Hello the Internet, and welcome to this Monday morning week Trend in edition of week Trend. I prefer that week trend that's iconic. We you know, it is Monday. It is an obscure Garth Brooks SNL episode sketch with Will Ferrell as the Devil. But we I think we can just assume that everybody knows what we're talking about. I am Jack O'Brien, and that is super producer Brian Jefferies. Miles is out on assignments. You know, he's scouring the Old Country for.
The Old Country for the best, the best snacks, and yes, the most magnificent views.
Yeah, and it appears to be going well. He'll be back next week.
Oh oh he returns your calls. Interesting.
Yeah, I'm just I'm tracking him on, you know, in some ways that he's not he's not aware of it.
Actually on him.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but he seems like he's okay. The eagle is safe in the nest, if you know what I'm saying. Anyways, Brian, we're going to talk about some things that happened over the weekend. But first we like to open with some overrated some underrated to let the folks get to know us a little bit better. My overrated is something I've I've mentioned before, I think, but it's the quote. You know, you know what the definition
of insanity is, right brain? You know what the definition of insanity saying.
Ship over and over again and expecting different results.
What the where did it came up with that? Einstein? Einstein did dude? According to everybody who quotes it, apparently on the internet. Yes, that's like. When I googled us to be like all right, so like where did this come from? People were like, uh, I mean, we all think Einstein said it, but we can't actually.
Do think he said. Wow, there are a lot of there are a lot of images with that quote. Yea, his face on it.
Yes, which is perplexing because that is a pretty good description of the scientific method. Yeah, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results or at least like checking to see if they're a different result. Is the scientific method.
In a nutshell? Yeah, So I guess every scientist is fully insane.
Fully insane, or you know other things. That's a pretty good description of is like we're practicing to get good at something, it requires you to do the same thing over and over again.
When I was a musician, I must have been insane, you were, Yeah, truly to practice all those hours.
Yeah, I feel like when it's used, it's usually like a glib way of addressing like we all do. We all do, like you know, people get in patterns of behavior that we can't seem to get out of. But I feel like it's not it's not because we're insane, we're dumb.
Because behavior is really hard to change justly.
Yeah, perhaps the brain is like this incredibly powerful machine that we aren't capable of understanding with our conscious mind. I feel like being a human is like being in one of those little hot air balloon baskets strapped to just like the most incredibly powerful rocket chip, and like we don't know how to operate it necessarily. That's what it's.
Explain why I'm constantly in a state of terror. I don't fuck with hot air ballutes.
Yes, but yeah, it's And I feel like dismissing things that are happening in our brain is like dumb or insane glibly is not a good strategy, Like it's always interesting,
it's not just like we'll keep doing it. And I think, I think probably we're also seeing people come up against this, like in more of a public way because we have the problem of you know, there are certainly problems that keep happening because of you know, just guns being everywhere, or you know, the climate changing and there's nothing that we can do about it. But again, it's not because
we're insane or stupid. It's because we are in a massive system that is more powerful than us, and you know, capitalism has taken a turn to no longer serving humans and we need to get out of that. But it's not it's not our fault and it's not just like guys are upid. It's the definition of insanity.
Yeah, it's such a it's one of those thought killing phrases that that you can wheel out without thought to kill other thoughts that people might be having. And uh yeah, yeah, it's the worst. It's one of the worst.
Yeah, and anything like there's so many like the Einstein brand is so strong with dumb people.
People love ascribing quotes to him, Karl Marx, Uh, what's Abraham Lincoln. He's like in Mark Wain, He's in that club of like just the hottest quotables. Yes, that he never actually.
Got was just dropping bars his whole life. That's mainly what he was focused on was like witticisms. But yeah, just I would if you think you're like, if you're about to quote Einstein, just take a beat, double check, or just like don't do it, because what you're about to say probably originated with like a morning zoo radio DJ or a motivational speaker like that's who comes up with these quotes that everybody likes quoting. What's what's something you think is overrated?
