
Yeah, all of that, plenty more. But first, polay, we do like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history that's revealing about.
Who you are? Oh?
Wait, I had this? Uh what was it?
Too late? Moving on?
No, please come back please, No, No, I did search the word corvids. No, I I've been looking up a lot of references. Okay, I'm rewatching or for the first time, I'm watching the Real Housewives. Like I watched all of Salt Lake City, and then i watched all of Beverly
Hills and now I'm in the middle of Atlanta. So I've been watching, like I've been looking up different references and I and one of the characters was throwing this icons black female icons of Hollywood party, and she was like assigning everyone address in certain ways, and she assigned like one person like Diana Ross and one person Tina Turner, and then she made her enemy be Halle Berry from BAPS, And so I just needed a refresher, like yeah, because
I remembered like some of the outfit, but then I looked it up and then that person refused and then she kicked her out of the party. So I've just been looking up like all of these references from like season five of The Real Housewives of Atlanta?
Are you doing like a rewatch? Like you're just.
I've ever seen them before, but I am like, I am watching that it is like historical for me because I'm like, oh my god, like this was what people were saying on TV like twelve years ago and was okay for people to say that's insane.
That is like like this, I don't know.
There was the only white woman who was cast on the first few seasons was like, yeah, I'm a singer and she's like the worst singer of all of them, and then she kept saying she was black on the inside and all of this shit that like this is from like two.
Yeah, yeah, yeah we are.
Yeah yeah it's something. But yeah, I had never seen any of it. So I'm like, oh my god, this is fascinating. And like they're all these like cameos from people and like guest, like I saw Tommy from Martin was on an episode for like no reason. I don't know why he was on there. They were planning this event and he just was at a meeting about it. I'm like, what is Tommy doing in this show? Everybody wants to be in the show.
It's serious, real movie. I know passed away r I p to.
I know it was sad.
All right, what is something you think is underrated? Okay?
Posting entire movies to social media? I fucking love it. I love that there's like you can watch like all like full mean girls on TikTok or like everybody keep posts, keeps posting like the B Movie to Twitter.
I love it.
I love that you can just stumble on like entire movies in TikTok format.
Yeah, I've always said you should just watch these movies out of order.
You know, or like with a TikTok branding in between, as though it's like a commercial. At the end of every clip, Victor is saying that's how he saw Detective Pikachu.
I love it. I like just being like you're scrolling TikTok, You're like, hold on, no, I was only here for maybe bite sized content, but you know what I'm I'm gonna throw this thing in landscape, but once for the long here.
Yeah.
I think it's beautiful because like everybody's like, oh, our attention spans are so short, and it's like, okay, I can watch thirty second clips for eight hours.
Yeah it counts. I don't know if that's a short attention.
Span, but it's so right. How come I watch this forty second video eight times in a row? Oh?
How come it was all just my Instagram story?
It fuck up?
Like so, I mean, I guess there's like little spaces like built in, like is it does it just like come mid sentence. It's just like every thirty seconds.
It depends on like what you you're watching on right, Like on TikTok, it's got like the TikTok branding at the end of every clip, But on Twitter you could post a whole movie, like just yeah, yeah, So it just depends.
Like I remember when June two was up for fucking like a week.
Yeah, it's just really funny because like social media is just shit show and they don't have any control over like what is happening, or they're like removing regulations from it. So I just think it's really funny when you can just post an entire fucking movie. Right.
People are like, this is how I consume media.
It takes Elon seventy years to do anything about it. You're like, yeah, man, the whole it's all up there everything.
He's like, I.
Watched all of that Apprentice Apprentice documentary on what he calls Twitter.
What's something you think is overrated?
Okay, going on walks depending on where you are. I love a walk, I love walking. I love walking my dogs. But I live in a neighborhood. I'm not gonna but you might get it from the.
Colill Ca Sublanca.
No, it's from It's in a neighborhood where there's like just like a lot of trash on the ground, and there's a lot of glass on the ground, and literally there's a parting spot near my apartment where I've seen so many cars burned to a crisp like fully burned cars, and like I'm just like to my boyfriend, I'm like, you can't park there.
You cannot park.
Don't like.
But it will combos.
We don't know. I don't know.
So it's just like it really depends. Like I have to go to the next neighborhood over to like walk my dogs in a nice neighborhood. So I think, like we need to bring we need to make walks great again. We need to bring them back.
Beyonce.
