Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, so, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
And speaking of musical talents, our two guests today host a wonderful podcast about another musical powerhouse one, Bruce the Boss Springsteen, New Jersey's very own. I know very little about Bruce Springsteen aside from what I get just sort of ambiently from being an American, But after listening to their podcast, I'm starting to understand things a little bit better better, at least from a completely new perspective, which I really enjoy. They are the hosts of the podcast
because the Boss belongs to us. Asking the question, look, is Bruce Springsteen actually one of the greatest queer icons? Then they have a very emphatic answer to that question. Please welcome to the microphone, Please live in to the microphone, Jesse Lawson and Holly Cassio.
Much for.
To have you, oh of course, and we do want to acknowledge Jesse you are currently both of our guests are coming live from the UK right now. But Jesse, you do live near a main road and ambulance station, so if there is some ambience, Yeah.
I'm a radio producer. That is my job, and I have the West House for requiting it.
It sounds like you're just in the middle of the street, right right, We love it.
Yeah, it was like, is that one of those zoom backgrounds where it looks like they're in a house and they may just be sort of sitting like on the high road.
Yeah, I'm sitting outside.
Well, it's great to have you. Uh, Like I said at the top, like I I don't know anything about Ruce Springsteen. A lot of people like you'd like him. Man, he's from New Jersey, from the valley out here, and I'm like, yeah, I respect that, I guess, But tell us a little bit about your podcast because I also love that, you know, as sort of in the description of your show too, you also asked the question why you the host transactivist, abolitionist, DIY punk, drag king, working
class weirdos. What are y'all doing? Idolizing assist straight rich white man.
Well done forgetting that out in one take, because we can never do that in one straight text.
Oh yeah, I'm good. I'm good as a professional dude. Yeah, you can tell.
You can tell.
I think you are actually our target audience because I think we talk a lot about Bruce Sprinksy and we get very very nerdy about it, and we forget that actually other people outside of yeah the myth of Bruce sprinks and a lot of people don't know about him and like who he really is, including us. We're kind of making up as we go along, but we do a lot of very big, deep dives into who we think he is.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I think I would say like that was my experience. I think one of the So I got into Bruce Springsteen when I was in my early twenties, and before that point I hadn't thought that much about him because he is, like, you know, one of his album covers has the American flag, right, everyone says that he's the same as bon Jovi, Like I just like I was like, well,
this isn't for me. And then I had the kind of like classic experience that lots of people we talked on the show had where I just listened to one song and was like it's about gender, and then I became obsessed with him. So yeah, I think like that's something we talk about a lot on the show. It's like, yeah, there's a real Bruce who lives in New Jersey, and there's a Bruce that we've projected all of our thoughts and feelings onto.
And it's really weird because sometimes you think, like I'm getting all this queer stuff from Bruce, what on earth are other people getting? Like you look around were like I love America, Ali Bruce Brigstey and it's like, what version of briefs are you listening to?
Yeah? Well, I think most Americans things go over our heads anyway. And people were like, huh so the song la so I had some depth to the lyrics that I wasn't picking up on. I thought it was a really bad guy working in a steel town.
Yeah, I think you're really under estimating how stupid we are as the country. We saw American flag and said, God love America, and then we were like, yeah, America is good, he loves it.
The lyric sheets Yeah, but.
That did like, yeah, that literally happened, isn't it. Because Trump passed Bruce Springsteen to play his inauguration, Yeah, which is about like workers rights and unionization.
Right, We've only sent worse too, because like now you have like every other day, uh, Tom Morello will tweet something and they'll be like ten conservative reply guys like oh I missed when rage wasn't woke, And it's like, how completely inept a media criticism do you have to be to think they were like your ears work?
Right? Have you just heard down rowdale a brownskin man says their grandparents buy one. It's so great? Yeah yeah, well yeah no. The other thing too, is like just it was fun hearing you both like discover Suddenly it's like, wait, am I the only Boss fan? You're like, no, this is like this is truly like a shared experience, and like I'm I'm guessing. Like anything, it's always fun to kind of begin to find your community sort of like
in this niche way too. It must be just only like sort of furthers your love for the Boss.
Oh yeah, we we are legion. I think that's what we discovered that the podcast is there are so many of us out there, and I think secretly we've done this just to make more friends because everyone we talk to there's just so many queer fans out there that hear his lyrics or see him and don't know whether they actually want to be him or whether they want to make out with him.
They're not quite sure.
There's so many of us, it's incredible.
To be clear.
The reason anyone starts a podcast is to make friends. That's just letting you know.
Yeah, we are best friends right now.
Oh yeah, absolutely, Like I'm coming to I'm going to ask to crash at your places when I'm in the UK next time. This is how friends to me from the podcast about fifteen months ago. If you remember, I hear and I have Nando's, I'm willing to share, you know, we'll get the meal deal at Tesco whatever whatever. You know.
On the noisy, busy street that I live on, there is Nandos, so.
Oh perfect, Well call me, you know, Perry, mister Perry Perry. The thing. I also got to add, what's like in your opinion? What's like Spruceting's Spruce Spruce Stings? Yeah? What Springsteen's like most based song that you like? Man, people need to fucking actually listen to this track, like to really just to kind of blow up in your mind about who Bruce Springsteen is.