Something I think is overrated. I'm just going to go off the cuff here looking at the news page.
Dolby at most, Jack Dolby at most.
It's completely overrated. It doesn't work.
I don't know.
Well, it's a scam that that the the Dolby cartel has come off to sell you like twenty fucking speakers to put in your living room so you can do surround sound and it it it's supposed to like bounce sound off of the walls and it's supposed to make you feel like you're just surrounded by like whatever you're watching, and it just it doesn't work, and it's very expensive.
I've heard of surround sound. It's like the sounds fine, yeah, the next step in surround sound is basically it's the next step.
In surround sound, and it's really, really it's truly overrated because it it doesn't work. It surround sound works better. I know this is boring, but there are a lot of people out there spending way too much money on their little little speaker setups. You need. You need like ten speakers for Dolby at most, which I think is too many. I don't see what's I don't see what's wrong with two.
Too damn many speakers at I was like, oh, at most, right, it's gotta be it's got to mean something like when.
You look it up, you'll always see like these, It'll always be an image of way too many speakers, little tiny speakers in a room with like ghost lines coming off of it to denote all the sound bouncing around everywhere. And that's just not how physics works. So yeah, I think I think that's overrated. I do have like a soundbar that's supposed to have it, and it it just sounds like a soundbar, you know, it doesn't sound like I'm in Pandora Jack.
Damn it all. I was hoping. Yeah, at most, I'd say that ship is tradash. What uh, what's something you think is underrated?
Something I think is underrated? Well, this weekend I built myself a new computer, a new rig. So I'm gonna say, just doing it yourself, just damn man ordering parts and just taking the time and just it was it was actually I was initially stressed out about the prospect of, you know, building a new computer, but it was actually really fun and it saved me a ship ton of money, and uh, yeah, it's cool.
That seems that like you might as will be Like I built a car from scratch this weekend. For me, that just a good that's great. I will take that underrated and do absolutely nothing with it because I can't.
There's nothing. There's nothing that you do do like you know, you're like, no, I'm not gonna pay somebody to do that. I'll do it myself.
You know, No, I do have that. It's just not building a computer. Okay, so you're broad you're broad.
Plugging smaller things into larger things and then you just you screw everything down.
Yeah okay, I uh pressure washed my back deck and that is one of the great feelings. What was so satisfying to just wash that watch that dirt disappear.
I love watching videos like that on YouTube of like pressure washing or laser cleaning thing where like something is just like super fucked up and then it's just like this methodical like inch by inch they just think everything away. It's so satisfying.
Yeah, my underrated is uh how unnatural the bodily action of jumping jacks is. I had underrated that before this weekend, and then I watched my kids try to do jumping jacks in their taekwondo class, and then I like tried to help them do jumping jacks and it is weird. It's just like, you know, they're trying to like fit three jumps in in between like the leg spread, and they eventually got it.
But yeah, whoever invented jumping jacks is pure evil like all that, Like I just remember doing when when I was a kid doing it. My internal organs don't like being jostled like.
That, I don't know, and it is very jostly.
It takes about six jumping jacks for me to feel totally ill. It's just like I'm like, oh.
Well, yeah, you have loose organs, that's your Your organs wander around your body.
Been around in there. It is.
It is that that's one of those diseases that you see in old books where like old doctors are like, well they had like a wandering I think wandering uterus was one of the ways that they found to explain women trying to think for themselves away. But I do feel like it is a natural assumption. That's like man if if I like move around too much, like all the all the shit inside me is going to like jostle around to get tangled up, right, Well, I mean you.
Can feel it, It's like you can. I don't know, there's all sorts of goop in.
There, and I got a bunch of wet bags inside my cage here in my like central torso section, and like I don't want to jostle them around too much, if that's cool.
I want everything to stay in the right orientation, So no jumping checks for me.