You know, it's like the Gremlins, what is it you aren't they like.
Much less threatening, much less, but walks.
Suck now depending on where you are, And like if it's hot and ship, I'm like, why is outside bad where we were supposed to graze?
The advice to go touch grass is going to get less and less feasible like out.
Yeah, they're like someone has l a out well and also to like we just have just we always we always lament our lack of good parks too, and how like you know, very early on we're saying, like make all the golf courses parks, give us our nice green spaces because yeah, we're so much of the city is just so fucking you know, it's just concrete.
I gets so mad when I see like really giant hedges because I'm like.
Rich people, you're hiding all the grass in there.
Let me let me end rich people, let me touch that grass. Doctor said, I got nobody on YouTube.
I'm literally there's like literally a website that I'm going to use because like, my dogs don't have places to run, so I literally am going to rent a yard. I'm like, this is how bad it's gotten. We're like, I'm renting a yard for my dogs to run.
In because they can't.
Dog website.
Yeah, it's a real thing. I forget what it's called, but it's for pets, like in big and that's a huge problem with my like my dog rescues. A lot of people want to have big dogs, but they can't because of the housing crisis, and they don't have yards and stuff. So I'm so literally they're monetizing like green space for animals and I'm gonna have to do it because I don't. I can't take them to dog parks because my big one's humpy, and.
Like I I need humpy. My big ones the big one's humpy, a little.
One's dumpty, and uh so like I have to go rent a yard. I have to rent a rich person's yard.
Wait? How what? How much does it cost?
It's not that much, I don't think. I think it depends on where and for how long.
That's why are they just there in the window, like making weird grunting noises?
Yeah, like how your dog runs one humpy huh?
Whoa, whoa? What the fuck? Why? It's okay, you don't have to clean up after him. I'll handle that. No.
Actually, I'm like, wait, can I monetize this? Can I tell you my dog ship?
Oh? I didn't even think about that. I mean, yeah, I usually I'm afraid of asking because it's for us.
Yeah, but yeah, amazing, that's that's wild that that exists. But they're need to report firsthand to a man on the street for I know.
I know, I'm gonna be like, I'm here in this yard, I found a dead body. I'm just gonna keep playing ball with a dog.
Okay, I pay for my time.
Oh man, all right, let's uh, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we're back here with us.
Is that humpy dumpty. This this is Sammy. He's a little one.
Humpy humpy as a damn all right, all right, well we did want to check in with the story about what actually caused inflation.
We had speculated idly. Yeah that you know, as so as inflation is happening. You can listen to the earnings calls of corporations whose prices going way up and hear them talk about how they're having record profit all during pandemic and when inflation was this out of control weather pattern that the global markets were dealing with. And if you suggested such a thing that like they were doing it on purpose because it was causing record profits, you would be ridiculed.
It's like, but where'd the profits come from? You also say you had lower costs. It's not because it's because it's because we're doing so good. I don't know.
About you, guys. I've never heard of a corporation being never okay for greed, never never, never never never never.
Excuse me, Well, it's just wild because only because Kroger and Albertson's are trying to have a merger that like, you know, the Feds are like, ah wait a tick here that we got some testimony from one of the
Kroger executives and they bring up this fucking email. We're in an email it is discussed that said quote on milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation, and then goes on to say, our objective is to quote pass through our inflation to con m h And they're like, oh, wait, that you mean you mean you're you're charging them more that that's what it
sounds like, you're passing the inflation onto us. And like again, like other people commenting on this, like this was like no secret that was happening, especially when it comes to like milk and eggs. A lot of people who were defending this are like they just cherry picked a couple comments here and like make it seem like that's like this is an email from a top executive at Kroger who is talking to other executives about how they're even there.
They're saying right here, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation.
So the retail price is going up higher than what our costs are going up.
That this is like the.
Sorry, I like that, this is like the grocery store version of the jinks where he's.
Like, I did it. Oh, I raised all the prices. I do it again.
Yeah. Yeah.
But the response from economists, a lot of economists, not all economists, but a lot of economists who coincidentally seem to usually work for or be you know, speaking to or being interviewed by mainstream media outlets that are owned by corporations, it seems to be like, yeah, it's just like one or two bad actors, and it's like there's no correlation. But like, so again, just the bottom line thing is like, how are when inflations at a record high,
their profits are at a record high. Like those are the two things that like the I need an argument that's going to dispel those things. But like you said, Miles, meanwhile, Kroger's fighting the government for their right to merge with Albertson like two massive grocery chains, which again like a big problem with this, and the reason they're able to
do that is not enough competition. So they're able to raise prices and not be worried that, you know, another retailer is going to lower the prices, which is how the whole system is supposed to work. But because these massive corporations got so much power they can now just kind of fix things.
