Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three thirty one, episode five of Derdilly's Guys Day production of iHeartRadio Whoop. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into america shared consciousness. And it is Friday, March twenty ninth, twenty twenty four. I just absolutely housed half a brito. So you're gonna hear me like having weird things fre I'm like trying to you know that they're digestive things
happening behind my voice that might affect how things sound. Anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien aka eight six seven five Jack Obrii and that is courtesy of hanoramic View on the Discord. I feel like that might have been done before, but it's a It's an absolute classic once again from hanoramic View on an absolute tear right now, like a DiMaggio esque streak of consistency from hannaham View on the Discord.
It is wonderful to have you back, Hannah. I'm thrilled to be joined in my second seat by a guest co host. With the guest my host. You know him from stuff they don't want you to know, ridiculous history. Please welcome the brilliant and talented Ben Bolan.
Yes, they get Ben Bowling, Yes back yeah, aka secret Frenchman.
I yes, which, well, all right, which will makes sense. We'll explain it once we bring in our guests. Our guest thrilled to be joined by one of the best podcast hosts doing it. Also a thing that I usually say when I introduced Ben, one of the best podcasts. We got two of the best podcasts, so pack podcast hosts doing it. He's my old friend from the crack day as a Jeopardy champion, the host of the wonderful podcast secretly incredibly fascinating. It's alichman.
It's so good to be here and filling in the cannon for folks.
Immediately.
Ben was very nice when he met me, and he brought up Jeopardy, but he sort of said it like Jeppardine a little bit, and we noticed that he might have been secretly French this whole time.
Yeah. Yeah, his mask slipped and he's French. You know, that's the stuff they don't want you to know. Ben Boleen a French guy, don't I don't know if we can handle it, folks. It wasn't he he didn't even say it was just like he was like, I see you were on Jeopardy, like it the way it was, like the way he came up at the end, the up speak at the end, but like, yeah, there was just something very suspiciously French about the whole thing.
Then I'm just you know, we're talking about it, guys, and I am so impressed by anybody who can go on Jeopardy. Was a bit of a conversational gambit because Alex, I have followed your work as he gets knew I'm a huge fan of Cracked a com and a lot of the other work that you've done. Well, it was a conversational gambit, you know, like there was there was a non zero chance that I might have guessed the wrong Alex, you know, and I would have gotten a
Jeopardy question wrong literally, So that's that's why. But I am aware of the show. I know it's a thing.
All thoughts and answers will be expressed in the form of questions. During this episode, it was just going to be a real mind fuck. Well we're not up to it, but we're gonna do it anyways, loud buzzers to watch out just huge. Yeah. After I like start a sentence, and don't really figure out where it's going. We'll get the time out sound man Ben Bolin my my crow master. Yeah I have. I keep going over to my window to check because I'm in a bit of a conundrum
with it. So Ben was good, like gave me detailed notes on how to make friends with the murder of crows that was menacing my backyard. Now I have a situation where a squirrel is eating the nuts that I'm leaving out for the crows, and you can like actually see the squirrel get fatter, like day to day, the squirrel is so fat from all the like I said, I'm worried about the squirrel's health now, but it doesn't
stop him from coming back from multiple feedings. But anyways, I think I'm making progress with the crows, but they're they can be withholding.
We talked about this man's we were hanging out earlier, and I know it might have been coming off kind of strange, where the first thing I asked you instead of like, oh, hey, it's good to see you, how are you? How is your life? Instead I was like, fill me in on the crow situation.
Man, how's the murder? You said, how's the murder really loud in a crowded room, and I because I do, you know, dabble and murder. So it was very yeah again trying to get away with it like no.
Big big fan of your workman, Oh thanks thanks, Yeah.
Of the murders, yeah, of my murders. But Alex, how have you been doing? Been a while doing great things?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's been a good start to the spring.
And and their podcast SAFF is doing a membership drive that has been going well. And I'm going to travel soon to Columbus, Ohio to see family. I'm very excited visit Columbus, Ohio.
Yeah you have to tips.
Yeah, my brother and my sister in law and their new baby. So that's all very nice.
Is it your first time going to Columbus.
It actually is. Yeah, yeah, they haven't been there that long. Yeah. Okay, that's where one doctor, mister Cody Johnston is from, I believe. Yeah, yeah, home of Ohio State University. Maybe I will get a buck eye thing or find out exactly.
What a buck eye is. I know it's a very hard tree seed of some kind it is.
Find out Yeah, I once got when I lived in Dayton, Ohio. I once got into a fight with some neighborhood kids who lived up the street, and we were throwing buckeyes at one another, and then I threw their bike into the creek. I just like went from like one to a thousand, like right away, you Hodel, Yeah, Yeah, I was crying. I was weeping the whole time that I did it, So it was not very hulky. More. I don't know. I don't know who the superhero character is
who is weeping? Well, he doesn't have damage, yeah, just very emotionally unstable eight year old. All right, well, Alex, we are thrilled to have you here. We're gonna 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. We're gonna talk economics. We got to caut three storied economists on the show. No, I actually have no idea what what you guys is economist? Econ bona fides are? I don't know shit. I've been
puzzling over this. This story has been on the dock for like three weeks. It's a mess, but I'm just like trying to get my head around this story that I keep seeing where it's like the economy is not behaving the way we expect it to, and but it is behaving the way like I would expect it to based on like what I know about how things are currently working. So I just want to like talk through some of the things that seem to be missing from the mainstream conversation on economics.
Yeah, and and make sure, just like for a bend to understand it, they'll probably want to convert it into like euros or frames.
Right, yes, or something I guess yeah, yeah, So imagine I got three bag gets, all right, okay, and then you come with a clip.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, the French burrito as you called it, the French burrito.