But just general, I feel like it's underrated how much better we get at operating our bodies as we age, Like like our bodies get older and like worse for sure, Like my body's worse, Like it hurts more in the morning than it used to. Like I know how to do stuff like there's like a lot of things that are like learning to ride a bike, that you just like kind of pick up as you get older and spend more time as a physical being on the planet.
Like do you know what I mean? Like what do you like in the bike? Example, Like when did you learn to ride a bike?
I wanted to ride a bike? Oh no, no, no, like when I was like six and then you like never forget it, but like how to use a hammer, how to like but I've started playing tennis again for the first time since I was like nine, and like I've gotten better at playing tennis, like just by not by playing tennis, but just like by being older and like knowing what to do with my body and like having a little bit better like hand eye coordination than I used to.
Now I know what you mean, because yeah, there's there's certain things I have an approach now that I didn't have when I was younger, for basically anything that's like motor function, Like yeah, I definitely understand that now I understand how my body likes to move. Yeah, And yeah, I just played to my strengths because yeah, I am I am very prone to certain types of like injury, like pulling my back or something like that. So I
have to move in a very particular way. Yeah, so I don't injure myself.
When I was a kid, I would just like get out there and just be.
Like you're just like be jumping off of stuff and like yeah, going wild and yeah yeah now I'm like okay, yeah.
Like when you play pick up basketball, there's this thing that like people talk about old man's strength where you like run into an old man and it's like a brick wall and you're like, wait, what the fuck? Like I thought I thought old people like got weaker and frailer with age. It's not that they get like stronger, they just like know how to do stuff with their body. It's like an old man knowing how to move your body.
It's funny you mentioned that, because like when I was a kid, I used to like ditch school or like break into places like abandoned buildings and stuff and do a lot of hopping fences, right mm hmm. Yeah, And you know, you would just throw yourself at the fence and not that long ago, could just be up and over and it's nothing not that long ago. Like this year, I crashed my drone in like this cactus patch. Oh no, a in a literal cactus patch. And I had to
hop a fence to go get it. And I stood there in front of that fence for a good seven minutes, like, how the fuck am I going to do this without injuring myself or or stabbing myself in the junk when I get to the top. Yeah, like all those all those things you don't think about when you're a kid, of like, I'm just gonna go over this fence. So I'm like, no, I'm going to plan this for like two hours before i even try to climb this fence.
Maybe it was just a really uncoordinated little kid, because I would I feel like I'd be better at that now than I was as a kid. I was just like, I don't know, I was uncoordinated. I'd never dove like headfirst into water until I was an adult, So it was just like an uncoordinated, careful little kid.
That was my first time in a pool. I dove in head first, and I did not know that they had deep ends. I had just a mile drowning just mild.
Yeah, all right, well those are not now you guys know us a little bit better. Brian is a tech whiz flies fucking drones all over the place, building his own computers.
Solitary man, just pottering around at home.
Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk news. And we're back. And the mugshot dropped after we recorded our last episode, close, so close. We were talking about the other mugshots of his roof.
There was plenty to talk about. Then they saved the best for last.
They did, so it dropped. I'm sure everybody's seen it. He's scowling at the camera, which you had predicted. I thought he might do like a funny smile, because I feel like that is his strength, is that, like people think he's funny.
It was a toss up, but yeah, it was either going to be smiling or mean mugging. And he he's kind of hitting us with that, you.
Know, a little little bit of me and mugging.
He's sitting us with a little bit of that. Jack Nicholson, the shining looking through the eyebrows kind.
Of yeah, yeah, it's so first voice I hear when seeing this image is actually Miles Gray saying, oh, you're a tough guy. Because he really he really like seems like he is going for I don't know, there's something that embarrassing about it, and I'm trying to like view it not just as like somebody who obviously is critical, but like just he he seems like he is like,
all right, look tough. I don't know. I guess part of it is also just knowing that he spent a ton of time thinking about what he was going to do with this image, and his decision was like, oh my god, it looked like really fucking mean, like tough, you know what I'm saying, Like one of those big generals with the big muscle the arms.