Yep.
So a lot of places are picking it up, but it's like not really mainstream. Like Business Insider picked up the story of the burg This is weird Bloomberg, but not the Washington Post, which absolutely mocked Kamala Harris for suggesting corporate greed played a significant role in inflation, which is.
Not like you're getting that from some like far left extremist person just being like, yeah, I'm pretty sure they're going up because they're making a ton of money. They're like no, yeah, no, And then I just look, I just searched their website. Uh, there's nothing like where they're headlining that this executive, Like they have a headline where like that's referencing what this Kroger executive mentioned sharing this testimony.
But hey, this cherry pick, it's just an I.
Don't know what you guys are talking about.
But I'm going to continue hiding eggs under my mattress. Okay, that's where the gold is.
Always look under the mattress.
Bad.
Yeah, it's pretty sulphuric, I would say, But like the wild part is too. I was like searching, like the news search function on covering this. Is it only Jacobin, not even dude, Barstool Sports, Barstool Sports. I want to just read something from barstool from Barstool Sports about this. Okay, they're talking about the the this guy Graf who Andy Groff, who's the Kroger price guy, said he spilled the beans during an FTC hearing. His internal email, a masterpiece of
corporate honesty, revealed their strategy pass through our inflation to customers. Translation, let's squeeze those four those poor fucking plubs for every penny we can the American way. Kroger's defense, Oh that email was cherry pick. They say they're decades long business model is all about lowering prices. Okay, mother Teresa, barstool Sports. This is in barstools, Dave or Noise.
It is the end.
They were like, and bitches get titties just to like.
Yeah exactly, That's why I should be allowed to sexually harass my coworker.
Now check out the nasty ten nastiest strip clubs in Bogota, Columbia.
We like where the costume is too high?
Yeah right, they go on it says quote this revelation isn't just about Kroger. It's a symptom of a larger disease plaguing corporate America. Companies across the board have been posting record profits while consumers struggle with sky high inflation. Uh remember those quote supply chain issues we kept hearing about. Sure they played a role, but let's be honest. Some prices were elevated simply because businesses knew they could get away with it. It's the American way, right, profit over people.
This is in Barstool's Sports Comrade.
You know how like climate change has made like like Seattle is like having less rain than La, but like La is having more and like everything shifting. That's what it feels like with media. Like remember when teen Vogue was like doing hard hitting pieces and we were like, wait, we forgot to pay attention to teen Vogue. Like all of the world has gone so upside down that all of the so called like hard hitting journalists are doing
the dumbest shit. So now like Barstool Sports has to step up to fill that need.
Yeah, I'm like the weather. I was a little curious about this because it's like who is, like who's writing this? And I found the author's Twitter feed, and it does not strike me as someone who is out here with their like critiques of capitalism, like there's another paragraphs and even this is all I'm this is capitalism after all, you and your work is worth what somebody's willing to pay.
And but then like their Twitter feed is like Kamala misinformation RFK video quotes of been like, well, this is a weird this is an interesting take about Russia, and then like weird stuff again. That's where I got the strip club stuff. It was a video about strip clubs in Columbia, and I'm like what. And then also George
old George Carlin stand up about class consciousness. So I'm wondering if this person got like rat like quasi radicalized, because at the bottom of this Barstool Sports article is a George Carlin clip. Yeah, the illusion of choice. So it feels like a dude who may have been on the barstool wagon caught some Carlin, got some class consciousness, got momentarily radicalized, and then went back to their regularly scheduled program of like this is the hottest pool vaulter in the pac ten.
I mean, the political world has been has been talking about Republican, like Barstool Republicans for a long time now being right, you know people who are like I define myself as masculine and therefore I hate Democrats and I love Republicans because Dave Porton Portnoy says things that make me laugh something.
Right, But but like.
I didn't realize that that included like economic populism.
I don't think it does generally. I'm just yeah, that's on, Like I want to know more about whom like like if this is just a cobbled together with AI they're using some guy's name to attribute it to it, or if this is just kind of or maybe I'm I'm not reading enough Barstool and I'm realizing I do.