Yes, then we'll get into even more serious stuff. Seven eleven's hot Dog Seltzer. They've just announced there's a hot hot dog Seltzer. And it's not a holiday season unless people on the right have created a fake war on it, and so Easter coming up on Sunday. There's a controversy, a controversy happening because it's happening in the UK. So isn't that how they say it? They like put the
emphasis on a different syllable. But yeah, it's the biggest British candy controversy since Willy Wanka murdered all those kids. So we'll talk about that because they're taking the word Easter off some Cadbury eggs and people are pissed. But before we get to how would you know the egg candy is about Easter without the word? Right, there's so many egg candy, which which egg candy is this?
This is right? All the other news stories in the world need to take a seat because that's the real issue. Right.
Yeah, we're actually going to skip the economic thing and just go get right to the Easter candy because that is what's important. But before we get to that incredibly important story, Alex, we do like to get to know our guests by asking them what is either something from your search history or something that you recently screencapped.
Yeah, so I saw a very good TikTok because it debunked another TikTok. It led me to do a lot of googling of pen and Teller's friendship, whether the magician's pen and teller our friends or not, because.
The do not tell me that's also an illusion. That was the thing that what I saw.
It's a stitch, right, Like they show the start to somebody's video and then something else. Yeah, and so the initial video was somebody claiming that Penn and Teller hate each other and can't stand each other and ever spend time together, and then they debunked it by it's the account is October Dad.
I just want to credit them. But they didn't speak.
They just showed a clip of Pen and Teller talking about how much they care about each other. I mean, it's just Penn talking, but Teller is nodding, you know, and and they It turns out there's basically a thing where in some interviews Penn has said that they were not initially super close and like there wasn't a lot of emotional things going into their decision to be a partnership. And then if you do the full quotes, full context fully,
just see them express it. It's this really fascinating thing about creative partnerships where he talks about how they over forty plus years, have grown into being each other's closest friends and really care about each other. Oh shit, ohn him burn his A.
That's interesting, bro. Yeah, I've heard something like this. I'm glad to hear it debunked. I guess familiarity he creates that friendship, right, But I was under the impression it was a business decision, and I in the beginning, right, And it makes me think of you know, famous comedy duos like Mitchell and Webb, you know, you always you always want to picture, you know, the partnerships being cool
friends who hang out. Were already really close, and then they just said, let's also do this as our job. But I was, I'm so glad this is busted, Alex, because I was under the impression it was solely a business relationship, you know, where like they've been together for forty years and now they're just getting to the point where they vaguely know the names of each other's spouses or something like that.
But right, was Sally always a question mark at the name Jeopardy?
Is that.
Jeffardy? How you say? He did say before already said jeopardy? Said he did say, how you say Jeopardy? Which is what kind of compelled man? And he kept playing the accordion. It was so weird.
You gotta put the practice in, is the thing. Guys. Yeah, you can't just pick it up.
Exactly like they as he talked about he said that, for one thing, when they started working together, Penn was around eighteen years old and Teller was around twenty five years old. So they have aged into that feeling normal because they're both just old now. But like it is really the one who talks.
Penn talks. Yeah, Pen talks.
Teller get it because he's what teller, He's the teller and he got it.
Yeah. Oh that's full neumonic and also probably the whole point and I just missed it.
Yeah, And he said, like when they would first speak, because behind the scenes they both speak, but like he described it as almost like an email relationship verbally, early on it would just be we like they met each other in the scene of doing and they would basically only talk to like go over things. And then they lived together and spent basically every minute together because that worked financially and also they could work together a lot. But then yeah, he went on to describe it's just
Pen talking. But he goes on and he's describing like, yeah, like just over time, the profound amount of respect we have for each other has made it so were each other's closest friends. Like tell her is the first person who saw my children other than me and my wife after they were born. And he contrasted it with something like Lennon and McCartney, where he said, like Lennon and McCartney is a love affair, So like that's explosive and that can burn out, and there's a lot of emotion
going into working together. But we just have had such profound respect for each other the entire time that we didn't need to be emotionally close early on, and we have become each other's closest friend.
Also, you know interesting, it makes you wonder when you work really closely with someone, even if you vibe with them very well, you get to a point where you don't want to also hang out after work, right, Like you see, you see someone every day for eight hours. Don't you want to have a Saturday to yourself? You know?
Yeah? And fans just expect because that's the only way they know you. They expect that that's how you exist off mic or off you know stage as well, or off Beatles. I don't know what the term is for.
That, but wings, it's wings.
I was just going to bring up the Beatles because yeah, I mean, there's this like physics of truth on the Internet, where like whatever, the most counterfactual version of things is going to be like the most interesting and that's the thing that's going to get like spread so like and
I don't maybe it's not just the Internet. I think it's maybe like just how truth and like history works, because like I was, I remember when the Beatles documentary came out, the the one where they like get back just the like being struck by how much you could
tell they actually enjoyed each other's company. There was definitely like a whole history there, but there was an unmistakable thing that had been missing for me, Like I assumed they would be icy toward one another at this point late in the like when they had already like kind of broken up and then gotten back together, and like they there was so much at stake, and then you see them like get into the studio together and like some of them are showing up like four hours late,
and like they're immediately just like hey man, like it's just watching like two old friends hang out, and like that just kind of gets erased from the version that we like tell each other because it's not as interesting to be like, you know, these people who were great like songwriting collaborators. Yeah, they like got along pretty pretty well. They were a good day day Yeah, yeah, exactly good
days of bad day. Yeah, almost like you know your parents, and how uninteresting you think they their relationship is, like imagine that for every relationship and yeah boring see yeah, normal information boo boo. They hated each other, McCartney had Lennon killed. They what show is this? Yeah, yeah, that's right. There's something they don't want you know. Sometimes they don't want you to know it because it's not true.
So we have repaired the reputation of and Teller.
Yeah, there you go. And I just like their work. So it was a treat to like see and for to and get good news, you know. Yeah. God, the Beatles documentary really did make me want to, Like, I feel like I could watch that for every creative partnership, just like I want to see them in a room together and maybe some of them would be like say see and not get along well, but yeah, give me the Penn and Teller documentary of like getting to see them.
