Weekly Zeitgeist 263 (Best of 2/21/23-2/24/23)

our third seat by him of this show's destruction. A brilliant comedian, writer, actor many a successful stand up album, the Blake album Stuffed Boy Live from the Pandemic, some successful voicemail albums Todd Glass to Blake's voicemails from Todd Glass to Blake Wexler always started on Billboard. Please welcome, the hilarious, the Chaotic. He's riding a recumbent bike in short shorts and his plumpers are on full display. It's

Blake Waxler. This is Blake Wexler aka the Birthday Bay aka Born Bjorg aka the Flat birth a Kage against the Machine aka the C Section Star. It's great to be here. I turned yesterday, Oh dadratulations three days ago. Whatever. I'm riding it out. Yeah on the recumbent bike. You a C section baby? Yeah, the C Section Star baby, that's me. Look at that. That'll be trademark by Monday. And Mama promise. Mama said, cut it out right, get this thing, they get it out of my body. The

belly of the beast. Yeah, as it's colloquialt referred to. Yeah, thanks for having me you guys, Hey, thanks for being here. Blake. How are you holding up after the Philadelphia Eagles You probably heard about this did lose in the Super Bowl. It came across my radar and I am journaling and handling this in a very mature way. Just because they lost one game doesn't mean all the nice memories from along the westbolutely are invalidated. Yeah, the real Super Bowl

ring is the friends we made along the way. I agree, and it's it's a ring of friendship and we're all holding hands around one one holding call just because Yeah, it doesn't mean you can't eat the poopoo anyway, Yeah I can't. I couldn't agree more. It's there there. What did horses go away just because we lost the Super Bowl? They're still around, They're still exactly our streets, and someone

has to do something about this. It's true, clean losing the Super Bowl does not make the horse poopoo any less delicious, so I can agree. Yeah. Before we get to any of that ship though, Amy, we like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history? I like that you call the rest of your show shit good real professional stuff. Thanks for tuning in again bullshit? Um.

Let's see. Well, this weekend, I'll be in Oregon. My Portland show is sold out, but there's still some tickets for Salem and if you're crazy, mc Minville a lovely little town you can go to a winery and then see some comedy. Um. Yeah, both about an hour outside Portland, So I got you guys covered. Um. And then a couple of weeks I'll be in Alameda in the East Bay at the Alameda Comedy Club. And then I have

a new clip up on YouTube. I haven't seen it because I don't want to look at the comments, but I hear it's great, so you should watch it. Give it all thumbs up. I did it. I was at the show, so I remember it. But yeah, give it a thumbs up. Maybe leave a nice comment if I don't know. I don't know what's going over there, but yeah,

and my whole specials up on YouTube too. If you want to see more, and you go to Amy Miller Comedy dot com for da if you want to see if you want to see, your search history is just Amy Miller stuff. No, I've gotten so much better. I'm really growing up. I can't. I just can't be bothered with what people are. Although I was on the New York Times TikTok yesterday, I have to encourage people to see this because it's maybe the dumbest piece of media about comedy I've ever seen in my life. Like, it's

just about what water bottles people have on stage. It's like the most that's hard hitting journalism. I don't know what you're talking about. And then I did read some of those comments, because you know, TikTok comments are hilarious a lot of the time, like even if you're getting roasted, you're like, these kids are so fucking funny. But you know there were people that were just like, why aren't

people using reusable water bottles. I'm like, I I just took the bottle that they handed me at the taping, right, I didn't like call ahead to Comedy Central like I'm gonna need a clean canteen on stage. It's just it's the most insane thing. It's literally just about water in comedy, dude, Are they trend chasing? Are they like? Oh, I feel like they just gave one kid like a TikTok assignment

and he was like what about this? Right, It's like he doesn't know anything about stand up, but he's just noticed that we have water bottles sometimes and has a bottled water company ever reached out to you and been like, we would love you to influence for on our behalf because I know kind of makes sense. It seems like an everybods in community falling down on the job. Yeah,

maybe it's happened to other people. I might not be is enough or according to this piece, I don't drink enough water, maybe because they do clip out like the Robin Williams special where he has like seventeen bottles of water on the stage and they're like some comedians move around a lot and they get really thirsty. I'm not exaggerating this piece, by the way, but I don't move at all, So I think one bottle is probably good

for the whole half hour. Like, there you go. I don't know, it's wild, you have to go check it out. I mean, no wonder these teams are so depressed about climate change because all these comedians are not using reusable water bottles. They're just chugging seventeen bottles of water on stage, throwing them away, And look what it's done to our planet. You know, I can't hear for a good time, Amy

not to watch you destroy the planet Earth. Well, what's wild is in the last six months, I've been doing a new bit about plastic bottles, and I'm like, oh, you cut me, You cut me too Earth early with this clip. Let me let's do a follow up in a couple of months when that's when that's been taped. So wild, the New York Times TikTok needs to get up on their ship. I'm disappointed, and they're really trying. All right, what is something you think is overrated? Radical honesty? Like, okay,