Great question?
So many I mean, the born in the USA is like the really obvious one that everyone's kind of aware of, the.
One that's about loving the USA right absolutely, yeah unions, Yeah.
Just sucking that flag. But like he, I think the song we talked about a lot on the show is Dancing in the Dark, which sounds like it's just pop banger, Like it's just a hop pit everyone knows, and it's just a song about bleak depression and isolation and darkness and queerness if you want to hear it. But it's just such an unbelievably sad, deep song that goes on miss because it's just such a pop banger.
I always thought there was a song about how to start a fire. It's like, I can't start a fire with Park. Is that what you're doing? Yeah?
Yeah and so yeah, So I figured it was just like teach America how to make more fires.
We have that fire in your heart. They're called gender reveals, and we do them in dry areas to start wildfires.
It's I saw one of them in real life the other day, which I thought it was just an American thing. I go swimming with a bunch of all of us are trans who go swimming together, and we were walking down the beach and there was a legitimate gender reveal party, and and when they revealed they were like, it's a boy, and we were like for nowa.
Yeah, keep telling them that what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are, what you're into.
Let's go take a look. Okay, Coming Up Roses lyrics so Elliott Smith again. Wow, and then effective Internet on early on GDP in early nineties.
Sorry, that tells you everything. I'm sorry. The effect on GDP of the early Internet.
Yeah, the effect of Internet on GDP in early nineties. Okay, someone posted in the Internet in the early days. It doesn't Actually, it also didn't affect anything, and it absolutely did. Like this, we'll get onto the Goldman Sacks report, but like, yeah, they like none of this compares to the early Internet.
Yeah, I'm just sorry. I know the song Coming Up Rose, But as I look at the lyrics of Coming Up Roses Byley Smith, I'm a junk yard full of false starts, and I don't need your permission to bury my love under this bare light bulb. The moon is a sickle cell. It'll kill you in time. Your old white brother will ride in your blood like spun glass and soure eyes. This is so uh good.
White Brother thats Elliot Smith. He was a big rap fan.
Yeah yeah he was.
He was doing him and he had him a l cool J at the time. We're trading distracts.
So that, oh my god, White Kendrick, that would could you imagine? Yeah, it doesn't even make sense, Like, I don't know, I'm sure people would take that to like in a way. Yes, I agree, Andrew. What's something you think is underrated?
Underrated? Gross recipes that are way too much work?
Okay, So I did.
I had been saving. So so let's see about like a fucking year ago. We got my friend for her like as a kind of like a wedding bachelorette gift, a harmon barraco from Spain, which I don't remember the exact bill, but it was closer to three figure or closer to four figures.
Than three My god, it was.
It was a very expensive hawk And because I'm like, I guess, because I just like like, I kind of was like, I guess I'm cheap. Ultimately, because as we were carving up this harmone, you know, there's all the fat on the rind, and I was just like a maniac like saving all these pieces of harmone rhynde. Yeah, because I was like, this shit was like I don't even know, like probably like forty dollars a pound. This fat is like one of the most expensive substances I've
ever had in my life. So I saved all of it, and that it's been in my freezer for way too long, I guess, you know, fat connoisseurs, let me know how I fucked up. But I was having a day where I like really really did not want to do anymore writing, and you guys hadn't called me to get on the podcast, so instead and.
I had to do something.
Yeah, what I what I did was over approximately like six hours, rendered out, rendered out like eight hundred milli liters of hormone fat shit, which is crazy. I mean, if anyone's had hormone, it's like very very like funky, like a little bit like like aged kind of and it's it's hormone. Pigs are like raised on acorns only, so it has a kind of like nutty flavor. Anyway, so I have like way too much fat. So then what I did was I got I don't know fucking six liders of costco bourbon and I made.
Oh, fat washed it.
I fat washed so much Costco.
You created a ebertical Harmone fat washed bourbon Costco burb. Yeah, that's fine, don't give a shit.
I mean, well, it's the cheapest and the most expensive.
Washed with one thousand dollars fat that you buy fat. Okay, so you really are having a party.
It took me forever. Yeah, I mean, come come through. I did make burnt pineapple Manhattan's with the Harmone fat washerst Oh shit, that was great.
All right, So everybody, we'll send out Andrews address. We're all gonna show up. He's gonna feed wash. Let's stop this podcast right now.
You know what, I know, I wish like I wish, and I'm saying this as somebody who is a podcaster, has hosted, has hosted on this very network. I wish we had the balls to just be like you know what podcasts over and end the episode.
Sorry, y'all, life is just more important sometimes than these microphones.
And then it'll be like, tweet out a picture of us drinking, and.
Tweet up and teet out a picture of us like this is what we stopped the podcast for.
And nobody would be mad or you leave.
The mics rolling the whole time. We all leave with the MIC's rolling. We meet somewhere, and then we all come back and then just talk about what happened. And it's a seven hour episode. I love y'all. Yeah, sure that'll be great for ads. Overrated, Chris, what's some any think is overrated? Christopher? I feel like this is.