Fucking it's crazy like that Penn was like some young phenom because he's always looked approximately like forty eight years old to me, like ever since he's been famous, Like there's just something about him that always appears the same middle aged person that he was, like the Lebron James of like comedy magic. He's like coming out todd fully formed as an eighteen year old. Yeah.
I heard an interview with him once he started like busking as a teenager on streets. He's just been doing this as young as you can do it.
Magic busking. So just like that's not the right word, but I've been to the idea.
No street magic is the best. Yeah, it's true.
Only real art form left.
Yeah, no hyperbole my favorite move by the magicians. Like I I got this like once when I was like kind of pretty drunk at a bar in New York City and I'm just like approached me and my friends, and man, you because you're like, you know, three steps slow at that point, and you are just I was just blown away. I was like, I I want to like marry this guy. This is the craziest thing I've
ever seen. He's really magic, Like I would for a year after I saw that, I swore up and down like I met a person who was actually magical because wow, yeah, just like going into bars and doing up close magic. I feel like it's probably the easiest thing like a magician. I don't know.
Yeah, you have to you have to really have what do we call it now? You have to really have the riz to like say, someone.
You can go ahead and say how you say.
All right, okay, yeah, transparency.
They have to have the real how you say, rezu Wait what.
What thing though? What thing though? Do you recall the specific trick this guy did? It was card tricks, card trick, card tricks.
But it was like the ones. Yeah. It wasn't like is this your card? It was like, you know, the card is in some girl walking by his back pocket and it has my signature on it like that sort of Okay, that's impressive. It's inside an apple that he just like, you know, pulled off of a Yeah, that's crazy stuff.
Unfold this buck eye.
Yeah exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, tell me about a traumatic memory from your childhood. The buck guy. As you say, huh, well open up this buck eye? How did he have a buck eye? And this young man is the person who's bike you threw into the creek? Oh wow? Yeah? What uh? Alex? What is something you think is underrated?
So underrated? I want to shout out cherry Coke zero. Okay, it's a fantastic and I I thought about it for a weird reason because me and my buddy Katie Golden, we made like a weird TV recap podcast recently and we almost did it about a TV show called The Young Pope, which is not a very good show.
I remember years ago.
Yeah, and like ju Law is the Young Pope, And the one thing I always think about with that show is that his character was obsessed with cherry Coke zero. So it's a show where like the Pope is going around the Vatican and before a meeting he'll be like, where's my cherry Coke zero? At one point he just says like cherry coke zero and like a pounding his fist on the tableway, and unfortunately he is correct. It's a fantastic beverage. I want to have it all the time.
I guess, I guess we're celebrating Good Friday by talking about the Pope Cherry Coke zero Friday.
Have a good Friday Friday, the best of Fridays. But it's great. It's a it's a step up from coke zero. If you've only had that.
Oh, what do you think about the You know, coke is always experimenting, right, full disclosure. I am based in Atlanta, Georgia, and so we hear a lot weird coke stuff. We get our finger on the pulse, you know, we we get weird the wild swings. Some times just will show up in your neighborhood, like there was, for instance, recently, there was Coca Cola Dream and I tried it, right, Yeah, And in their defense, they never said whether it was a good dream or not, but that was I was
not the vibe for me, man. And they've got they've they've always got these new flavors coming out. So cherry Coke zero, that's one for you.
Yes, I I'm glad you bring up dream because I was not into that. The spiced coke is okay, it's just called spice. It's not a doing thing or whatever.
And uh.
And then at one point they did like seven fruit flavors of diet coke, and I was mostly not into those. Yeah, they were very Coke zero though as a winner, it's and it's pretty available. You don't have to be I assume you're you have some kind of Atlanta vault that you open up then and just grab it whenever you want.
I'm so plugged in. You know, we got retinal scans. We've got actually the Coca Cola Museum, which is heavy propaganda just to be completely always.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you've been there, there is the culmination of the tour is a Willy Wonka esque room where you can try, at least at the time I went, because all the kids take a field trip there. You can try every single flavor of beverage that the Coca Cola company makes. Yeah, and it's you know, there's some cinematography or a choreography of the soda, I would say, because it shoots across the room in an art what Yeah, and you're like amazing and you.
Try it sounds so sticky, Yeah, shooting through the air.
Shout out to the custodial staff. Yeah, that's rough around like six point thirty PM.
Like that must be they must be like recruiting custodians around the country, just saying like this guy's got talent, Like looking at close caption and CCTV footage of like people wiping up spills, being like, this guy's like a first round draft pick. We got to get him in the Coke Fountain Room.
And they have PTSD from it. You know, they talk about they talk about their scene some ship man, you know, Cherry Coke zero. I can't look at it.
Cherry Coke zero. I've never purchased it outside of a movie theater, but it is my whatever that like universal Freestyle Coke Machine is just as a system. Oh my god. Yeah, I go Coke zero and then I put the cherry in and it's bright red for some reason. And man, I love that there's like a bright red I mean not the whole drink, but there is like a you know, in the in the machine, there's like a portion of
the stream that is bright red. So there's like some manner of like Cherry zero that's coming in that I think makes it different than the the Hot Pop Bottled Cherry Coke Zero's version. The Hot wasn't That wasn't that basically his the character was what if? What if the hope fucked? Like it was.
It was so weird because it went through like you sometimes you watch a show and you become very curious about the creative process in the writer's room, you know, And I thought, maybe these guys just got real deep on cherry coke Zebra, or maybe they had like they were like, here's a checklist, or maybe maybe Jude Law came in and he was like, I will do this with the with the following eccentricities.
Right, yeah, I'm not sure if that's the particular variety of coke that that show was written on, but yeah, right exactly.
It's non negotiable.
Man.
What a blast from the past. Man, But I can't.
It's unhinged.
It is unhinged, it is une it is it is freestyling. That's what they did. It is off the dome. What if there was a pope who was Jude Law? Drop the beat? You know, drop the beat?