You think it's I think things like that are super believable because I do think that, like now more than ever, people's beliefs are in like a blender and it's more
of a grab bag. Like you'll find people who are really like socially like liberal who are anti vaxers or you know, like that's where it started, but now it's like it you really like if you're out in the dating scene, you have to ask like all of the questions, right, right, because because at any point could someone be like, yeah, this is this is normal.
This is normal.
Alarm soundly alarm, right right, because people are like that with like just the most random random beliefs, Like it's no longer like okay, like this party believes this and this other party believes this, like kind of a general divide. It's like you could be insane and like all sorts of things.
I think there's also like this other thing too, where regardless of maybe what you're like sort of you know, registered voting political beliefs are that the world you interact with the world, where like your observations are like why the fuck is all this shit so expensive and they're making money and just on your own through just existing, you kind of arrive at this conclusion too, even though right yeah, even though you're like I thought you're supposed
to be like one of these free market like conservative type people, but at the end you're like, nah, I write for barstool and shit's expensive, so this is kind of fucked up. But anyway, here the top strip clubs in Bogata.
It's like how that like there was that article is.
Really good by the way that you kidd like they go.
Deep it's actually about a universal health care No, there was actually like somebody in like Indiana or something like. I remember like listening to all these interviews during the last election cycle about how people are like pro Trump, but they actually do believe in the tenets of universal health care, but they hate they like don't want Obamacare,
like so they don't. People don't fully understand necessarily like the labels or the so called theory, like they're not like Marxists, you know what I mean, but they do they do still have that feeling that you were describing of like something isn't right here and like you should all be able to afford food and rent.
But I don't want to call it it'd be funny. Like the end, it really is like sincerely, guys, Like I don't know about you, guys, but it's like I clock in for a job where like they take the work that I do and they get rich off of it, and I just feel so distinct the means whatever I'm created, you know, it's just odd that I feel so disconnected and isolated from it as a working person. Whatever. Anyway, here the top.
Two wish up and break down unions, Like.
Dude would you kill man, would you kill?
Okay, like a carnivore or like somebody a worker who's trying to Yeah, it's just wild that there's a policy position that's so popular on both sides that neither major party will openly agree to take. And when one does, like with Kamala Harris's you know policy, it's pretty tame and it gets absolutely destroyed by mainstream media. Let's for being like extremist and unrealistic. And she's not a real adult, right right, right, Sorry, miss, we're adulting here. We're three economists. Anyways,
let's talk about phones in school. I guess I didn't realized that kids were on their phones in classes as much as they are. There's this episode of The Daily Today that is, I didn't realize, like they're saying, like people came back from the pandemic and they were just like everybody's like on their phones. They got so used to interacting with each other and school via screens, Like
now that's just like impossible to take away. And now they're trying to institute these bands, but there's like mixed messaging on how popular that is or how successful or even feasible it is. We talked a few weeks back about the fact that the most posh prep school in London has banned smartphones and given students dumb phones instead.
They're like those phones with bubble gum in them from when we were kids exactly.
Now there's come everywhere.
Yeah, and I can't call my mom. Yeah.
That was the thing that they were fighting against. One I was in school was gum chewing.
Had to contend with this is a this is a type of friends I had. My science teacher had to impose a Magic the Gathering tax because so many of my friends were playing it, and she also knew how to play it, so she would take She was like, if I see those cards out, I'm gonna take your best cards.
And we did.
I'm gonna take you your best card.
Yeah. She was like really good at Magic the Gathering, so she was she just building her sets Ultimate Hotly Ship.
Yeah. Ours was just like playing like drug Wars on like T I eighty three, Like that was like the biggest distraction we had at the time. But yeah, it is. It is funny though too. Like Jack, both when you said that, both you and I are like, damn, my kids are like on their phone, like just like as if we couldn't per conceive a world where that was even possible, like it used to be. You get in big trouble for chewing gum.
Yeah right, I'm enjoying watching you to continue parenting.
They're like kids phones. They don't seem to like those.
But I mean they like them to I don't know.
So the daily episode lands in a place in between being like, we get why they're banning it, but we don't have the data to support whether this ban is good or bad. It really feels like, I don't know how how are you not just taking the comments like, I mean, come on, we know it's fucking bad for kids.