I know this is a controversial one because people come in with uh, you know, all sorts of overrated takes that are that are very uh pop culture, but mine is a general one. I think coffee is overrated. Coffee as a whole thing. People are lining up and waiting for coffee at coffee shops. They're they're making content about a cup of bean water. I don't understand it. Coffee is is exactly what it should be, but it has it has risen up to the level of overrated.
I feel like coffee is overrated. Are you? I'm guessing, just from your personality type, you may not need the aid of caffeine to one.
Hundred percent correct, And that is that's the gentlest way of saying, sir, you need to calm down.
No, not even because I'm the same way like I'm caffeine insensitive, and people like, would you drink a bunch of coffee? I'm like, dude, I don't even fuck this shit, don't even bang unless I drink like like the most pure cold brew. Then I start getting up a little bit. Or Vietnamese coffee.
Yeah, yeah, I'm the opposite where I like the taste, but when I drink it, my like hands start shaking because it's.
Like, we do not need this. Oh shit, yeah we're redlining. Yeah that's interesting.
I love so I love coffee, but to your point, I hate the culture around it, if that makes sense, where it's more of an addiction and a treat for me. And also I guess a boost more than like I don't need to have a way these beans roasted or like if it tastes good, it tastes good. Does that make sense, Like I don't have a friend.
Of mine started weighing the water, you know, because like to make like a perfect pour over, it's like a certain amount of grams of water and all this and and I get it. Yo, if that's for you, I'm glad you have the energy, because I have the energy to do all kinds of weird shit. You know, like with weed and stuff. They'd be like, why are you doing because you've got to get the texture right of the blunt or else is not fucking good. Let me
do my thing. But again, each people, everyone has their own thing.
Yeah, yeah, just a simple cup is fine it in general by the Sheryl Crow. You know, if it makes you happy, be that bad. But I'm like, this is I think we've gone a little far on this one. I think we've gone a little far. Is waiting that line making you happy? Like I fell into this where my wife got me an espresso machine, I think for Christmas, But.
You also have a wife I do, and we'll be.
Listen to this podcast wherever you find your podcast fail iHeartMedia and on all your Spotify podcasts apps.
I just tried to high five Chris from across the country and know you're like, I I got this this espresso machine, and I liked the espresso, but then I started reading going into the espresso reddits and then convincing myself that I wasn't good enough for the way I was making express So like.
I just losself Express team whatever you want to call that ship, And wait, what do you mean? How did you get bummed out from like to walk me through what were they what was being said that You're like, oh, I'm not good enough for this.
Because they were all like, oh, I measure the bean like to what we were just talking about, and measure the water the beans. I do it like like the the grounds.
Isn't it like that? Atmospheres too? Like the pressure is also a huge thing with espresso. That's a big thing. And I'm like, oh, no, mine, I'm never.
Gonna fit into this community and I need to buy all this ship and uh and then I'm like no, I like it. Like to Chris's point, you don't have to live the whole life. You can just have something you enjoy it privately.
You're like, that is babe, which espresso machine do we have? It's a curing. It's a curing. Okay, okay, so none of this stuff applies. Here's what's incredible about about humans, do it. We're like so desperate to fit in that you're even like I can't fit into the online espresso community.
Yeah right, yeah, something I did it no existed until thirty seconds ago.
Just punting the espresso machine to the curb and shit, I need to make more money.
It's like, yeah, I do think that if you spend more than one hour on an online as reresto community, there should be a pop up this as you need to make more money, get back to work.
Yeah, they're like, uh ah, your income is not high enough for this to actually make sense to you. Uh ah, because like you see, there was someone I went to some like there's some agency and like one of these talent agencies and like people talk about like oh man.
Like they got like one of those insane espresso machines from fucking Italy.
And like you go and it really is like it's like the size of like a baby Grand piano and like like there's like painted like a fucking Ferrari engine and you're like how much. Like it's like it's thirty thousand dollars something, Bro, Just give me a fucking vitamin water and I'll keep this shit oving. Yeah please, it's
all status. You're right, Yeah, well, I mean it's not that I mean like first, because obviously Italians take their shit seriously, but it's just like some things are so outside of my grasp or my experience or my interests that like when I look at it, I'm like God, cool man like I honestly, it's wasted on me because I wouldn't fucking know it came out of like a thirty thousand dollars or however many tens of thousand dollar machine.
Well, there's also like someone there who's the unpaid summer intern, who's like, all that I've actually learned on this job is how to use the thirty thousand dollars express. Even if you actually had just not bought this, you could have paid me for my labor this summer.
That would have been really nice, Thank you so much. At least, like I could have done Starbucks runs and got points in my app for it, but I could have netted out for something at the end. Anyway, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back and we'll get into the news. And we're back, and there you may hear the trash guy right now. Matt was saying, yeah, there's any trash banging again. We'd like to have offer full transparency when it comes to the sounds that you
may be hearing as we have the show playing. But anyway, the first story I wanted to get to is pretty big. It's it's from the quite esteemed journal the landset. They just published a study, as I said at the top of the show, called counting the Dead in Gaza Difficult but Essential, which estimates that the quote true death toll could reach more than one hundred and eighty six thousand people.