Yeah. I wonder I wonder what the conversation was like in uh, like on his team. Yeah, yeah, just here in the room, because like there is there is a lot of chatter in those places. I don't know if you've ever had your mugshot taken.
Jack, but I think I have.
Actually, Yeah, there's there's like a lot of chatter. I remember. I remember I had a mugshot taken, and uh, we were talking about will Smith movies of all fucking things.
Oh really when they gave you your mugshot, when they were taking talking.
About the decline of of Will Smith movies over over the over the years, I thought was really really weird.
But yeah, funny.
I'm like, what what what was going on in the room?
Probably not discussing Will Smith movies.
He's got the red tie on, of course.
Red tie, navy jacket, white shirt, American flag colors.
What else would it have been?
Right, But there were bets taken. I'm assuming not nobody made a lot of money taking the red tie, since that seems to be his favorite.
I mean, that's just what you wear if you're republic.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. The other voice I hear is, h, what is this a center for ants? Because that is the movie quote that super producer Anajosnier sent to our group chat when the picture dropped, and it feels spot on. He does. He looks like he's being like trying to be intensely like smoldering, but it does come off as a little zoo Landry zoolander ish.
Yeah, because he's he's sort of altered the way that his h he holds his jaw. Usually he's in a bit of a pout mm hmm. But this he's it's just lips are just straight across.
Yeah, squared up. Yeah. I I am like, this is Maggie Haberman, you have one job, get me behind the scenes of how like what happened? Like how he must have practiced the hell out of this post. There are probably no less than one hundred test photos taken before he went in to get the real one taken. He was probably a total diva when it came to preparation for this picture.
He brought his own lighting. Oh, like, he brought like some ring lights and shit.
I'm sure he at least inquired about it. But if anyone can ever get their hands on like the different looks he was practicing in the various photos.
Yeah, and he's like he's he seems less jowlly. Maybe it's just because it's like a sort of top down angle.
Well, this is the other big point that I want to make is he has been losing weight over the past couple of weeks. I think, like some people have speculated, it's o zepic, which is like the thing that rich people are doing where they take a diabetes medication to weight and like it has some really bad side effects. Yeah, I think it's like off the market. But I'm sure he has like an entire like medical school of doctors who are willing to give him whatever the fuck he
wants whenever he wants it. But yeah, he seems like he has deflated like three sizes in this picture.
Yeah, his face definitely looks slimmer. He's got cheek bones bafflingly, it's weird.
Yeah, maybe one on TV twelve. But I'm pretty sure he's been working with Brady. I'm pretty sure this is just ozempic. And like ozempic, the way ozempic works is like I think it like makes you just eat less, which can't be great at a time when you have the stress of a presidential campaign and like fifty three lawsuits. We also the the other news is that date for one of his trials is going to be like the day before Super Tuesday. It's like March fourth, maybe so interesting. Yeah,
that's crazy. If that date holds, it would come. So this is a quote about the date. If that date holds, it would come right in the middle of the Republican presidential nominating calendar and the day before Super Tuesday, a crucial voting day when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs. This is one of his federal indictments,
not the not the Georgia one. Also after the debate, his lead slipped a little bit, but it's it's so massive, Like me, look at the numbers, it's so new Emerson Pool.
That is a wide delta there.
Yeah, he went from having sixty two percent of the field in April twenty twenty three to fifty percent after the debate. And he had fifty six like before the debate. So they're saying it like dropped six percentage points and.
This is the lowest support to date.
Yeah, this is the lowest support. And it's still he still has a majority out of like the actual fuck yeah, out of like eight candidates, he still has the majority of both.
Now does this speak to his charm or does this speak to how lame everybody else is?
Oh, definitely how lame everybody else is, But I think also charmed.
It's just it's he does I look, I hate to admit it, but he does have a little.
Bit of as Oh, for sure, he does.