I don't know that. I think I think that we can sometimes like put a lot of value on being like honest for the point of being on for the sake of being honest, And like, I don't I'm fine with white lies, and like I would honestly rather have someone be nice to me. I'd rather have you been nice. I don't. I don't like when people have a personality like I just tell it like it is and they're just mean, Yeah, I'm not into it. I think it's overrated. Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of energy to be

around those. Yeah. Yeah, for your little experiment, I have to like just gird myself for like the most uncomfortable thirty minutes of my life, you know, like that exactly, Yeah, it's it's it can be pretty selfish, right, yeah, exactly. It's like you're, yeah, you're you're kind of pushing that on someone else without necessarily their consent or they're asking for it. I love it in small doses, though too. I don't like, I don't think I could pull it off as a as a lifestyle, like a twenty four

hour lifestyle. But having like this kind of came up when we were talking. There's that the Cut article about like new rules of etiquette, and one of them was like, don't tell people who you think they look like. And that's a perfect example. That is great advice for you. However, if you have a look alike about me, I want to know what it is desperately, even though I'm not gonna like it, I'm I like that is an amazing little glimpse into like how people see you when they

first see you. That like you'll never be able to get other than that way, and it's like uncomfortable and I don't want to know it all the time. But I also have no idea like how people perceive me, So like somebody who's practicing radical honesty, it's good to like get get next to them for fifteen minutes. If you're in the mood, you know, what, is there one that sticks out in your mind of like a look like that you got that that made you happy? John

Mayer made me happy. That's a good one, and then Walton Goggins made me unhappy. I got Walton guns right. Sometimes it's a big ego boost and other times it's it's crushing. I'm like, yeah, oh yeah, I don't want to be I changed my whole life once someone told me that I was a thing. It's irreparable damage. And I think it's that thing of like you remember the bad comments so much more than the good ones. It's like one radically honest comparison to somebody you don't want

to look like. And yeah, you're on a whole new life trajectory. Walton Goggins was not is not a bad like looking guy or anything. It was just like the it was a character that this person was like saying, oh my god, you so remind me of them, and like you look exactly like them, and it just wasn't wasn't my favorite. So well, I don't see it if Oh my god, thank you so much. Bring up every episode now, just so people can from like vice principles and I think, just okay, this guy okay, yeah, yeah,

a good name though, amazing name. Yeah, like such a Civil War soldier who died on the battlefield. Just incredible. I was born to die on the battlefield, like a Civil War battle. And this is all getting edited out, but that's good. It's good. It allows me to get to know you better. Mason. Mason wants something you think is underrated, elastic in waste bands and socks, Okay, because like it was I found out recently. It was invented

in like the thirties and forties. And I can't imagine waking up every day and having tie my underwear on and clip on sock garters and there's like nothing better than I like tall socks and like that feeling when you have a sock pulled all the way up is just awesome. And I just feel like I haven't appreciated that enough. Yeah, it's just they invented a thing that

hugs you. Yeah, and we take it for granted. But like you know, it wasn't that long ago in the thirties and forties when underwear literally had button and tie buttons and ties on it. Yeah, it's amazing. It seems these are my regular suspenders, and these are my underwear suspenders and yeah, yeah, everything is just held up by a series of clips. Yeah, that's amazing. The thirties and like before that, Yeah, you see a lot of belts and strange undergarments that look like you were in traction

like clothing. Yeah. Yeah, it also makes probably a little down the road for you, but it makes getting your kids dressed much easier. Getting kids dressed must have been a night like that's why they just all wore like a burlap sack back in the day. What, Perry, what is something that you think is underrated? I'm also going

to go with a clothing item. Okay, So, and I came to appreciate it recently because I just turned fifty a few months ago and I remember back, probably when I was Mason's age, somebody said, never skimp on anything that separates you from the earth. And I've realized recently that shoes and good shoes are way underrated. I want to shoe with it, Like when I take it off at the end of the day, I don't feel like my back and my feet my legs are gonna, you know,

killing me. But I you know, I would maybe generalize and just say anything that separates us from the ground, that's a mattress exactly grounded. Um No, I think it was. It was somebody that had way more money than me, and he was talking about like why he bought a really expensive car, so was justifying that He's like, anything that separates me from the earth, I'm going to spend a lot of money on so that it's it's reliable. But I come to appreciate it with just like shoes,