That is obviously exponentially more than the thirty eight thousand that we hear being quoted most of the time, because of course that number doesn't take into account the quote thousands of dead buried under rubble and indirect deaths due to destruction of health facilities, food distribution systems and other public infrastructure. That figure is actually a conservative estimate, as the Lancet said, it was calculated using four indirect deaths
for each direct death. But as they said in this journal piece and other other conflicts, indirect deaths range from three to fifteen times the number of direct deaths. So this is the again, the conservative number, and that would amount to almost eight percent of the total population in Gaza. Right now as it stands, the CIA director Bill Burns
is headed to Doha to continue cease fire talks. This feels like a headline I've read every other week when they're like they're the people are trying to appease everyone who's absolutely outraged by the situation, to put it lightly, And on Sunday, Hamas said it was waiting to hear from Israel on their latest proposal. So I'm not sure where this lands. But again, one hundred and eighty six thousand is what they are saying is a more realistic
death toll given all of the infrastructure damage. And again, like the way even the media in the United States is like, oh wow, buildings are toppled in Gaza, and it's like and those are and people are inside of people inside of very important information.
And it makes total sense. I mean, you know, like this this count that we've been getting, which is coming from the Gaza health ministry, is just based on bodies that are identifiable and accounted for that have been directly killed. People have been killed by Israeli bombing and gunfire, and it makes total sense that of course the indirect deaths here is going to be where a big mass of
the body count is eventually going to be reported. In fact, the United Nations just now today released a press release that says UN experts declare famine has spread throughout the Gaza strip. This is according to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. And so it's like, yeah, like this, this number that keeps getting trodden out, feels like it hasn't changed. For a lot of people were like, haven't we been saying like thirty five ish thousands since like January?
Right?
And yet every day we see more and more videos of this destruction and we're stuck on this number, and it just you know, for anyone who's been paying attention, you just sit there knowing how much worse it acts.
Yeah. Yeah, and it's people willing to engage with the news and not sort of look away like I think most people tend to do because it's horrifying. But again, this is these are sort of like the stakes I think that people have to understand when you look at like how a government works and what you wanted to do or not do. These are the kinds of things that factor into it. And I know, like again, like you look at the polling for the support just in
America for actually having some kind of meaningful ceasefire. It's overwhelming. Yeah. And yet again, because we have a military industrial complex that needs constant feeding of funds, this is what we get, and this is like you know, and I think a lot of there's so many. It's not just even in
like armed conflict. I remember even with Hurricane Maria right in Puerto Rico, there there was this amount of deaths that the sort of US government was sort of like and only like if you like, maybe a couple of people died, but when you actually really look at the entirety of it, the lack of power and access to medical care and like clean water and things, and what that actually did for other people, it was much higher.
And I think people really need to take this into consideration, or at least I don't think anyone listening to this show is like I'm on the fence about what's happening in Caset, But you know this, And I.
Think what you said about the military industrial complex is really important as well, because it's like, I don't think it's a tool meaningful for the head of the CIA to go and quote unquote cool for a seaspire when America is selling that many arms to Israel? Right, do you see what I mean?
Like that it's your money faith factor in that if you're like, well, I profit from this Contyeah.
And he would be clear in saying, oh, I am not calling for a seaspire. I'm trying to broker a negotiation in which we eventually get the whole permanent seaspire taken off the table, and which is kind of where it's at right now. Yeah, that is where it's at. The latest proposal, the Hamas has actually agreed to take out the first demand of a permanent sea spire in
favor of all the other demands. And it's just like, you know, we just keep going around and circles until somebody with power in the United States admit, could that be Yeah, that Israel is acting in bad faith at all times?
Yeah? Really, well that leads us to our predicament here with the presidential race. Just just what polls are meaningless, but they're they're fun to just talk about because obviously they they'd never actually end up the way you hear about it. Oh, but it's like fantasy football. Let's have a good time. You know, it's a Snapshotow what a couple maybe forty five people are thinking that they pulled
and then extrapolated that to the entire populace. But a new poll showed that Biden is trailing Trump, but in the same amount. It's forty two to forty three percent, but because of the speculation around Biden staying in or dropping out, their survey also looked into how other Democratic candidates would stack up in the election, including Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor Gretchen Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who both came out
behind Trump. But you know who ran ahead of Trump forty two percent to forty one percent was Kamala Harris. And guess what when you pair Kamala Harris with Hillary Clinton, it put Democrats quote in the strongest position beating Trump forty three percent to forty percent. I this feels like.
Such at least fun Yeah, we're gonna lose.
Let it be funny, That's what I say. Come on, oh man, well I mean again.
Also, this feels like the absolute kind of thing where like the Polster class is.
Like, man, just get something out there that really shows like anything. But this could work because we were cheerleading it the whole time. But now suddenly we're feeling the heat because we were the ones.
That were keeping this guy here.
Oh oh, I honestly don't know how you're cupping because when we had our election, they have like six weeks build up to it. But you guys have like a whole year of this, don't you.