Have a little bit of ads that speaks to certain people. It's just like, it's just wild to me that you can have eight whole ass other people and they they got nothing to show, they got they're bringing nothing to the table. Yeah, and they're all too shook to like oppose him directly.
Yeah, they're too scared of him. DeSantis is the second in second place at twelve points. Jesus, Like back in January, he was at twenty nine percent and now he's at twelve.
And nobody likes him. No, yeah, he's still in second place. This is so wild.
Yeah, the biggest kind of increase in support among Republican candidates was Governor Nikki Hayley went from two percent to seven percent. So it's just it's really Vivek, who everybody said won the debate, actually went from ten percent to nine percent after the debate. So yeah, I don't know.
I left out the second verse to lose yourself.
That's right. So I don't know's it's crazy time. This is going to continue to be. We are just moving forward with him being indicted him, you know, having court dates and everything that goes along with that, mug shots, and then he's also running for president and he's almost definitely going to win the.
I'm excited excited Jack, because I've man if he had told me, you know, years ago, that this is where we would be, yeah, I wouldn't have believed. I wouldn't have believed myself.
It's very strange.
It's very This country is sick. It's fully uh, it's fully sick. Yeah.
The other thing that I think a lot of people were waiting on was his actual weight being revealed, but he like they just took his word for what his weight was.
I guess honestly like that. I think that is just what happens, because it's like, it's not like when you go to the doctor's office and they have like the little scale and the little like the little ruler that they put on top of your head. See. I tell y'all, like they don't do that in jail.
More of a DMV situation where they just take your word for it.
Yeah, it's like they stand you like I think for height, they just have like the little tape on the wall where it's got the markers for hype and then yeah, they just sort of like they take your word for it. They eyeball you for for for weight.
Well, whoever was doing the eyeballing was being very generous because Trump came in at six three and two hundred and fifteen pounds, which is like what Muhammad Ali weighed in his prime.
Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm not buying that.
Yeah, I don't. I don't think so. I think he definitely drops some weight. I would have probably taken the under like we having seen him lose so much weight in the run up to the mug shot, which I also feel like that has to have been like he wanted to get in there for the mug shot because he thought he looked kind of good. You know. Yeah, it's like, you know, drop them weight, I'm looking, I'm young, I'm pretty, I hit hard.
Plus he's got merch to sell. Jack.
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of Uh, there's a lot of mugshot merch.
You think he's gonna let everybody else make money off of this and he's not gonna make any.
Yeah, so you can. You go to his website. The featured products are the mugshot in color on a white T shirt and the words never surrender written in I don't know what font. That is an exclamation point underneath the picture of him surrendering.
My fucking brain. My brain hurts, Yeah, my brain hurts so much. But never surrender.
Yeah, they do have beer koozie to answer your question. Oh hey, all right, but it will reject it will it will self destruct if you put a bud light in there. They wow, can't have it.
Did they make the font on that make America a Great Again hat?
Like even yeah, the make America great Again? The newest edition is massive, but the whole, the whole, like the.
Hat is bigger too, Like it's like a giant, like an oversized hat.
Yeah, it's a giant novel.
Surrender. Holy shit, you just snder.
That's what they've gone with for their tagline for the for the mugshot is never Surrendered. They've got on T shirts, they've got a signed poster, Never Surrender. Signed poster is amazing. You can get him to autograph his own mugshot. But the the photoshop work on his store is really like because they also have the never Surrender mug, but like they don't do the curve, Like I feel like that's very basic that like the the image kind of curves
around the cup. But it just is a like a photograph of a mug with just a flat picture of the mugshot on it.
Yeah, there's there's no there's none of that distortion that I didn't even notice that. So these are not these are not made yet. No, these are just mock ups. Yeah, yeah, that makes that makes sense.
Yeah, they have the the bumper sticker, which presumably would go on the back of a car with a bunch of Einstein.
That's definitely a photoshop job there.