Now? Yeah, there there is a fascination with Catholicism in like I think that was made by like a great filmmaker, like a European filmmaker. That was like people were there, yeah, an Italian filmmaker. Everyone was like, you know, this prison does not miss. Like what are they going to make next? HBO was like blank check, what do you want to make? And they're like a show about like what if what if pope was young and kind of hot?
That's the bitch, right, that's what they did.
Yeah, but like Scorsese's making a new series for Fox Nation. We talked about this on yesterday's Trending. It's making a new series for the Fox, like the place where shows that were turned down by everybody else go to, like have a brief afterlife the Fox Nation, right, like the streaming platform. Scorsese's making a show about the Saints for that station.
Like are they hot? Are they hot? Saints?
Probably hotter than you would expect, but unclear, and I just I don't Yeah, the Catholicism when people are like, hey, you know what, it's like Pascal's wager is like, you know, religion can't be all bad, and like what what's the worst that can happen? You know? You just you go to heaven and it's like, well, no, you like waste a lot of good talent and energy on stuff could could have been otherwise. But who knows. Maybe hot Pope is uh is cool and I'm missing out sounds like I am.
It's made by Italian filmmaker and then July is an English actor, right, but he's also playing an American pope Like a lot of pitches like what if the pope was hot and really young? So he's going to be pope for a long long time and American what if these three crises strike?
You know, and he.
Is like cartoonishly new York really yeah, yeah, dude, Hey, am the pope over here?
Exactly that.
And the drink.
I think the drink is maybe supposed to be a joke about Americans. I think he doesn't have coffee or tea or whatever, like he's looking for mourning cherry coke zero. Right, So I think it's like kind of a It's like the joke on Arrested Development where the American themed restaurants piles of doughnuts that no one could ever eat. Like, it's like kind of how dumb we are?
Mourning cherry coke zero is one of is in the coke vault, but it's spelled m O U r n I n G. It's supposed to give you a feeling of foreboding and sadness. Yeah, slogan pour one out and poor went out directly into your mouth. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back, we'll talk overrated, we'll talk economy. Will be right back and we're back, and Alex, we do like to ask our guests, as you may know, what is something you think is over rate?
It overrated?
Yeah, and this has especially been in baseball news for the past week or so. But I think we have overrated the amount of sports gambling advertising that sports can sustain and withhold and support. I think it's just it's just more than it can handle. Because there's been a concern about either Shohe or Tani or his translator or somebody doing humongus gambling on sports, and then every baseball thing you look at has sports gambling advertising on it, so it's sort of a wonky partnership.
It's a little much.
Did you I guess the first question a lot of people listening today will have is, uh, is this an objective? Overrated? Or did you get burned?
I'm in a lot of debt to a lot of bad people.
I it's probably not objective because I get so anxious about gambling anything, Like if I gamble, it is so beyond not fun for me. Like and like the one time I sports gambled in Vegas, I bet on the White Sox to win one baseball game and they won and I won the bet, and I still didn't like have a great time.
I was like, oh, that's horrible. That was a horrible anxious situation. Yeah, I like it too much, so I just like, don't do it, because when I win, I do think that I'm invincible for twenty four hours. I'm just like, oh really, yeah.
I feel like I So I've had to go to Vegas for work in the past, and you know, I don't really have whatever thing it is that makes gambling
scratch an itch, and I'm pretty risk averse. So as soon as i get any sort of small amount of money, I'm immediately thinking, fuck, I got to get out of town before the find right, And I don't I don't understand that mentality, but some part of me, on a primal level gets five dollars at a blackjack table and then thinks, you know, the law or the mob is coming for me.
All right?
Yeah, I agree. As soon as I've won one time, one amount of gambling, I'm like, where is the little desk with the person in a vest I am going to give them this ticket and fly to a different country now with my ill gotten games.
But I yeah, And.
Gambling's fine if you enjoy it and can handle it. And then, like every sports league is so heavily pushing it that. I think it's just making it complicated to prevent players from gambling on their own games, which is their big concern, like that there's not a big scandal of that yet and it feels like it's on the way. Like in soccer, there was a big issue with a player named Ivan Tony who doesn't seem to have bet on his own games, but he's this amazing player for
Brentford in England in the Premier League. And then every story about ivan Tony gambling had a picture of ivan Toni on the field in a shirt with a giant sports betting company sponsorship on the front of it. Yeah, like I feel like he should be allowed to gamble if he wears a gambling t shirt at his job.
By they should be allowed. I think they should be allowed to gamble on themselves, and as long as we know, like how much money they have on themselves, like that would make it more entertaining it.
But also like ruinous. Yeah, I'm sure it'd be terrible
for people. There's a current sports gambling story. I'm not even gonna say which person it is because I don't have confirmation on some of these details, but it is like in the news a little bit past couple of weeks that this person is suspected of gambling on the sports that they play, and like a friend of mine, friend of a friend like knows people, and was like, yeah, I think like he supposedly lost millions of dollars betting on Russian ping pong during the pandemic, and I was, yeah,
because that was the only thing that was like playing during the pandemic. Oh there was that. There was Madden sims like Madden simulations, and so yeah, like just look look up. There's a whole Reddit thread from during the pandemic about get like how to gamble on Russian ping pong, and it's just like you know, degenerated people with like gambling problems being like oh yeah, man, the action's like really good and like this is this is the only thing.
It's the only game in town essentially. Yeah, so yeah, I agree, Like I also, I don't know, it's such a dumb, weird world like professional sports already that like I just like, how making adding more hypocrisy to the world of professional sports, Like, I mean, yeah, sure.
I find I know we talked about this in the previous Daily site guys, but I am kind of turning a corner then, just based on the conversation we're having where you know, yeah, it'll be ruinous, but let the maybe let him play uh bet the bet on themselves, just to see what happens, you know, shake it up. We're already far past the line of ridiculousness. So what's one more?