Like the anecdotal evidence includes watching kids walk around like zombies, watching like seeing their mental health deteriorate like in this generation, the way they react like addicts when your takeaway take away their phone, the fact that the people who design the phones and the software don't allow their kids to use this shit, everything about the software being designed to make money and surveil and manipulate their behavior and nothing
has to do with like any anything that's good for them. And the detail they used a question whether it's bad is like, but there are these like learning applications on phones, and we don't know if those are like canceling out all the other ship and.
It's a little right, Okay, here's a compromise that I think will be really good. I think, sure, you take away the kids' phones whatever, but in every class there's the most like the funniest kid gets to keep their phone just so that they get to be the racist teacher monitor and like pull it out anytime the teacher.
Is doing some sus ship, you know what I mean.
I can't lose those tiktoks where the teacher just like goes off and you're like, are we living in the fifties?
What?
It's funny too, like those teachers like someone was videotaping that.
Yeah, yeah, but being like they're allowed to have phones in class.
See them use a crank and put a sheet over there.
Sorry, what I meant to say about the trail of tears, It wasn't fact. You're like, whoa, whoa easy, E's easy.
Some people do have tears of laughter.
I'm just saying it's possible. It's possible, it's possible.
But this is happening. As we just got new evidence that phones are listening to smartphone, microphones and using AI to capture real time intent data.
Yeah, this felt like a thing we would talk about a lot early on in the show of just being like our phones were like, I think our phones are listening to us. How come a thing I've never searched for, talked about, but never even interacted with anything in my browsing history. I'm suddenly being served ads for this thing.
And it's because Miles we recorded the show in person and had out loud conversations about what we were going to cover on the show. Yeah, and then as we were like putting the doc together, we would be like, weird, now it's like serving me a ad for lawnmowers, even though like I was randomly talking about lawnmowers and the.
Miles, Miles is only obsessed with like Casper and.
And he's like, why do I keep getting ads for that that? Even though that's all I ever wanted in.
You mean, yeah, I love Casper mattresses or loved but like you know, even like when you would search right like all the time, I remember, we'd be like this, this can't be and like all the articles you'd get when you searched for like the question of like our
our phones listening to us. There was some techie breakdown about how like algorithms figure out that you're mighty in proximity to someone that you're friends with and they know you are via Facebook, and therefore you it may be relevant to you, so that's why the ad will show up or whatever. But even then I'm like, Okay, that seemed feasible. At least it was feasible enough that I was like, all right, that that could that totally could be.
And then we kind of moved on. But then this leak came out from Cox Media Group and there was a pitch deck that ran media Brian Cox, Yes, exactly, fuck fuck off, fuck off Media Group. And so in this leaked pitch deck to prospective customers, and they were one of Facebook's like marketing partners, although now like after this, Meta and a few other companies have been to distance themselves from Cox. It talked about how it listens to
users smartphone microphones and advertises to them. Accordingly, the TV and radio news giant Cox Media Group claims that it's so called quote active listening software uses AI to quote capture real time intent data by listening to our conversations That's why.
I'm always like, oh my god, you know what I could really go for right now is healthcare or like lower guess.
Right or to Suddy it's like, hey, man, come through to mobile where it's way expensive, but we heard you need guess. Sorry, don't know what else to tell you. And then it goes on quote advertisers compare this voice data with behavior yeeral data to target in market consumers. That's what the deck said. That all sounds perfectly nonsinister to me.
Point the technology is gonna be like girl, dump him.
You know he's been like visiting like a rite aid. That's way out of the way from y'all right. I don't know what fore, but based on what I'm saying from this map view, there's a corner of the parking lot where it's not visible to cameras or people on the street anyway, I don't know, can check that out.
FBI agents like really, DM, the FBI just uses this software to just find people.
That's how they found bin Laden. Actually it wasn't even the CIA, it was just this Facebook as man, come on.
Nobody likes volleyball and Whitney Houston this much, except for we got him the pacer.
So then like, apparently this is the third time in the last year that Cox has gotten media attention for their active listening feature. They also deleted a Cox media group. Big Deal leaded a blog post from their own website from last year that was talking about active listening and you can see it through the Internet archive thank god. It said there's one section like is it legal? You know, is active listener? Like this is their active listening faq?
Is active listening legal? Answer? Yeah? Right? Oh wow? Is selling human organs that you've procured outside of you know, normal channels illegal? Well, allow us to answer that. This says, quote, we know what you're thinking. Is this even legal? Funny, there's no, he said. The short answer is yes, it is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi page terms of use agreement, somewhere in the
fine print, active listening is often included. And you're like, oh, holy shit, Okay, that's that's an in there. Yeah, your part read you could become widowed, way you could.