The bumper sticker is the worst, like like they just took a photo, Like whoever is doing this learned photoshop in like nineteen ninety two and hasn't updated anything. It's truly bad. Anyways, let's say, let's take one more break and we'll come back and check in with some of
the other things that happen this weekend. And we're back, and I guess we just talking about Vivec, who is still in as according to this poll, which polls are full of shit, but you know, still in third behind desantism Trump, but not strongly in third, and in fact, like Mike Pence got a bump in support, but Nikki Haley is also that Haley Pence both around seven percent. All of this is like such minuscule numbers. I don't
think any of it matters. But so Vivec, because he was like kind of the loud voice at the debate, got to go on a bunch of the Sunday shows and just you know, further exposed himself as like a rich kid huckster spouting mega extremist views in order to bolster his own career. Like it seems like a pretty straightforward playbook he's working from. But networks they're, uh, you know, they're susceptible to this shit. They did it with Trump and they're doing it again. Brian, do you know what
the definition of insanity is? Because his networks certainly don't.
Doctor oz Vivid has has doctor oz vibes for me.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's just a brown doctor odz. Yeah, you know, not really.
A doctor, right, yeah, but he's like a scientist because he made hundreds of millions of dollars off of scientists. So basically that's that's how that works. That makes you a scientist too.
Yeah yeah, exploiting scientists makes you a scientist.
Yeah, but so, I don't know. He was on NBC and CNN's Sunday shows, Uh, CNN with Dana Bash and then Chuck Todd. When CNN he suggested that white supremacists are so rare in America that they're basically unicorns. Chuck Todd obviously pointed out that there was literally a white supremacist who murdered went into a grocery store and murdered three people because they were black, targeted them because they were black, did it with a swastika covered assault rifle
in Jacksonville over the weekend. And of course with that particular story, ram Swamy was like, oh, we shouldn't politicize this thing here after politicizing like everything else that came up. He also said that if he were in Mike Pence's position on January sixth, he wouldn't have certified the twenty twenty election. He would have overturned the election, which is pretty crazy. He definitely seems like a dangerous person, you know,
were he to get in power. It feels like he has some fascist tendencies fasci.
Yeah, yeah, he's a bit fascy, and he's h he's also he just seems like a worm, like just this spineless piece of ship who will say anything he needs to.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well let's uh. There was this AI Sports article that people were passing around over the past week that I just I continue to be very impressed by the writing prowess of AI and genuinely worried for the writers out there. You know that they're going to be replaced. You know, after I saw that headline a couple of weeks ago that paired a picture of Vince Vaughan with the headline, it's no big secret why nobody will hire Van Bought anymore, you know, I was like, well,
they're working on the next level. Ships can't find his ask. Yeah, but we have a we have this sports article that you were passing around that it just provides the least possible information in the most words, it really feels like, yeah again, I just keep coming back to like C minus, like C student energy like that. It seems like it's trying to stretch the word count like a C student, you know.
Yeah, I mean just this headline. I like, when I first saw this in the dock, I was, I was like, what the fuck is this word? Salad Westerville North escapes Westerville Central in thin win in Ohio school football action.
Yeah, justin win. You know, people talk about a narrow margin in sports. I never heard someone say thin win in a thin in thin win is new. But like I got I can see how they got there right like they're It's it's always like oh okay, I see I see what you're doing. Also, the game is not particularly close, like a thin wind would suggest that the game is close. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna read it to you. The Westerville North Warriors defeated the Westerville
Central Warhawks. Also Westerville Chill the fuck out. They defeated them twenty one to twelve in an Ohio high school football game on Friday. Westerville North edged Westerville Central twenty one to twelve in a close Encounter of the Athletic Kind at Westerville North High on August eighteenth in Ohio football action. Hey man, they shot their shot. You know, they shot their shot wild, Like I encounter or the athletic kind is so funny.
A human never vetted this. That was insane.