I just wanted shoes that don't hurt. I just lost a sneaker auction this morning, So I agree with you trying to get trying to get those Jordans threes. The three. The three is the white cement threes that they drive me. I saw that. I saw that and I was like, I Justin superser, Justin, Justin, Justin gets ever gets you every the only person who actually gets like wins the sneaker. Oh, Justin,

I'm gonna Justin what's the address? Man? Yeah, you're just gonna need to wear fourteen pairs of socks because he wears like five size is bigger than any of us. I love it. All Right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. And we're back and yeah, So Malcolm X's daughter, Elyatashabez filed notices stating her intention to sue the FBI, CIA, MYPD for conspiring to assassinate her

father the like. There was a Netflix documentary that pointed to the fact that two of the people who were convicted of the of assassinating her father were not there that day and so that they were eventually like the the Innocence Project and a local DA I believe reopened the case and you know, Muhammed Azi's and Khalil Islam were cleared because there were just so much evidence that they again were not there that day, weren't present or

murder the The keypiece of evidence that seemingly inspired the new suit surface last year, and it is a letter written by a now dead NYPD officer who confessed that he had been compelled by his supervisors at the New York Police Department to coax two members of Malcolm X's security team into committing crimes, meaning they were in jail during the event, allowing law enforcement agencies to murder Malcolm X, which like, does sound like how police forces seem to operate.

Sounds very familiar. Yeah, like falsely accused and imprisoned somebody so that you know, like I again, the details aren't all there about like police officers walked up and like pulled the trigger, but it seemed like they were told this was going to happen. They didn't stop it. They arrested, according to you know, this letter from an NYPD officer who was like, yeah, just wait till I'm dead and

then you can release this. But they arrested parts of a security team that would make it difficult for him to be murdered. And then when it happened this officers threatened to resign, but a supervisors told him that they would charge him with false crimes if he did, which again seems to be there m in this case. So yeah, it's a mess. I just I remember when the article came out about two of the three assassins being cleared

due to all of this evidence. The New York Times article just like really seeming weird to me because like, so it contains the sentence, nor did it uncover a police or government conspiracy to murder him. But then later it says mister Vince's reinvestigation, conducted with the Innocence Project in the officer office of David Chanie, a civil rights lawyer, contended with serious obstacles. Many of those involved in the murder case, including witnesses, investigators, and trial lawyers, as well

as other potential suspects, did long ago. Key documents were lost to time, and physical evidence such as murder weapons were no longer available to be test to, which again, like just that's super convenient for the police to lose all that shit. Yeah, they are the custodians of that evidence, but right like lost to time, Like who will somebody in time lost them? It's just lost to time. We're

gonna go ahead and blame time on this one. Pass well, you know, as what happens in Marvel movies, a portal opens up and just and then the evidence it gets lost in the space time continuum, and you know what happens. And then so on top of all this ship there's this part of the New York Times article that's like

buried down, you know, five six paragraphs. Time prosecutors notes indicate they failed to disclose the presence of undercover officers in the ballroom at the time of the shooting, and police department files revealed that a reporter for the New York Daily News received a call the morning of the shooting indicating Malcolm X would be murdered. So there were

somebody who's like, hey, this is happening. They had undercover officers there in like in the ballroom and managed to like convict to people who weren't even there somehow, and like didn't disclose that they were present for it. Like I don't know, it's a lot about her. Undercover officers m works. But you're an undercover officer, you're in a ballroom, somebody dies, don't you then like out yourself as a police and start investigating the situation right away if you're surprised,

unless you're right, Yeah, it's very suspicious. I'm glad that she's bringing this case and yeah, I don't know. Well, we'll see where it leads. Probably not in the New York Times at least not until there's like irrefutable reporting. But so that's I think, I don't know, hopeful news that people will continue to get to the bottom of this ship. May justice be served? Yeah, in uh well, speaking of served, Starbucks has a secret weapon and it's oil.

Trans was a serve honest, Yeah, justice being served in the assassination of MALGAMEX and then turning it over to Starbucks. Yeah, that's great. It's it was. It was a transition as smooth as olive oil, as olive oil blended into your coffee, which is apparently a thing that Howard Schultz saw some Italian people doing in Italy and was like that, we're

going to do that, and it's my idea. Essentially, Supposedly, the olive oil creates a velvety, smooth, rich texture, with the buttery, round flavors imparted by the olive oil perfectly pairing with the soft chocolate e notes of the coffee. I don't know which coffee they're talking about there, because I've not tasted many soft chocolate e notes and Starbucks coffee rarely soft hard cigarette, but hard burnt asque cigarette.