I just want to say it's not your fault that that's the thing that's like unspoken we all like for.
A long time, we're like, yeah, we just agree to this ship. Who cares? Like, what are we going to do? Read it? But like kind of being like ha ha, we're idiots. No, it's impossible.
To live life without agreeing to that ship.
Like or.
It's like when the when Disney tried to like invalidate that lady's lawsuit by being like, well you watched.
The TV you got Disney plus right, Oh well well well asshole, look who doesn't read the fine print because you gave up your thought we couldn't kill you.
The plus stands for negative rights, right yeah, yeah, that's so funny. Also, like really fucked up of them to call it active listening after everything I learned in school about how important acting is. Yeah right, right right, they're doing a woke is up you got there, very smart. Their therapy speaking their way through surveillance states.
Well, they've been active listening in all those classrooms. So they heard the teachers teaching kids that active listening is good. So that's how they got the idea that are like, yeah.
You're just sitting there like on your phone, and the froend's like, oh that's nice. You're like what's the fun? They're like, I hear you get over.
I've got a new idea. What the fun?
But yeah, so these are the people that the daily episode is.
Like, we don't it's too soon to tell. But I don't know.
It just feels it feels like it's not too soon to tell if having smartphones in school is better than not having them in school.
I just don't. Yeah, And I'm sure, Hey, I know there are people who are educators that listen to the show. I feel like even people who I know who are teachers and stuff, they always talk about how much of a distraction it is, And depending on the school, you have policies or they're like just it's like lightly discouraging, or it's like a huge problem if your phone comes out. But it just feels like a thing where it's like, if it's an emergency, there there are ways for you to be contacted.
That's yeah, no, no, no, for sure, And it's probably you know, enforced in a really fucked up way where like the teachers being the front line are just forced to deal with kids who are addicted to their phone.
Hey, trying to get these guys the cold Turkey heroin in your in your in your in your eighty minute class.
Yeah, you guys are acting like the students or the problem when I'm sure the teachers are like these don't make me give up my phone. They're like please, Yeah, no, we shouldn't have phones in classrooms, but they should all be in my drawer.
I'm on a candy crush crush streak.
Okay, hey, someone hooked me up with some credits. You can transform. You can transform if you have my email.
He needs who needs extra credit?
Yeah, oh my god. I had a teacher like that. Did you ever ever ever teach.
You wanted extra credit? I need some extra credit, dude.
We had a teacher, my biology teacher sophomore year, said we could get like, uh, like a half letter grade adjustment upward if we donated to the cross country running team.
That's fucking insane.
And we were like, yeah, yeah, say let's say less because I'm not fucking with the I'm not fucking with cell respiration. So yeah, how much you want? Ten bucks? And I remember and then it then I remember, like at the time, I was like, this is great, dude,
ten bucks and I don't have to study. And then a student who was much smarter, like went to the school and was like, uh, they're saying if we give them money, they'll change our grades, and like the teacher had to give us all our money back, but then also had to keep our grades like with the adjustment too. Wow, no, no, yeah, we got the grades and our money back. And we're like there you go, thank you go. Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back and
we're back. We are and oh yeah we are? Are we back?
Well?
Are we? Yeah? We are, we are.
We're so bad, We're so fucking back. Dude.
Oh man, I'll tell you who is back. Ronald Reagan? Fuck why oh no?
Wal So, the Ronald Reagan movie came out this past weekend and it did wal at the box office.
It did pretty well. What were they? What were what was the bar low? They're like what, there's like maybe six hundred people who would actually get off their ass to see this, So what are we calling it? Ten grand?
So it made ten million dollars, which exceeded their expectation of six million dollars on a budget of like I think it was like fifty million dollars. So it's not it's not great. Yeah, I wouldn't especially, it's like just production budget doesn't. See like if they did the thing that all movies do, which is like spend as much on marketing as you do on production, they probably are not gonna make their money back.
But okay, Jack, you just gotta wait for the trickle down budget. Okay, that's coming in and it's gonna make it all better.
That's right. I don't even know. Oh, this is why Dennis Quaid was trending. Yeah, dude, I mean reason when you first mentioned this, Like there's a fucking Reagan movie.
I know, I saw like.