Yeah, this guy is usually their best free throw shooter. However, he has five million dollars on this game, so and his knees are visibly shaking. Yeah, but part of his hair has fallen off in the fourth quarter, So.
I mean there's this. Uh. I think I predicted this a while back. It was like, eventually, as society evolves, the Olympics are going to change, right, We'll have like cybernetic augmentation. Some some group will say, yeah, you know, let him do all the drugs, just have him sign a waiver.
I mean Peter Tiel is that group. He's I think investing in Olympics where you're allowed to do the performance enhancing drugs.
That's uh, you know, I'm not gonna lie. I am gonna watch it. No, me too.
It's a good idea, like just because it came for Peter TiAl. It doesn't mean it's not going to be super fucking entertaining unfortunately, Like yeah, and if they're able to gamble on it too, like.
Oh wow, yeah, are they gonna let the doctors gamble too other.
Then yeah, then you might run into some problems. They should go all the way and let the guys smoke during the stuff if they're gonna do all that, like everybody's just blazing a sick during the batch, you know. I mean, there's no way that Jokic doesn't like, you know, the best player in the NBA for non NBA fans
is a seven foot tall guy from Eastern Europe. Yes, yeah, And there's just by the looks of him, there's no way that he's not having like a cup of black coffee and a cigarette at halftime every once in a while while like you just he just has that look about him.
Yeah, like the exact diet and habits of an English darts player that he's the best player. Yeah, like that one weird beer mug that they have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
All right, Well, we don't really have time to talk about the economy. This is actually I don't have a story about the economy. Guys, this is just a fake gambit where I'm going to pretend like I'm going to talk about the economy and then it never actually happens. Yeah, I have like four pages of just disorganized notes on the economy that doesn't really make sense. So you're not missing out one one day, we will get to the story, folks. In the meantime, let's talk about seven eleven's hot Dog
Seltzer and Easter the war on Easter. So briefly, seven eleven just announced a new line of flavored sparkling waters, including apple Share, lemon lime, uh huh, and hot Dog Big Bite. Hot Dog sparkling Water. According to the press release of Seltzer, recreates the taste of biting into the hot dog in beverage form, including the ketchup and mustard. We think this is a bit, okay, The company says it's a more info will be released on April one, so it's not even like really a good bit. Yeah yeah.
Is it like a limp biscuit partnership or something?
That's right? Okay, Yeah, that is a real thing. A couple of years ago, a brewery marketed a hard seltzer specifically made with leftover water from fifty two pounds of boiled frankfurters. So the hot dog water is an ingredient that has been used in the past too. I don't know how the Awesome Sauce hard Seltzer bun length did when they released it, but that was the name of that product.
Why is it bun length?
I think because the can is a tall boy and the length of a foot long hot dog bun length.
Okay, okay, so they've thought through the world building here.
Yeah.
I like I like a product name where they know it's a gag, so they just make the name too long as a way of expressing that. What are more hot dog related words?
Fun? Length? Oh yeah, yeah, wattered? Okay, you get it.
I will say I will say that I could legitimately, maybe not an American seven eleven's, but like in Japan where they're everywhere and they're very different, I could see something like this being a thing. I just don't know if it would be temporary. I mean, what if we have to ask ourselves the other part, Jack Alex. What if this starts as a bit but it finds an audience and it actually great. What if it tastes amazing and now we're the jerks about it. I don't think that's gonna happen.
But I've not come down one way or another on this. By the way, I'm just okay think it is a joke based on like some of the copy in the press release. Gone are the days of alternating bites of a hot dog with SIPs of a beverage. Now those on the go can swap the bun for bubbles. Like that's okay, bad, that's bad comedy writing, Like that's like in the Babylon b M.
Yeah, it's a red flag though, right April First, come on.
Yeah, April First, come on. Fuck you guys.
Yeah, it's definitely fake, but I do Ben, you're making me realize that I'm so respectful of snacks from certain other countries, such as Japan. Like if this had been framed to me as it's a new snack from Japan, I would be like, that's probably so good, Like it's they're probably so far ahead, Like there are some countries I trust with a snack, and that's one of them.
Yeah, that's right. All right, Uh, let's take a quick break and we are going to come back and we are going to talk talk about you know, the one story that we can't skip, the war on Easter. There's a war going on outside. No man is safe from to quote mob deep. So we'll take a quick break. We'll be right back. And we're back, And you guys might notice I keep leaving the screen and come back because I'm looking at the nuts that I left out for the crows. Be I just walked over there, Ben.
The crows are crowded around the nuts watching the squirrel eat the fucking nuts. Oh man, the birl is just up there eating the nuts, like making eye contact with all of them.
Oh wow, Yeah, geez, the squirrel is so fat. Yeah, eventually he is going to be the architect of his own destruction.
Yeah, because they're smart, Like they're going to figure something out.
Yeah, they'll know.
They'll just like start spreading rumors in the squirrel community about this squirrel, Like the crows are too smart to be outwitted by a fat squirrel.
But we'll see you bad. I I appreciate so much that we're all going on this journey vicariously with you.
It's a weird journey.
I I have massive respect that you're treating this with the importance. It deserves because I have seen you like leaving a couple of times and I didn't know what was I didn't know what was going on. But uh man, they're gonna, they're gonna recognize you. Power power to the crows.
Yes, I mean mainly I just want them to stop tearing tearing our backyard up, and they have stopped doing that, so I think they at some level recognize that my intentions are in the right place, and I think we're both on the same side. And the war on the squirrel, we're just like, but I'm not gonna like hurt the squirrel, but I am gonna every time it eats the nuts, run over and go ye and then it runs away for like approximately five seconds. All right, Well that's the
war in my backyard. That's happening, But the bigger war happened. It's happening in the UK. Make Harry Kane massive. I do have to just say that every time I mentioned the UK. So the War on Easter spara thought, won't you for British Christians who love candy, because they are currently enduring a war on Easter? So there's got to be some level of panic injected into every holiday season, we've noticed and paying attention to the news. One way they can do that, of course, is war on holiday,
War on Christmas. Once they started getting made fun of for talking about the War on Christmas and people pointed out that that wasn't real thing, they went with, we're actually gonna run out of Christmas trees this year, and canes are there's a terrifying candy cane shortage that like almost like invariably when you look into it is completely
made up. It's like, well, four years ago somebody who does like who works in peppermint extract said that he thought it was a possibility that this year might have a shortage of candy canes. But like they just they're desperate for a controversy around a holiday.