But maybe like if you have you ever accidentally eaten like just the darkest unsweetened chocolate that like you can't like your mouth just revolts and like just starts spitting it out like that. I can see that maybe a little bit, But I don't think of them as soft chocolate e notes by any stretch. Well maybe either talking about the frappuccino m M, yeah, the moca, they're soft and chocolated when you put just a shitload of chocolate

ice cream, yea chocolate syrup soft. Yes. So Howard Schultz visionary in his third term as the CEO of Starbucks, this is the thing that like these CEOs who like luck into having great success and then you know Eve and people start treating them like human beings again, and then they're like, actually, the person who I picked to succeed me is a maniac, and I'm going to come

in and take that job back over. So he's in his third spell as the CEO, but we need him because, as he said, this is a transformational moment for the company, which will they will bring together an alchemy of nature's finest ingredients I mean, that's poetry, alchemy of nature's finest ingredients. Here's what I will say. And let me preface this by saying that I don't know anything about cooking or making food or anything that you can consume. I'm famously,

very very bad at it. But I am really good at eating food and enjoying one of the best thank you, and enjoying tasty food. I don't see how the flavor of olive oil could. I just feel like it wouldn't compliment the soft chocolate notes of like of a good coffee. And maybe I'm very wrong about this. I'm here for it. I'm gonna be honest. I'm here like I am. I if I see olive oil in like a dessert at a restaurant, I'm always going to choose that dessert, like

I actually love. I had a gelato in Italy that was like lemon olive oil basil, and I still think about it. Oh my god, your bogies are just like spiking. I'm telling you, I'm sorry. This is who I have dessert. Even know this was an option for like for drinks, for for desserts. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think because it's not like salty but it kind of gives you that like savory note that you want. It was like

a little something sweet. And and when that bulletproof coffee trend happened, I love trendy stuff, so I tried that for a while. And like the butter and coffee combo, I kind of dug like a little bit of fat in your coffee is kind of nice. Yeah, milk shouldn't be the only fat that we're consuming our coffee. Yeah, we should be putting ice cream. Also, thank you, Finally someone's at it. Yeah, I actually have done that where

I didn't have any because I'm a big old baby. Also, I think everyone's just learning that I am actually really bad at eating food and I have horrible taste. But I love the like whatever brand like coffee Mate, like liquid non dairy coffee creamers that are just like so sweet and it's like not even real. It's like chemicals made in a lab. But I that's why I have to drink my coffee adding so much of that. But I didn't have any of that one time, And but I did have vanilla ice cream, so I just added

a bunch of vanilla ice cream to my coffee. How was it? And it was brave with me. Thank you. It is here, so many temperatures in one cup. I was yeah, was it good? Ye? It was it good. No, it did not get well because it's not as good as the coffee Mate is just like molecularly structured to the second, like a drop like enters the coffee, it immediately mixes at the perfect rd you know, exactly beautiful. It's both that and climate change, Like we really have

to trust the scientists. Yeah, I don't know. I like I have lost my nerve on coffee mate. I was drinking so much coffee mate for a long time and then I was just like, I have this is probably bad for me. Are so up? Oh my god, I can't stop. Teeth started falling out. Yeah, it's a but but it is. I well, I like my coffee black, which is why I'm like even entered hating the notion of the olive oil thing, because that's about as like sweet as I'll take it. But my dad, Caitlyn used

to mix. He used to scramble eggs. Yeah, my dad can. He used to scramble that coffee meat stuff in with our eggs, which sounds really fucking gross, but it's actually because you know how it tastes good when you get a little bit of maple syrup on your eggs. Yeah, yeah, okay,

it's like, oh my god. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it like turned them into like a cloudy like cotton candy style, like you know, just because there's like so much scientific engineering in that that like you just like heat that and suddenly it turns into the alien spaceship from Nope, it's just like this beautiful like yeah, wow, that's I won't try that, but I admire your dad