Yeah, so they it's just two attempts at an opening sentence are the first two sentences of this sports article Close Encounter of the Athletic Kind. So it really is. It's like, I understand how people see like start to ascribe personalities to this, because it's really you reading this. You immediately like I don't particularly like find myself drawn to criticizing writing or like being like, but I but
anytime I'm reading AI writing. I do feel like I am a seventh grade English teacher, you know, just like reading a kid, like just stabbing all over the place, doing their best to try and write something that sounds right.
Early together. Yeah.
Westerville North opened with a seven to zero advantage over Westerville Central through the first quarter. The Warhawks trimmed the margin to make it seven to six. At halftime. Westerville North jumped to a twenty one sixth lead heading into the final quarter. The Warriors chalked up this decision in spite of the warhawks spirited fourth quarter performance.
Oh wait, you've done reading that because I fell completely asleep. Holy shit. That that is the longest short article I've ever heard someone reach.
Stretch that word count, stretch that ship.
It is a dispassionate reciting of just the events that happened.
There's no and even like not not really, Yeah, you just have no sense of anything that happened. Like trimmed the margin to make it seven to six. It's like this is a story about numbers that like.
Changed changed, that's all you're doing.
But yeah, I don't know. It does say specifically, you're reading a news brief powered by score Stream, the world leader and fan driven sports results in conversation. Uh so it is an AI tool that they ended up taking the article down and seem to be reconsidering.
That's their way of telling you that this is an AI article is by saying you're reading a news brief power by score Stream.
Yes, the world leader in fan driven sports results in conversation. I think it's pretty clear, Brian.
Uh yeah, I think I'm just stupid because I wouldn't. I mean, I can read between the lines, but like, why can't you just say that we're just we're trying out some bullshit for a while.
Yeah, and hopefully we didn't fire all our beat writers because this is a mess.
But no, they just fired all the good ones who would complain about stuff. Yeah, they kept that one guy who just doesn't give a single solitary fuck about anything.
Yeah, who's just like really excited for all the different ways that AI is going to impact the future of journalism. Yeah, well, speaking of all the exciting ways AI is going to impact things, The AMPTP, the studios, the studio side of the Hollywood Writers Strike, hired a crisis PR team. They are the Washington, DC based crisis PR firm that was responsible for assisting the people during the Pizza Gate. They came through. And yeah, yeah, the Levinson Group previously worked
with Comet Ping Pong post Pizzagate. And this is in addition to the studios to other existing media consultants. So they seem like they're already getting results because not long after that news was reported, the New York Times published a cushy article profiling their lead negotiator, Carol Lombardini. And yeah, the articles just like talks about how she's a got working class roots, she's a baseball fan. Her job is incredibly difficult to like work with so many different companies
that want to crush their worker spirits. She's got a lot of different things to balance, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, And then there's this like anecdote that she hangs out at chain restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory and has been mocked by screenwriters as a result, which I don't I don't know that that's true, but if it is, like writers, lay the FuG off.
Come on, I think you know what I'm changing. I'm changing my my overrated. It's overrated. To make fun of people for going to the cheesecake factory. Yeah, yeah, no one does that anymore.
Yeah, but I think they just like selected a single like social media post and are trying to like make this person into a working class hero despite the fact that her salary is one point two million dollars. So she's don't all right a lot of cheesecake facts.
Hey, she's grape and by jack, she's doing the best she can.
Yeah, but just anecdotally, like I am seeing more people tweet things like, Okay, the people who wrote Rise of Skywalker want more money, like people you know, pointing out bad movies and being like, the people who wrote this are the ones who want more money for what they do. They should get less money because man bad. Yeah, because I didn't like this one movie. So I don't know,
hopefully like it does. It does seem like there is a concerted attempt to try and start getting a pro studio message out there, but it always feels kind of misguided and half asked and like it doesn't fully understand the current climate and how people actually learn about stuff.
With anything that people actually like give a fuck about, right.