Do you how much of that do you think is taken in good faith by like audience, Because I've always assumed, especially of late, that most of the people propagating those kind of cultural war stories, I've always kind of assumed they were cynically searching for that controversy or manufacturing it
if they couldn't find it. But do you think a lot of people, you know, hear this maybe out of Fox News or something of that ilk and then immediately panic and like, oh fuck, we got to go get the tree now, or we have to go get these candy canes.
Yeah, or probably they just go God fucking Biden, you know, under their breath, and it just like adds to the tension that they carry around in their shoulders, like makes the heart attack that's coming like seven days sooner than it was previously scheduled or something. I don't, I don't know, you know, it's just a general way to like ramp up the kinetic energy that's out there, you know.
Yeah, yeah, Conservatism is just riffing most of the time, you know. And so like it's just on the calendar.
Yeah, they're like flipping through and they're like, oh, right, Arbor day this time. No, that's a little too green maybe, yeah, anything religious? And Jack from in this story I learned a phrase I had never heard before, gesture eggs.
Yes. So here's where I'm going to be both sides on this one. Okay, this isn't made up controversy that like it's one store in Lincolnshire, and as we know Lincolnshire, I mean, we can't be who knows what goes on lincoln Shark, right, yeah, it's it's a single cabaret outlet store that made headlines for selling gesture eggs. Easter eggs rebranded for people who you know clearly hate Jesus with
a fiery passion. I will say gesture eggs sucks that name when that rebranding is fucking terrible, Like it's the it's vague to the point of meaninglessness.
It does.
It almost feels like the people who want this to be a controversy came up with the name.
It was like chat GPT wrote it right, But like gesture eggs, like is like what why would that be?
Like you to kindness eggs or you know, like what you know spring a like any of these things. Gesture eggs is just like such a vague word that makes it seem like you really are trying not to say anything because you're like so afraid of saying anything and like offending anyone. It's just I don't know, unless there's like a second meaning behind it.
It's just is there a field that we're not getting or something like? Because there are so many gestures.
Used to gesture, do those sound the same in my flawless British accent? I don't know.
I think you're secretly British. I'm figuring this out also just to be clear.
Of Europeans of invasion.
This is an American intervention on you, Alex. Yeah, we need you to be more European. So I want to be clear though. When I said linkage through is like the Chinatown of the United Kingdom, I'm referring to the film China. Yeah, I just want to get for that one. But also right.
Forget it, airy Kane, it's Lincolnshire exact, but pleasure You're able to be a little bit racist in France, right, So like I get like.
One point three on a one text there. Sure let's just take shots at the nation of France. Yes, absolutely, So why not just chocolate egg? Why it just candy?
Yeah? Because I think maybe they are geniuses and knew that this was going to happen, you know, Like it feels like it's also a single. Like all they have is like a label on a cooler that is holding these things and it just says gesture eggs. So you know, the people who write the signs at grocery stores are not always like the greatest wordsmith's working in the particular language that you're talking about.
I mean, not everyone. I could go to Harvard, right, But there's there's also I think a fair point we should make without being both sides you. I think there's some important context, you guys, which is traditionally the United Kingdom is terrible at naming food.
Right.
We got barley water, we got you know, spotted dick. That makes no sense.
And then I'm a fan of both of those. But go on, Blea tells you exactly what it is. Spotted dick doesn't tell you what it is, but intriguingly what it is.
Well, like you know, in the pictures that you look at about this gesture egg story, notice that directly to the right of the Gester eggs gesture eggs, there's another product called dairy milk.
Yeah, cob Da milk chocolate, right, but dairy milk.
I don't know, Am I being too hard on him? That's somewhat repetitive, right, Yeah.
It's like calling a chocolate chocolate. Yeah, it's a little bit weird. Yeah. So there there's also this isn't You may notice in these headlines that they're saying that this is Cadbury is the latest to erase Easter. Well, that's because An English supermarket chain, also sparked a backlash for selling hot cross buns with check marks instead of crosses called Pope, Call the Young Pope, Call, get the young Pope on the line. He just starts singing hot cross bonds,
hot craft like he's playing it on a recorder. Is my only experience with hot cross bunds, Like I've never really had them at all, Like they're not really a thing over here unless I've just been closed off. Are you guys familiar? Have you had hot cross buns?
I learned it's a food like one year ago, and not just.
A song on the recorder. Yeah, I tried.
I tried it one time, but never never in the US because I was curious. And you know, it's not like it's not one of those traditional or regional foods that feels oddly offensive or strange. You know, it's not like storm strong or something. It's a baked good. It's pretty decent. It's just like a sweet roll, right yeah. Yeah, And it's a nostalgia thing.
Yeah. And also they were offering these in addition to they were not replacing hot cross buns. They were just creating a separate product with a check mark. In case, for whatever weird reason, again, probably you hate Jesus. You wanted a delicious pastry that doesn't remind you of the brutal, days long torture of Christians Messiah. Okay, for some reason, you're weird and you don't want that.
That's part of the flavor, though, right, Like the suffering is part of the flavor, the same way that the effervescence is part of Coca cola.
That's where the heat comes from. Yeah, that's yes. So this is not the first time though Cabret's gotten into trouble.
They there was a promotion back in twenty seventeen where they sponsored an egg hunt with the National Trust and dropped the word Easter just called it the Great British Egg Hunt in order to include people of all faiths, and then Prime Minister Theresa May said that is tantamount to spitting on the grave of John Cadbury, whoa cut to the Cadbury Company quietly withdrawing their press release for the Great John Cadbury Gravespit scheduled for Saint Crispin's I like the whoops. I like that.