Caitlyn's bravery. Yeah, so shout out to my dadit your dad's name is Caitlyn, or if you have multiple Caitlyn's in your life and there's the dead Caitlin and then the other Caitlin's, just based on how you were saying it. But can it be both? Yeah, I mean this is based on an actual Italian trend that Haward Schultz saw and so so like it's probably it probably can be good,

you know. It's just this doesn't seem to be the coffee. No. I think you're right though, Like you're right, the Starbucks are not the right hands for this, Like I would trust it at intelligence. Yet, even though I do think intelligency is very overrated, I would trust olive oil coffee more in their hands. Yea intelligence Ya seems about right for you. Like I just I admire, like the consistency and specificity of your taste. When is coffee being gonna

step up their game and start putting? I don't know, coffee being. No one ever talks about coffee bean, is what I'm saying. Everyone's like, oh, Starbucks, this, Starbucks that. Yeah, it's so true. And I feel like coffee being because I think they peaked in two thousand and six, like every celebrity was always getting coffee being in two thousand and six. Yeah, and then they fell into over That's what happened. God bless Dunkin Donuts. Yeah, Ben Affleck, I'm

a living for that. By the way, I'm so here for all of that partnership. Yeah, it's it's cute, it is. It's I kind of fell off Ben Affleck for a minute until he got back together with Jlo and Duncan. Oh man, he should not fight his roots. Yeah, but they just say with regards to the you know, exchange of ideas between Starbucks and Italy as a nation, like star Starbucks takes their ideas. Italy does not want to take any of Starbucks. They did. They flopped big time

over there, so you can't imagine. Yeah, why would you ever got in Italy? Right, it's truly like you just want to see all of the American tourists in Italy. You go, you go to the Starbucks. But yeah, it's like shocking to see a Starbucks in another country. I feel like, all right, Russell Crowe is the Pope's exorcist, so prepared, it's about time, thank you. So this is the trail dropped I recommend. Yeah, I mean I actually don't like you. You could totally miss this, I will

tell you. The important thing is that he does say if you have a problem with me, take it up

with my boss, the Pope. But there's also so like our writer JM kind of did a dive into this because this is based on a real character, as like all the exorcism movies are like this based on actual events in the spookiest year nineteen eighty seven, and this person is like a real like he created the NBA of exorcists, like and you know they've got like a team yeah, yeah, it's it's like the official League of Let let me see if I can find the name of it. But like it's he's like, you got to

be a certified exorcist, the League of Extraordinary Exorcist. Yes, exactly, but he so. In addition to being like Pope John Paul the seconds number one bottom bitch exorcist, he is also like a like a right wing political commentator or like cultural commentary commentator. The movie portrays him as like a superhero battling demon children, but in real life he has blasted the evils of nightclubs, Harry Potter, and yoga, which he claims yoga. I'll read some direct quotes for

you from this man. Practicing yoga brings evil, as does reading Harry Potter. They may both seem innoculous, but they both deal with magic, and that leads to evil. Yoga is the devil's work. You think you are doing it for stretching your mind and body, but it leads to Hinduism. All these Oriental religions are based on the false belief of reincarnation and then, oh goodness. In Harry Potter, the devil is at work in a cunning and crafty way he is using his extraordinary powers of magic and evil.

And then this is my favorite. My advice to young people would be to watch out for nightclubs because the path is always the same. Alcohol, sex, drugs and satanic sects. Sex and sex, yeah, sex sects, the path. That path is always the same. It's all. I feel shorthanded because I didn't do a nightclub I've done. I've done three of those things and never got invited to the Satanic sect. Seriously, I did all these things. Yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing, I

just say so. His name is Father Gabriel amph Morph, which sounds to me, you know, in like exorcism movies where someone's being possessed and then like the demon or the devil is speaking through the body that they're possessing, and they're like, like, Jessica isn't here anymore. This is a morph Like, Yeah, sounds like his name sounds like only a more. If you would like to leave a message for Jessica though, just just let me know. Yeah, Amrth is definitely like a the name of one of

the like dementors from Harry Potter. Like, I think that's why his feelings were hurt by Harry Potter is it just feels like the most evil name possible exactly. Maybe that's the m Night Chamalan twist at the end though, is that they need an exorcist for the exorcist tess or did you see the trailer, because that seems to be what's at stake. The pope's exorcist gets possessed by the devil. Western civilization falls the type shit. So wow,

that's beautiful. Yeah, I was I was thinking what if he Yeah, he's he's a he's possessed and that's why he's so good at exorcisms because he's like a demon talking to other demons. Yeah, he's like, I need you all to leave the room. It's like a form of exorcism, just like that, like Angel or Blade. Like they're like vampires or part vampires, and that's why they're so good at like their job. They know the m takes one. Actually yeah, hey, cop and criminal are one and the same. Yeah,

it all goes backs are evil, that's right. A cab includes the popes exactly. I also love how like there's just rampant and don't love but like there's rampant pedophilia going on in this organization for decades and they think Harry Potter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean and then also like of course it's like yeah, then there's progressive people that have issues with the Harry Potters. It reminds me of that thing of like, yeah, we all agree the

government's messed up. Which way are you talking about the Yeah, they have to make up satanic sects in order to distract from what they're doing exactly. Yeah, all right, Well, the Pope's Exorcist is coming to a theater near you. We'll probably be seen by way too many going I gonna have to like be anti horror movie podcast now, I like I don't want to, but like I think Jamie one time was on here and was talking about the conjuring movies being based on like just the worst humans. Yes,

they're like really yeah creepy. Yeah, she knows more about it than I do. But yeah, there's it's always bad, but I mean it makes sense. So, like, have you guys met anyone that, like you would think Dabbles and Exorcism were conjuring? Yeah, my best friend, Yeah, I mean Dabbles, we all dabble a little, we're all kind of time exorcists. Yeah, I've dabbled in the satanic sex. I haven't but like to throw yourself into it as the career. Yeah, exactly,