But I mean, she only made one point two million dollars and then had a bonus of three hundred and sixty five thousand dollars. So I if you were giving her a bonus like that that was more than thirty percent, you're off. She's just makes a normal amount of.
Money had to do to get a thirty bonus. I wonder how many lives she had to ruin.
Yeah, and then finally we bid a fun farewell to Bob Barker, who passed away at the age of ninety nine this weekend. Mad I know the two tweets that I feel like perfectly summed everything up. Lewis Vertell tweeted, I cannot believe Bob Barker lived as close to one hundred as possible without going over, and then serious black at Ni csu pr tweeted in honor of Bob Barker. And then it's a photoclage of chicken noodle soup, a sleeve of saltines and ginger ale, which, yes, that is it.
Actually sounds amazing right now?
Yeah, yeah, I don't feel good by the way.
Yeah, I'm feeling a little shitty, and I could really go for a chicken noodle soup, zontans and a ginger ale.
Yeah, price is right? Is a higher level. Like, as far as I'm concerned, anytime I've had to watch TV during the day, and it's almost always because I'm sick, Like the Price Is Right is so far superior to anything else that's on. That's just Yeah.
I used to watch Prices Right a lot when I was a kid. I always loved his little skinny microphone. Yeah, and that, in fact stuck with me to adulthood because I own a skinny microphone in his honor. Uh yeah, and uh yeah, yeah, he's he's one of the best to ever do it.
He's uh, is your skinny microphone like orange or like avocado color? I feel like the.
It's just like a similar style. But it's like I had him in mind when I saw I was like, I want that skinny micro I want the baw barker microphone.
People are also like creating a death feud between him and Betty White, who passed also passed away at I think ninety nine, because so he was famously an animal rights activist, Like you might remember that he ended up every episode telling you to spay or new to your pets.
I don't.
Yeah, he was real. It was like a weird thing that he always dropped in at the very end. He also like was really concerned with living conditions of elephants in zoos, and he's actually the reason that there aren't elephants in the zoo in Toronto anymore, and he lobbied really hard to get rid of them in Los Angeles also, But like the there was a there's an elephant in the Toronto Zoo that he personally paid one million dollars to have moved to an elephant sanctuary, which that's pretty wild.
Very nice. Yeah, I'm I'm vehemently sort of against zoos in general. So yeah, that's always nice to hear.
Yeah, this one's so Back in two thousand and nine, he clashed with Betty White over the fate of Billy, an elephant at the La Zoo. Barker wanted him relocated to a sanctuary, but Betty White was a quote staunch ally of zoos.
What the fuck, Betty White? What you mean?
No, that's such a bad position, Betty.
You know they used to put black people in zuits right.
Right, just saying, I'm sure there are a lot of really nice, like animal loving people who work at zoos. I could see how it would but just overall to be like, fuck that. I like zoos and I like being able to go to see the elephants there. But by the way, Billy is still living in the La Zoo. Yeah, man, shout out to poor Billy. And it's still like a
point of contention. When we went to a children's birthday party at the Zoo and there were protesters they're shouting at people when they left, uh for having like looked at Billy and not freed him. Basically feel bad.
Because people freeing an elephant getting just completely fucking trampled trampled. Yeah, yeah, don't don't try and free an elephant yourself. Just just lobby for it, guys. Yeah.
But in terms of any personal animosity between Betty White and Bob Barker, most of the reporting on the feud came from the National Enquirer, So who even knows if any of that sh it's true. But truly ri ip to a real king and that boy is real, right, that boy is definitely real. Yeah, Okay, okay, cool, Yeah, that boy's cool. All right. That's gonna do it for today. Brian, thank you so much for joining filling in for a miles leisure. You aren't on social media, So I won't even ask.
On social media, So don't even.
Ask, So don't even get you started Brian's famous catchphrase, don't even go there. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. That is going to do it for us this Monday morning. We are back tomorrow with a whole ass episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccines, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk to you all tomorrow. Fight