John Cadburry is the name I would make up if you forced me to say, who found Cadbury?
That's cool?
Yeah, right, uh, okay, well that's also I mean this is kind of you know, signifying nothing, right, sound and fury signify nothing. It does as you point out, it feels, it feels severely manufactured. And if that is kind of the open secret that people are increasingly acknowledging, then why
not lean into it. Let's get weirder and more specific, because they're already running out of things to uh hang on the hook of culture war, you know, like how many other holiday things are left on the list that can be part of the next year's culture war Christmas ornaments?
I don't know, Yeah, no, I mean they probably want to call them spirit trees instead of Christmas trees, you know. And that's where I draw the line mad at principle. Yeah.
I love that listing idea too, because Easter is famous. But after Christmas and Easter, there's a real cliff drop off in terms of how familiar people are with Christian various other holidays. The candy like, they're going to have a hard time getting us mad about Pentecost or you know, it's going to be tough.
If I don't know, I don't know. I'm kind of bullish on this now because people if if this is, if these stories are successful due to a lack of information on the audience's part, then not knowing the thing that is being quote unquote attacked, it's not going to stop them from getting fired up, getting that kinetic energy you were talking about, Jack, because they're like this just in the war on the Feast of Saint Michaelmas. Then they'll just be like, fuck Joe Biden, this guy's.
Crazy fuckinvite And I mean to like just thinking from their perspective, Halloween used to be like Christmas Eve for All Saints Day and they totally lost that one. So maybe this is like just them being like seeing what's to come, which, to be fair, all these like So there's this quote from a Christian leader who said, it seems very odd that someone would want to try and separate Easter from eggs. Once you do that, you lose
the meaning of the eggs. What you lose, which I like, eggs have so many meanings, but like none of these are pagan traditions that you just adopted as part of your holiday to make your holiday like slightly more fun, right, Like the.
What are you talking about the Bible has the Book of Eggs, the Gospel of.
Eggs, even knows what eggs means, now if without the Christian context. So our writer Jay mcnabs shout out to him, you know, looked it up and said, apparently Easter eggs originated with Anglo Saxon festivals in the spring to celebrate the pagan goddess Ao Stray, who may be the namesake of Easter. I think we can close the book on that one. It seems like it's pretty probably the person whose name is the same name. It's probably the namesake of Easter. But like they're like, no, no, uh no,
it's you're talking about Jesus. It's Jester.
It's a.
It's a. It came from the Jesus.
Maybe we're mispronouncing gesture eggs. Yes, maybe it's exactly geesture eggs Jesus. They were trying to make it more Jesus. But yeah, back then, eggs were buried and eaten during the festival, which is gross, but believed to be a symbol of fertility and the rebirth of nature after the dead of winter.
So I don't know. Also, if you if you're wondering about hot cross buns. They also started as buns marked with crosses in honor of Aostra, this like goddess of fertility, and there were similar practices among the Druids, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans in honor of Diana, the goddess of the hunt and the moon, and the crosses actually had nothing to do with the crucifixion, but rather represented the four quarters of the moon. Oh I didn't I didn't know
the moon was structured like an NBA basketball game. I didn't know it had four quarters. Yeah.
At half moon, a guy in a gorilla suit dunks of basketball off at trampline the.
Way Jesus would have wanted.
There's so much money riding on this cycle of the moon. Though. If this one doesn't come through, I bet that it wasn't going to be full this time around. Oh man, this really fucked me.
This is brought to you by moonbets dot Com. Please put it put in the code. Oh god, we had me into the coat. Hot cross. Put in the cross, hot cross.
Yeah that's right. But anyways, uh, just all food for thought and annoying things to bring up at Easter as you're celebrating Easter in some very severe Christian tradition or not if you're just doing an Easter egg hunt. Do you guys do anything for Easter? Is that? Ah?
I'm mostly a lapsed Catholic. My mom's Presbyterian, so I was in that church too, but we did a lot for it as kids, and I have a really fond feeling about Easter. And I also knew people in our church who would speak negatively about people they called creasters, which is people who only come on Christmas and Easter and otherwise don't show. But I really like it as a tent pole, and I still find I forget when it's going to happen every year because it moves.
And so yeah, that is. It's been nice. I've been really on.
Top of it this year, and it feels good and nice. I got like one chocolate buddy in the checkout line at the store, and I'll probably watch Arsenal play Manchester City on Sunday. I don't know what else I'm going to do.
I've had a couple peanut butter chocolate eggs and this year's batch is good. I just had to check on them, and it's a good batch of peanut butter.
It's a good year for them.
It's a good year. It's a vintage stock.
I like that. And we're all we're in the candy I think because we have that nostalgia again, right, like you get the chocolate Buddy maybe with the candy eyes. There are some things that are only sold around that time, like the chocolate peanut butter eggs. So I think that's fun. I am not the most clever person to be completely candid. So holidays like Easter have always baffled me because I don't know when they're coming. You know, there's like something
in the wind. You know. I know Easter is coming when I see displays at grocery stores. Yeah, that's that's about. That's that's always like my oh shit moment. And then that's when I know I'm going to go google what day it is, and then I'm going to text religious members of my family so they think I'm still on top of it, you know what I mean.
Yeah, there you go. Hey, guys, like do it at four in the morning. You're still up, but you're just making it seem like you're really observant. Hey just want to be the first one to say, have Easter.
Yeah, try not to take it too far. One time I put go team with an exclamation point, and yeah, that didn't work. I think I should have done a passage from a religious text.
Well, guys, I think we have a good title for the episode, Chocolate War on Easter and the hot dog flavored water. Oh on cow, there we go amazing. Well, Alex Schmidt, what a pleasure having you as always? Where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff.