I dabble in satanic sexx. Yeah, it's all in together. You know, it's just a big stew of good times. I'm just saying that if I make that my full time thing, do I stop loving it? You know, it's like it's once it becomes your job. Let's take a quick break, we'll come back. We'll talk about mushrooms, and we're back. And the trailer for Tetris just came out. I had heard that they were making a Tetris movie. I could not fathom what that was going to be.

The wong. If I had to like guess that someone was like pitching a Tetris movie, my guess would be it's set in Russia in nineteen eighty nine, and you know, the obviously the fucking you know, they're dealing with like the fall of communisms about they know the Soviet Union is going to go down, but then from the sky blocks slowly start coming down, and they're like slowly at first, yeah at first, and then they're like, oh shit, momentum, Yeah, we gotta find a perfect spot for them blocks. Yeah,

that's my and that's the cliffhanger. Yeah, they find him. What was your favorite block in the Tetris universe, Because there's flat there's flat Boy, who is just a total fat Well, flat Boy was the most badass one because you always set your ship up for flat Boy exactly if you can just get that flatboy to right in that What a feeling that to me? That was the first time I fucked. Yeah. Yeah, the sexual like undertone this conversation or telling a lot to me about like

why I was so into Flatboy. Yeah, you put that flatboy like right in that crevice and you're yeah, yeah, the whole thing goes all at once. Yeah yeah, yeah, And that's like kind of how I've organized my life since then. It's like just like build up a bunch of shit and then like hope for a big payoff, it all comes together at the last second, Oh no, the flatboy didn't come. Just waiting for that flat piles

and piles of oh no, where's the flat boy? By a whole professional career as well, has been put backing myself into a corner and praying that something a one out of a million chance would happen. Will happen, and so far not so good. Flatboys many a washed up comedian is sitting on a park bench that they live on right now, go ahead, and I just never got a flatboy. She did that flat some day, my flat day, My flat boy will come. So it sounds like it has less in common with that pitch. You just made

I feel like that. That was also kind of what they went with for like Battleship. I think they were like, Okay, so we gotta do battleship. Let's aliens come and you gotta like sync them by guessing with the with our battleships. Yeah, there's that also had yeah swinging a mixed Yeah. Some people liked it, some people. So this is more This is more in common with Argo and the new Air

Jordan movie where it's like International inflex directing it. Well, Ben Affleck is is directing the Air Jordan Invention movie, and they wish Ben affleck was directing this because it does feel like they were like what if Argo where the stakes were game Boy? Yeah, instead of the freeing hostages, the stakes were you get to play Tetris on the game Boy. It's not about the Russian inventor of the game so much as it is about the Dutch video game design miner who bought it and introduced it to

Western audiences. He has to like travel behind the Iron curtain in order to like get so get the rights to the theme to their national anthem, because isn't that their national anthem that's playing in the in the then then N and then N and then and then and uh that then then then I thought that was I thought that was a Russian national anthem. You can see that very easy, highly possible. Yeah. I starts speeding up, which taught us to, you know, be wary. I just

got a gun to the audience fast. You'll never get a flat boy. Yeah yeah, actually the Russian version that there is no flat boys. Yes, yeah, yeah, they're all equally sized. Yeah yeah. But it's the story of like him basically licensing Tetris. It seems to be the sounds fun. Yeah. I like that. I like contract law and it reminds me of this like analysis that Malcolm Gladwell, my king, but the only person who I go to when it comes to intellectual discourse. Yes, recommendation on private jets to

take absolutely yeah. He was on the low lead express play lugs, but he did do he did do a story about like he he likes to read those CEO biographies and he's like when you actually look at how they tell the story, it's like this heroic singular CEO's hero's journey through like the heart of darkness to like everybody tells me can't do it, and it's only his idea and like he you know, triumphs over evil to increased shareholder value or whatever the fuck, and like when

you actually look at what they do, it's just, you know, like a series of very mundane and predatory decisions that they make. They find one thing that they can exploit and then exploit it over and over and over again until they're billionaires. It's just like very wrote and mechanical

and like uninteresting, but they find ways. Like there's a whole section of your local bookstore that is these retcond stories that like turn the narrative of how this person built a unnatural, immoral amount of wealth, like turned it into like a hero's journey. And that's what this sounds like.