Have two years? Yeah, so much, because everything is about again generating as much money as possible. If you're allowed to campaign so far out, that means everybody from the campaign, like strategicy, you know, industry, they start getting their checks, the polsters start getting their checks. That's like, that's what it's all about. And yeah, I mean, like I wish we had like more again, like we've also deemed that corporations are people that have a legitimate voice in our election,
so you know, to do with that what you will. Yeah, but like you know, other countries have like, you know, harder rules, like everyone has the same budget go and you have the same amount of time go. But again, because we are that's on amritocracy, built on you know, the corporate kleptocracy.
It's yeah, it's point difficult. Unfortunately, how do you guys do it? You guys have one of them parliaments?
Is that right? I used to do drugs out of those yeah yeah yeah, cigarette never mind, yeah yeah.
Yeah, it's not like the cocaine cigarette.
No, But yeah, I mean, how how what is like sort of the your election season, Like what is yeah? How like how quickly does it sort of explode and then fade away?
It's very very quick turn.
We're slowly getting boiled over here.
It's like six weeks they announce the election, You've got six weeks to prepare. But obviously, the way things have been going to everyone's knew that an election was coming up anyway, So I thinks have been moving around and it's just NonStop debates, waterwell polls, news headlines. But six weeks of that feels more bearable than a whole year, two year cycle of that that's just non stop.
Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean, we have a huge chunk of our economy is election money. So you know, true, you have to keep into account that if you shorten elections, you know what are Pundit's going to do for the rest of the four years.
You know what are they going to talk about sports policy? Now?
Well, if Biden doesn't win, then you can always start a really blanned podcast with Bruce Springsteen when he comes out of office.
Yeah, oba together, Yeah right, Oh gosh, that was a wild one, wasn't it.
What did you I like to think that doesn't exist? I wiped it for my brain.
What did you make of that? As Boss fans, I have.
Not listened to it.
Can you even bring yourself to listen to well?
We had to listen to it for research purposes podcast. I was looking for a quote and I had to say through ten minutes of it and it's the most insipid liberal nonsense.
It's just nothing.
It's just no one's saying anything on that podcast. No one is saying anything.
Right, right, right? I love Yeah, that's the and that's the thing about that. Uh huh.
And I want to I want to listen to this and just tune out. I want to I want to listen to it and stare at a blank wall.
For a while.
I mean, yeah, yeah, sleep gently.
This is like, I think this is what's so wild too, because I hear from older people too. They're like, I mean, you guys gotta fit, you know, you gotta stay, you gotta get in line, you know, and and support like this candidate. And there's there's a huge dimension that is always missing from the discourse around how younger people look
at a presidential candidate. These days, we have had like back to back to back economic like suplexus that broke our fucking souls, and when we look at only increasing inequality, we're becoming so much more aware of the prison industrial complex, over policing, the mismanagement of funds and where they go and who it supports. That everyone is now being like, the status quo is fucking violence. Like people don't understand that.
That's like, that's my default position. The status quo is violence. And I know that for a you know, a very fortunate few, life is very peaceful and you have no existential threats to your personhood or anything like that. But for many other people that is not the case, and like to not acknowledge that sort of like anger, frustration, fear that exists and just be like, well, you know, we just got just just to figure it out. Don't worry about all these other things you guys are crowing about.
Just get behind the candidate. It's such a fucking slap in the face. And I wish there's a way that, like, I mean, you know, the at the very again, the bare minimum, right could be the Biden campaign being like, look, this isn't a great fucking deal here, and we understand that a lot of shit can be better. We can you know, maybe we can try to do some stuff, but trying like it's nothing like that. It's just being beat over the head with like, well then you want fascism, No,
we fucking don't. That's why so many people in their communities do what they have to do to fight that off.
Kind of seems like you guys want fascism, being that you are willing to just lose an election to Trump because all of you are too afraid to put your own careers on the line well and back a different candidate.
You know, it sounds very so much to what we just had in the UK as well. I think everyone was. I think the last six weeks have just been feeling so guilty that we don't vote Labor then my voting in fascism. But right that it's like saying that people say, isn't It's like you're voting the lesser of two evils, but forgetting you're still voting for evil at the end of the day. Like it's not you're not voting with herp in your heart, you're not voting with an actual choice.
You're voting because it's slightly less fascist than the big fascist. But when labor on actually offering an alternative or opposition then that just allows fascism to grow even more. So what is the point in.
That, right?
And that's what's so exciting. I know we can talk about it more later, but that's what's so exciting about the election results in France is that it was like a left wing, a genuinely left wing coalition that like surpassed the two party system. And that's a really really exciting thing that you can actually vote for something that you do believe in.
Yeah, the videos of all the right wing French people like studying for the returns to come heartwarming, Absolutely ashen faced. I was like, oh my god, Yeah, this is what I have to hold on to as my country falls apart, and so be it. At least I had that. But yeah, I mean, like that's the thing. We we understand, many people understand the stakes. No, I'm not voting for Donald Trump. I'm not going to ever support him or his or his candidacy. But unfortunately, I'm like, well, the only other
option is this other thing. But I, as a voter, feel completely unheard on so many other issues. That's where my resentment comes in as a voter, because I'm like, you guys fucking wore Kinte Claudes in the Capitol talking about you were gonna do something about over policing and white supremacy. You've made all these fucking noises about the pandemic and people's safety, and then there's like all the
fucking safety measures got pulled out from under people. You're talking about there's so many things on the agenda, and I get that there are other things that happen, but there are a lot of voters who are like, come from these marginalized groups, or people are just looking at their own situation and say, the status quo will actually be the end of me, Like, if things keep going as it is, this will be the end of me.