One is my phone listening. I talk about Ronald Reagan all the fucking time. I didn't start one at Cox Media Group. Yeah. Yeah.
So it's a twenty five million dollar production budget and you usually assume that it's double that for marketing budget, so it might make its money back to if it gets if it gets to fifty, but the level they set the bar at is so low. It came first of all, came in third behind Deadpool and Wolverine which for three weeks now, right, yeah, send out for weeks and Alien Romulus or alien Romulents, which is what my kids call it because they're they're obsessed. They're like alien romulents.
No no, I was like, yo, but they are. And I remember this actually from when I was a kid, when like I would know what movie my dad went to see, and then I'd.
Be like, tell me everything, ye, and then pretend you saw like an.
Alien came out of Ronald Reagan's chest.
Sorry, I was pretty drunk, and then he tore off Gorbachev's balls. I still remember, like where I like sitting down and tear off mister Haas.
Yeah, I still remember where I was, like when my day explained the First Blood to me, like recapped the movie Rambo First Blood to me, like as when I was six, and I was like, yo, this is the best movie going experience I've ever seen, I've ever had. But anyways, Reagan came in third, and it might actually drop down to fourth once all the once they figure
everything out. But it exceeded expectations. The expectations worse somehow, even lower than that terrible result, and conservative outlets are spiking the football. Forbes says Reagan. Critics hate, but the audiences love. Dennis Quad's Ronald Reagan biopic National Review Reagan triggers progressives. But movie audiences love it because yeah, critics do not do not think this is a good movie.
They're like, is this even a movie?
It's just like a real it's like a love letter.
I mean, like Ronald Reagan.
Homelanders not even in it. I thought it would be like a really cool Quad movie.
That Yeah, other ones are like Dennis Quad's Reagan is the worst movie of the year. Wo Okay heard much loose triggered by yeah, I triggered by the homelessness you see in the year twenty twenty four. Much draw a straight line back to Ronald Reagan.
Okay, literally, the only audience seeing this movie are old white people. Eighty five percent of ticket buyers were over the age of thirty five, which is like unprecedented.
And then the this might be.
Released it November fifth. That would have been alloy could just do that.
Yeah, just that meme of which button depress to like vote for Maga or go see the Gipper movie.
This might be a new record. Sixty six percent of people were over the age of fifty five, Like, that's never with a movie before. Eighty percent of the film's entire audience was white, which.
Seems no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, I know we're all pretty surprised. So I think, Miles, this is a hit, So we're gonna have to go see.
It'll be so terrifying to be there. And then you look around and it's all old white people and you're like, you're like being a very young, like like.
Black woman remove reviewing the movie, right.
Right, and everyone's kind of looking at you and pretty good, right, I'll get it, right. You seem like a nice person. Ye what yeah, I mean like one of the good ones. They need their wins where they can get them, you know, yeah, sure, well, hey, maybe they'll get it November. You know, who knows, who knows? Who knows? Who knows?
The Sound of Freedom was a legitimate hit. It seems like that one made a lot of money.
Even with the people buying the tickets to get away for free.
Yeah, depending on it. I don't know how many people actually saw it, but their donation based marketing strategy.
Really. I did watch it when we had Sarah Marshall on to talk about the her Human Trafficking episode. Yeah, and I just remember subjecting myself to them movie and being like, oh god, this it's just truly like it's like freak out porn for people who don't like foreigners.
There's new news about that guy that will have to update y'all on pretty soon. He seems like not as cool as everyone thoughts.
Sounds like you got an agenda.
Yeah, he said, that's so smooth.
It scared me.
I know, my dead pen is sometimes too believable.
Sorry, a little too dead in the pan Paula Vi, what a pleasure having you as always?
Yes?
Where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
You can find me in the Rigan movie.
No I play, No, I play the Gipper, his alternative personality. I'm at Paulo Viganalan p A ll a b I g u n A l a n everywhere. I run that monthly show at the comedy store called Facial Recognition Comedy. Our next one is September twentieth at tenth thirty pm.
Please come through. It's gonna be an inverse Reagan movie.
It's gonna be a lot of brown people, Okay, So come through and get tickets at the comedy store.
It's the belly Room Show. It's gonna be really fun, awesome.
And is there a work of media that you've been enjoying besides the Reagan movie.
No, have you guys been watching the Paralympics.
Yeah, it's so cool. I love like all those swimming was wid.
This okay, I it was insane.