Like the guy did have to go back like make friends with the inventor of tetris and you know, get get interrogated by some Soviet diplomats, but in the end they were like, we kind of like this guy, well, we'll let him have the have the rights because that's

how business work. And they're turning it into like this spy thriller where he like steals it, you know, Jesus, I imagine because there's sometimes there's a premise so boring that you're like, well, if they're making it, it's gotta be good, right, you know, right, you know what I mean, because there's not the only thing that's holding it together at this point is the IP of Tetris, which I mean, maybe we live in that world now where that alone

is enough to sell the movie. But I can't imagine that it's not like really good, like at least as a script, Like it's like, oh no, this is a fun thing because we're missing something. We're missing because there's definitely something there. There's no way it can't be that.

It sounds it sounds so boring. Dog. I mean, I would I would say that about like movies where the thing is getting made with no IP attached, But like this, I feel like, probably like there's been rumors of a Tetris movie for a number of years, and like I feel like the assignment came before the movie, before this premise, like they were like, all right, Tetris is a thing

that everybody cared about. That. Like, I've never been so aware that my brain was being rewired as I was, like, I don't know what it did to it, but like when I would play Tetris on the game Boy and then like close my eyes hours later and I would see Tetris. I would see Tetris and I would play Tetris in my head and I'd be like, this can't

be healthy. I certainly have other thoughts, like I hungry. Yeah, like the it's that being on a boat and skiing are the only things that have ever like rewired things so much that like I closed my eyes and I can't undo whatever that did to my brain. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, it's but but but the thing is is they're definitely taking multiple pitches. You know, they're taking a lot of pitches with this, like Tetris ip and so I imagine for them to choose the most boring sounding one that

they're like, oh no, this is this is there's something there. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like they're doing a clean sweep through my child, like Mario is coming out in a like six months then Tetra. It's just like a clean sweep through, like the things that I cared about at age seven to eight. You know, yeah, they're just coming through weird. Al Yankevic just had a movie that was Yeah, that was big for me at that period. What actor is going to

play crash Bandicoot? Do you think that's the question, because is he gonna take that too? Sorry? What are you gonna say, Blake? I don't I don't remember, but I think it was. Oh no, I do so I believe there was like maybe as a someone who wants to come off as intelligent and fails almost unilaterally. But I remember there was one movie I don't remember the name of it, but it sounded so fucking boring and it won all these awards. All every smart person was like,

this is a genius movie. And ever since then, I'm like, I'm not gonna be tricked again. If a movie sounds boring, it must be to what Matt was saying, it must be a brilliant film. So I will not go out on a limb and say this will be bad, because I can't be fooled again. I won't be publicly fooled about this, but it's gonna suck. Well, what's the movie you're referring to? Specifically? You know what would be make great podcasting is if I remember the name of it.

But unfortunately, do you remember, don't even remember what happened, didn't Yeah, you just remember the sensation of being like, that's gonna be boring as shit. Was it the Constant Gardener? Because we've talked about this, we're talking about the constant Gardener. It sounds boring as ship, but it's not at all about constantly gardening. Yeah, it's not about somebody who just is really into gardening. No, it's it's about like, uh, what the fuck was that about? There's like a pharmacooal

and stuff. Yeahay, intrigues happening in Africa? Is it's in Africa somewhere, And there's a song that's like yay yah yeah yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I knew we were gonna end up end up with this story sing this song from right. So I'm gonna keep talking, but I want you to do that under me talking. I think that's gonna like give kind of a fun, like it's a big spiritualist vibe. Oh yeah, yeah, I think the thing that I object to is, sorry, the hero of this story is not like a person.

It is just a lawyer story of capitalism as it happened, Like, I don't know, it's a it's a bummer. Like it makes sense because we are in a country where the mainstream media treats the destruction of a seven to eleven front window as more serious than the like violence done to black bodies. So like it makes sense to me that this is just like where they think our values are. And maybe they're right, but it's just I don't know. Human stories used to be bigger than like a story

of how Tetris got licensed. And yeah, you know, if if somebody told me that this end this ends up being really good, I wouldn't be shocked, I guess. Yeah. I mean here's the thing. Brands, that's all we got now, dog thank you, like thank you, wake up and smell the Folgers coffee specifically or Blue Bottle. Yeah, you know, because the brands there are there are there are Overlords Bottle, Liberal, Blue Bottle. You know, like the brands are they are