So I need to hear something different. And a lot of people resent the fact that the only thing they're hearing is well, you better get you or you want fascism. It's that that's so fucked up, Like you have to acknowledge what people are going through. And it doesn't mean you're conceding the election by acknowledging these things, but there this is and I think this is a situation where I think Americans have become so used to being like, well, I have to vote for the Democrat because that as
a binary, yeah, that's the better decision. But they're also for the status quo, which still means death, which means violence, which means inequality, and that is like the biggest things we're trying to contend with. So anyway things are going right over here? How do you just get that off my chest? It's just very it's just a difficult time.
And it's just not a choice, is it, as you say, like, that's just not no, that's like, yeah, no one has an agency there.
The other way too, I look at it is like to be more involved in local politics and more things involved with your community. Guess what that the gains that you can make would look easier if the Democrats kept the White House versus the Republicans taking the White House, and then what that means like just downwardly just in terms of an overall policy. But even then it's like that's that's the most like some people can like latch on just like well, at least it won't be worse.
And I think that's just such a defeatist like position to be trying to to change the country from that. Yeah, it's it's a it's a huge issue it's a huge issue and I really wish that the I really wish our capitalist overlords would take the ills of capitalism seriously.
Oh maybe if we ask them nicely, they will, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah.
There's like it's a tough one as well, isn't it. Like I don't I don't know about the US and the UK, there have been some studies that show, like, you know, big lobbying organizations and places like that like do a lot less under a labor government than under a Tory government, even if similar things are happening, because there's this like perception that's them are left is like
safer and better. So it's like a it's a hard balance I think with that as well, where you're like, no, we actually still need to like really keep mobilizing and yeah, taking to the streets and doing all the things that we were doing under the tour.
Yes, because I'm I'm not I think anyone's under the impression it's like it's it's gonna be a top down solution here. It's like, no, that's why you have to pour into things like locally, because that that's your immediate environment. Joe Biden doesn't give a fuck about North Hollywood or the San Fernanda doesn't give a fuck unless he has
a fundraser there. But like the people that do, those are the people you live with, and those are the people that you need to have the bonds with to you know, resist any kind of real bullshit, like you know, totally like federally organized bullshit that might be in our future anyway. So uh, let's move on to flirting. Good exactly? You know that, guys? Does we like violent jarring fucking transitions? Baby?
But anyway, ten Z, look, I'm glad, like millennials, we are officially washed and have become the hollowed out husks of what was once considered cool. Gen Z now has the man, and now y'all are the generation that is.
Killing an industry or destroying this custom whatever the fuck they used to say about us. The latest body that gen Z caught now is that they've fucking it's the end of flirting. They have killed flirting.
I really want to read this New York Post opening paragraph because the New York Courts Post very conservative, really fucking stupid, and this is how they this is like their sort of vibe and talking about a gen Z killed flirting quote Liking an Instagram story or sliding into someone's DMS are ways to express romantic interest in the digital age, but technology may actually have made it harder for singles trying to score a date. Gen z Ers especially struggle to master the art of flirting in an
era of social media and dating apps. Quote. I think flirting is dying. Los Angeles resident Nicky san Janco's twenty four told NBC if someone thinks you're cute, they just ask you for your Instagram these days and then DM you or swipe up on your story to show they're interested. The state of dating today has been described as ext as women online lament the nightmarish difficulties of trying to find a man night Marriagh bro It's Freddy Krueger up in my dms? What the fuck is this? Like eighties
rom com narrator version of society. It's like, Kathy's just a woman trying to find a man. Yeah. Like the article mostly bashes gen Z like sort of painting them. It's like just super awkward and so online, like they don't know how to even talk to another person. And I get the social anxiety part, like we even it's
as millennials, we also have that. Yeah, but like buried in this bullshit is like a line about how younger people are opting to try and just date in person since apps are so shit, and that's I'm like, oh, there's there's the nugget there that you want to kind of pull out what they're doing is there? It sounds like maybe they're moving towards something a little less like koy and superficial.
Yeah, the author of this is mad that people don't say dick pics anymore. Like that's what it sounds like. It's like they haven't they've lost how to do the art of flirting. AKA when I send a picture of me touching my balls and I go, do you like? And then they don't respawn.
And then like and then the local police constables knocking on my door. I don't like any of this, Like yeah, it's also just sort of like because I feel like in the eighties and nineties, like my brain was absolutely poisoned by eighties and nineties media that did not actually show how human beings interacted in a romantic capacity like I was. I was truly like, bro, you will die alone if you don't have the smooth pickup line. I
don't know how to. I remember being obsessed with fucking winking yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to learn how to wink good. Yeah.
Was what was your smooth pickup line?
I didn't have one. I was so fucking I was like at Luckily, by the time I got to like high school, my whole thing was just being funny and outgoing, and I realized that was like that'll that'll bring the that'll bring the boys to the yard. As Colice said, you know what I mean my sense of humor. But yeah, I never I mean, like I would say stuff corny.