It's such a treat to be here and me and my wonderful buddy Katie Goulden. We make the podcast secretly incredibly fascinating. They're just coming out March twenty ninth, today tomorrow. On the following day, there's a special like fundraising drive membership drive for supporting that show, and you get extra stuff if you do during that time. So please go to Maximum Fun and check that out if you can. Cause but we love making it and we completely depend on folks backing it to make it happen.
Yeah, go go help them out. It's a it's a great show. They deserve your donation. Thank you, Alex. Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? Yeah?
I saw a really good band recently and the game of the band. Verbally it's Meadows. It's with two m's on the front, som Meadows, but it's it's a two persons.
Yeah, Like they just have some yummy eddos. As I say, it feels very easter and Candy, doesn't it like the bunny is hopping around? Yeah, yeah, anyway, totally.
But they Yeah, it's a wonderful singer and a wonderful multi instrumentalist, in particular the trumpet and also something called the electric valve instrument that's essentially a robotic trumpet. But yeah, they make amazing music. And the singer has been with the band Dirty Projectors. The the instrumentalist has done session work for like Lord and Beyonce and then all these people. So check them out memetos really get amazed. Ben Bowland, thank you so much for hopping in and joining us today.
Where can people find you?
Follow you? And is their working media you've been enjoying?
Uh? Yes, yeah, I am calling myself on Instagram and a burst of creativity at Ben Bowlin b O W L I N crazy. Yeah, i know, I'm real, I'm real, Shyamalan. I'm going to actually take that. Uh, the next time I make some silly music, I'm gonna take a sample of you said you're crazy for this one.
It's gonna monotonously Yeah, here use this one. Crazy for this one?
Ben? Yeah, yeah, Well, just like Maybach music.
Media that I've been really enjoying. You know, as we know, young Pope changed the game, means haven't been the same ever since. But I will say one thing that we were talking about off air that I had just got super into now that trailer for that Seinfeld movie.
I yeah, we talked about it on yesterday's trending episode. It is such a weird movie. It is. It looks like it looks like a combination of like Pleasantville and the Zucker Brothers like Airplane style movie and a Seinfeld bit. Like it's so strange. I don't like. I'm really I don't think it's gonna be good, but I will not be able to stop myself from watching it. Yeah.
Sure, well we got the sunk cost fallacy with Netflix, right, we already have Netflix.
I already fucking mind as well.
Yeah, I mean also three body problem for anybody's sci fi fan, that's actually really impressive to me.
Yeah, did you read the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I read the book. I haven't started the show yet. How are you happy with how the show's kind of delivering so far?
Yeah, And an adaptation, you know, necessarily is going to differ from the source material and they yeah, you know, it's it's tough because it's hard sci fi, so like, yeah, with foundation. You know, Asimov often writes, often writes about ideas, and he sticks characters in there because he realizes you
have to have characters. Yeah, and so they're there as Yeah, but but yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear other thoughts on him, because I was a fan of those books, and those books have actually been out for a.
While, right, yeah, yeah, the first I only read the first two. I couldn't make it through the third one because it's big and uh yeah again yeah, they keep referring. They'll like cut back to a character and be like, and I don't know this fucking guy, I forget what was his name? Is how they introduce a character, Yes, what's his name? The guy who was doing this thing over in this part of the world. Anyways, which of the bodies does he It is about three bodies, it's about a threesome.
It's very blow by blow in depth.
That's why just yea horny. That's what we mean by hard sci fi. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. Some stuff I've been enjoying. The Gentleman is a show. Is one of these streaming shows that it's Yeah, so Guy Ritchie. I haven't enjoyed his films for some time. I haven't really like gone out of my way to watch them, but the ones I saw, I was like, this is not really I don't know
my favorite. And then when I watch a streaming show, I'm usually like this should have been a movie, but for some reason, like this is the best thing, like Guy Ritchie has, like this is like his old fun movies. Again, for it's like it's just I've only watched the first episode. I am just preparing myself for on a streaming corner, which we're gonna be having some point next week, so be on the lookout for that in one of the trending episodes next week. I believe it'll be Tuesday, But yeah,
The Gentleman is a blast. I recommend it. And then I also was enjoying this tweet from ll Gabba Ghoul Jay who tweeted I wish there was no I in this teams meeting, which I thought was a funny thing that I gonna use on one of our iHeart Teams meetings at some point. Ben, what do you think you think.
You're crazy for this one?
John? Hey? There it is all right. Well. You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist, where at the Daily Zeikeeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website, dailyzeikeist dot com where we post our episodes and our footnotes, where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. A super producer Justin Connor, I do like to ask you every once in a while, is there a song you'd
recommend to people? We could link off two in the footnotes?
Uh yeah. This is from a favorite group of the show by the name of Hiatus Coyote. They have a new track that just dropped this week and they're oh yeah, they're going on a summer tour across North America soon, I believe so. I highly suggest seeing them live if you get the chance. The person I went with last time I saw them cry genuine tears of joy, not kidding, and it was fantastic, So yeah, I highly suggested. But
this is a track called make Friends. The vocal performance from Napalm Is is soulful and satisfying to listen to. As always, the baseline is phenomenal and it's you know, just another day. You had another banger from Hiatus Coyote called make Friends and you can find that song in the.
Footnotes footnotes that is I believe Miles's favorite band, So yeah, a new song from them is big news. If you enjoy the song that Miles normally recommends, go check it out. The Daily Zeitkeeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio w ap Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is gonna do it for us this week. We are back on Monday to tell you what was trending
over the weekend. There will be a weekly Zeitgeist clip reel of some of the best moments from this week over the weekend. But yeah, have a great weekend, have a great Easter, and keep the Cross in Easter, keep the te cross shaped in Easter, not check mark shaped okay, and yeah, have a great Easter everybody. Well, we'll see you on Monday. Good Monday. Is that is Monday after Easter A thing.
I think they call it mid Monday mid.
Yeah, this Monday is mid got a candy hangover? All right, have a great weekend. Bye,