our overlords, they are our bosses. They are fires because I drank black Rifle coffee to exactly to let people I know I finished sentences, or I respond to people finishing sentences by saying fuck yeah brother, yeah exactly. I mean, you know, it's a way, it's your lifestyle. It's everything is brands here, so you know you gotta get with it start, you know, brand brand, You gotta get good brand brain. I got brand brain, and I'm cool with

brands now, that's right. Another brand story feels like it's working from the same currency of like what if people do thing to brand? And by the way, we are recording this on Friday, so if important news has happened over the weekend, doesn't matter nothing. Another spy balloon okay, yeah. I also just realized we're off on Monday, so oh man, yeah, sorry if yeah, if we've missed a bunch. But we're talking about this, it's going to be great work anymore.

He wants to work, and that is what we're talking about. Nobody wants to work anymore anymore. Thank you, Blake. There's also the Winnie the Pooh horror movie that we talked about. It was basically Winnie the Pooh's copyright lapsed after one hundred years after the first so they can so anyone. It's up for grabs, it is, but it's only the first book, which only included Piglet and Winnie the Pooh and no Tigger. It's it's Seinfeld without Kramer. So yes, okay,

Tiger was Cramer. That was true. It's airtight. Yeah, no red shirt because that was actually a Disney addition to the branch who is just butt naked. Yeah, I mean it could be. But so basically, a UK filmmaker who until recently worked for an electricity supplier full time while making micro budget horror films on the side, happened upon this idea and realized that the Winnie the Pooh copyrite was gonna lapse. Made this movie. It's called Winnie the Pooh,

Blood and Honey. It is. I'm okay with this. Actually apparently it's very bad. Apparently not good. Well, I mean people are saying it's amateurish, sloppy and quote embarrassingly bad. But this is who who's saying that. Yeah, but it depends which ones because at this point, it like I wouldn't be surprised if if all the like the ones that are like Marvel, the ones who are bought out basically, yeah, are just like Disney told us to say it was bad, right, yeah. Yeah.

The same filmmakers are also working on horror takes on Bambi and Peter Pan. So it feels like this is the opposite side of the coin of like Hero's Journey, where the hero is the acquisition of the rights to distribute Tetris on Game Boy. This is the opposite where it's like the ultimate violence that you can do in our like cultural mindscape is to make Winnie the Pooh a real edge lord sick fuck. Yeah, you know, like

this is the ultimate meaning yeah, Winnie the Ship. Yeah, we're not saying no. I feel like this is a bummer because, like, I think there could have been an interesting horror movie based on the fact that, first of all, each character in the Winnie the Pooh universe definitely represents a different like mental imbalance. Sure sure, Like so there's something interesting there. There's also like Pooh is a glutton, is depressed, seems high you or is suffers from depression.

Piglet definitely suffers from like anxiety, like anxiety, Tigger Tigers a tweaker. Yeah, or you know, he's like just manic. Oh, yeah,

that's true, he's so yeah Cramer. Yeah. But and then there's also like the idea, So I guess the premise of this is that Christopher Robin returns to the hundred Acre Wood like as an adult and like Pooh and Piglet have gone feral and like murdered all the other characters, and like this idea of like children's imaginary imaginary friends and like the imagination of children like that, like being abandoned like that that is examined to great effect in

like Inside Out and Toy Story three or four, like the toys being abandoned but never dying and just like existing perpetually at the bottom of like a landfills stuck in place. Yeah, is like dark and interesting and has been handled well. But this feels like they just like turned it into an exploitation film. It's like a few degrees away from just doing parody porn, which I'm I think is fine. You know, if you're gonna if you

never said anything else, Yeah, yeah, there's nothing wrong. I'm I'm great friends with people who make the best parody porn over at Wood Rocket. They do great. They did the Simpsons born, they did what do they do? Rug rats? Which is a strange choice, but it wasn't they weren't hard to do. Yeah, hard to do, but I thought a wire act, right, But it was a brave choice. So but you know, so like making the you know, lapsed ip, you know, horror film of child things, seems like, okay,

have you considered making a sketch? Right? Try that first? Start with a sketch? See? How too long does this have to be? Yeah? You do get the sense that they were asking that as they set out to make this movie, like, how long does it like for a feature? How long you? How long we talking here? Yeah? Ten minutes? To get a distribution it starts. So I'm going to start with a number, and you tell me if it's higher six, seven, ye, well, surely it can't be nine.

Jesus Christ, kill kill all day. Oh no, all right, that's gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, please like and review the show. If you like the show, uh means the world of Miles. He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. By