The one thing I did, like in the digital phone age is if I saw like somebody I was attracted to, like trying to take a photo, I'll be like, oh, let me take a picture, let me let me take that picture for you, and then I will put it on selfie mode and I would take a selfie of me. I think I would do that.
I don't know if actually maybe I won't say his name. But there's like a pretty famous, like celebrity pundit man who I went saw at a conference and I was celebrity.
He's giving you opinions away.
Then like he's roughly the same age as me, and like we probably share friends. He's like in the same social circles. But I was like, no, you know, I had a couple of drinks, so I wasn't in my best self. And he gave me his phone to take a picture of him and all of his mates, and I truly just took so many pictures of myself, and then he gave it back to me to do it again because he was annoyed, and then I did it again. Oh yeah, yeah, haven't grown out of that.
Yeah, Like at that point, it's not even flirting, it's just it's just hilarious spite and.
Yeah, yeah, hold it, you guys are nailing it. Keep doing that. Keep doing that? Can you keep your legging your leg? Keeps giving it back to you? Like, do it better? You're like, okay, now I'm just gonna tweet some ship. The funny part is like, even though I would do ship like that, they would be like oh
ha haha, Like I had no way to transition from that. Yeah, I'd be like, yeah, all right, I gotta go, and I'm like, fuck, that was so fucking anxiety and do so I did step one, but I forgot there's more steps after that. I was just like, did that part be a little be a little cutesy with him? The talking part, because it was it looked like weird. I remember, like, you can never be like I like you. They wouldn't even fucking murder. Yeah, you know what I mean.
And I get like, I'm pretty happy that gen Z have killed flooding then, because all of this stuff just feels like harassment. It just feels like a waste of everyone's time. I'm very happy if I get a nice TM or a heart on something it can help us.
I like that exactly. I think, like I said, kill flirting because I didn't know how to do it and he didn't do anything for fucking me. But after going to therapy, guess what, voicing my needs and being straightforward with people actually has done a lot for me. And if that's how we communicate, that would actually I think it's better for us in the long run, rather than being so fucking coy it's like exhausting. Yeah, you got to learn to flirt with yourself, you know what I mean. Thank you, dude.
That's the most healthy way of doing it. I didn't have pickup lines growing up. I think I had a long obsession with I have to get a dog because someone years ago told me that's the best way to pick up chicks quote unquote, and then eventually I forgot that that's why I wanted a dog, and I just became dog upsseess and I was like, I can't get a girlfriend un till I get a dog.
And then I was like, I just have to get a dog. Yeah, now I just love dogs.
Do you have a dog?
No? Oh man, I already have a wife, but you have family. So yeah, in a way, you made good. You made good. I made good? Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, amazing. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come right back to discuss just the Reform Party in the UK. Just are they up to tricks? Are they not? I don't know, but it's a lot of weird shit and I want to talk about it with y'all after this,
and we're back and yes, ed another stock. I felt like a few months ago on the show we were talking about how the stock price for Tesla, the performance has not been great. There was a flood of like, well the sales are short, and then like Elon got his pay package and then everyone's like, yes, he's back, baby, and the last few weeks have seen a huge increase. One headline said it like wiped out all losses. They're in the green for the first time in twenty twenty four.
And this is because Elon Musk is a genius. Correct, it's because he's Jack Welch too is a great man. What he is basically just like the great guy and not the guy that at the Alec Baldwin character from thirty Rap thirty effectively in heart.
But I was voted most yeah, yeah, But the thing is like that deliveries are still down. They beat tor Street estimates, but they were still down four percent four point eight percent year of year. But the stock is like two hundred and fifty bucks now it's a meme stock. And I don't fit and I don't I think it's impressive how bad it is at this point. It's so horrible. It's like watching a very bad person win again and again and again.
Yeah and truly. But also.
Even though they voted his stock package through the Delaware courts, still made it clear that it was not like it's there's there. Things will change. I just don't know when anymore. Tester is just so fucking bizarre. I bet Google and Meta are so jealous of him because it's just disconnected from one.
I mean speaking of like like you know, promising shit and never delivering on it. Like what's going on. There's like this, there's a new sort of self driving update and a lot of people are like, yeah, baby, it's gonna happen, but this has never fucking happened still, And the fleet of robot taxis that you could lease passively in your sleep while you make passive income while you're
catching zas that's nowhere to be found. And I'm just always it just blows my mind how I mean, it's definitely definitely cult like because they're the detractor aren't really the detractors who are vocal kind of get cast aside. And there's so many people who are like, it's okay, man, that this thing fucking sucks, like the cyber truck fucking sucks. Objectively, it fucking sucks like it got I took it to
a car wash. It fucking it got fucked up. My control panel fell off, the fucking side panels fall off, the charging issues, I can't get the charger out.
It broke my finger and it accelerates when it wants to.
Yeah, exactly, I drove into a house on accident.
Yeah, it's just it's very weird and there is no stock out that like it. But also it's up today. I maintain this shit will burn. They are Takey's out of ideas, and so is Elon Musk. The cyber truck is ridiculous. It looks like shit, it's small. It's a terrible truck, terrible car. It's terrible deal.