There was the guy who had no arms who was like yeah, and he like had to hit the the end of the pool with and like he would have won if he had all he was so far ahead.
It's like not fair.
Yeah, it's wild to see. That's what I'm like. That as I learned more about how they break things down birth based on like disabilities too, I was like, shouldn't he maybe knock themute against somebody who could like lengthen his body. But then the other guy I think was like had his legs amputated, so maybe he didn't have the same kicking powers.
Yeah I shouldn't they like rate it different, but that it was just like so fucking impressive to watch him, just like how fast he could go without arms, and the archer well who didn't have arms from India, who like shot it was so I don't know, it was just like so cool to see and I'm like I'm sitting on my couch like god, damn, this is crazy.
It does kind of make the regular Olympics just look like shit, Yo, hold on, bro, are you saying what these people are doing?
Now? Yeah?
It's crazy.
Also, like I do think it's like like there are runners who are like blind and so they have like runners with them. Yeah, like so both of you have to be like in like first position for the person to win. Like that's crazy, Like you have to have it's like a relay, but you're both running at the same time.
Yeah, it's wild awesome. Miles. Where can people find you as their working media you've been enjoy Uh find me on Twitter and Instagram and the like wherever they have the at symbols at Miles of Gray. You can find Jack and I on the Basketball podcast and I was a Joustie. You can find me talking ninety dance on four twenty fiance. Check me out on Scam Goddess. I
was on a recent episode. I was also on a recent episode of Black People Love Paramore, So you can there's many ways to hear me talk about things that aren't so news centric. Some tweets I like, man, I got a few funny tweets. It was a good it was a good weekend for me. Not finding things that just made my spirit die because I got so cynical and I laughed at some funny things. Uh laugh ye.
Past guest Mohanad al Shiki at mohanaed Alshiki tweeted, I love when someone is like, I'm funny because I have trauma and it's a coping mechanism and it's like, okay, not to add to your trauma, but you're not funny, so fucking wildly, just think about that shit. Another one at Jay unders Or Cooper tweeted, got so drunk last night I messaged the ting tings on instagrams. I haven't thought about them for so long. That's not my name. And then also big Boy from Outcast at big Boy tweeted, Hey, hey,
we're on the tour bus in Keli, right. We stopped for breakfast. Why this lady asks, Sleepy Brown are y'all migrants being dropped off? Oh my god? What? Wow? You see the Dungeon family and you're like, what the fuck off? Sleepy Brown looks like like an Isaac Hayes, like parallel universe Isaac Hayes.
Uh yeah, anyway, fun big big bus presumably, so yeah, she's making some assumptions tweets. I've been enjoying at you wouldn't post tweeted a picture of a man Brothers from towards the end of The Shining when he arrives on a flight and says the original flight raw dogger because I always remember that that he was just staring straight ahead on the whole flight, just like, Yeah, that's how I do it. And then Shell at Shell Arena Underscore tweeted, Hey stupid, I'll see you in court the food court.
We are friend.
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien, you can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website, Daily Zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our foot notes. No loick off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy.
Miles, what song do you think people might enjoy it? I was listening to this again. I love music that I thought was from yesteryear, and it turns out it's just some guy who's younger than me from Huntington Beach and this track is I was listening to it, I'm like, is this like an Eric Burden or like Van Morrison track? I've never heard? Is this these? And I was like really curious because it's clearly recorded on tape and the
microphones are all like of that period. And it turned out it's an artist called Nick Waterhouse, who I was not familiar with and I'm getting much more familiar with. And it's called Song for Winners by Nick. Yeah, oh my god, a lot familiar. Do you guys want to go to his show? He's gonna be playing at the Echo later and he said he can get me on the list. I don't know, like I think, I don't know. He says, like we're just talking, but I feel like I feel like there's more going on. But anyway, it's
called Song for Winners Nick Waterhouse. If you like, you know, like I said, you Van Morrison, Eric Burden, you know, Wilson Pickett kind of stuff. This His voice is super raspy and interesting. So Nick Waterhouse Song.
For Winners also does a great job securing those Oscar ballots from yep of Waterhouse our house Cooper.
I love coming on here and like listening to you guys. Luggy songs because I never know what you're talking about, so like Nick Waterhouse Cooper just sounds like a law firm to me, and I need.
All right, We will link off to that song in the footnotes for Daily I Guess is.
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For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visits the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what is trendy, and we will talk to you all then.
Bye bye,