Yeah, it doesn't even pay off on its promise of being a truck. Like, there's so many hilarious things I say. I read it where like someone's like, you couldn't even put a bicycle flat. Yeah, you couldn't put a bake it. You could put a Christmas tree in? What the fuck is it?
My favorite one is this guy who was like, yeah, took my truck to home depot and he got like four bags of mulch.
Oh I saw that too. Yeah, it's just like like soil.
And someone was starting with I did this in my Toyota Corolla.
Yeah exactly.
As as a guy who likes cars, I can say, we're very dumb and it is all about like me, you want to be seen in room room machine, Like I just want something that looks like a Ferrari or something that looks like yeah, exactly, so yeah for sure, but yeah yeah, but I'm just saying, if it's if you like the aesthetic of that wow factor of the truck, which you you know, being sure a nine year old, it's it's that's all.
You need, you know what, Ima Simpson?
Yeah for sure? Yeah right, yeah, if your Homer Simpson, who thinks whatever hackers from the late nineties thought was cool is cool.
Yeah, well that's what like, that's what's wild is there. There's just such a pattern of bullshit and yet like like to your point at it's like the guy keeps fucking with how like that not a single thing he's promising is happening, and people are still willing to like make all these excuses for why the cyber truck isn't actually in an L on four wheels, and they're just like,
don't worry, man, just what happens. And now there's like some new thing about they're not calling it a recall, but they're saying they're gonna change their motors and some of the early cyber trucks and I'm like just suck is this?
It is all spinning plates, And Elon Musk is very good at that. He genuinely has worked out the limits to which you can push capitalism and push the markets and lie to the markets. Right, So he lies to them, and he lies to them, and he keeps lying and they keep eating it up. At some point they're going to run out of electricity. He was about to say gas, right, because there aren't any new things with Tesla. Deliveries are slowing down. Yeah, the actual fundamentals off this stock are
not brilliant. On top of that, Elon Musk may or may not do a bunch of fucking care to me right. Also, a lot of his companies are very unprofitable. Tesla's actually profitable. It's just very weird because this crap works until it doesn't. He's just very good at keeping it going. It's two hundred and fifty bucks now, it was like something else, Like it was like one hundred and et or something like.
A few weeks ago.
It's just at some point the worm turns.
I'm just no.
Idea where it's going to fucking happen anymore. I thought it would be by now it would partly because it'd be entertaining, but also he's a shit head. Yeah, what fucking asshole. He's so annoying because all of this money and he's like, yes, sir, it's very epic and base to post the fourteen words and oh jesus, yeah fourteen So he retweets them. Yeah yeah, and he's like got Twitter,
which is just burning money, just constantly burning money. SpaceX is funny though, because people say, oh, yeah, they're profitable now they playing fucking accounting games that they're not really Like, there's a Wall Street Journal piece about this, so Wall Street Journal piece about and just fucking random woman at Tesla and SpaceX as well.
This man's a goblin. It's like everything is so unlikable, it's so upsetting. And then I saw did you there was this? So they had one of the like head lead engineers like a while ago when they were trying to create all the hype for the cyber truck. He went on like Jay Leno's garage like YouTube channel, and there's this clip where he's talking about the side mirrors and he's like, we didn't even want side mirrors on
this thing. I'm just gonna play this because It's like to me, I'm like, wait, hold on, how exactly does Tesla do things? And so Jay is like the question he's asking this engineer is like, were there anythings that like you wanted that just got like completely shot down? Like what were some other like bold design choices you made? And this is him talking about the side mirrors, the side view mirrors.
Yeah, I mean we didn't want mirrors, right, and so in the beginning, we weren't even designing mirrors.
I like how Jayleno goes, huh and he goes, we didn't even want mirrors. He goes, oh, that part is so funny. I'm played again.
We didn't want mirrors, right, and so in the beginning we weren't even designing mirrors. And then just we couldn't get the regulations changed camera.
Yeah, okay, did you hear that? So he goes and you know, we couldn't get the regulations changed, so you know, we had to put him in. So I'm like, as half of their the way they ideated is sort of like, well, can we get the laws changed so we can like get this hair brain ship onto the car? Yeah, it's like one break the law? How big? But what if we we just changed it. Yeah, and then that never works.
Right, and paid enough money to change the legislation, which is what they're assuming they're gonna be capable of doing, which they probably you know, which the surprising that they weren't up to because I was saying, like all car designers forever, they wanted to get rid of side mirrors, like all aesthetically all car car designers feel that they like your ears coming up. Yeah, yeah, so like these but but they all know like, oh and also we
have to have mirrors. But the hubris these dudes is the same kind of hubris that is like, oh, we're actually not gonna die. We're we decided we're gonna upload our consciousness and totally totally defeat mortality. You know what I mean. This is the level of like presumptive hubris that we're dealing with.
You know, they just don't. I genuinely think these people just take cabs everywhere.
That tracks at a certain level of wealth. Yeah, people don't just don't drive.
It's the theme across everything we're talking about. Summed up. A shy of Google doesn't use Google, sutch in, a deller of Microsoft, Oh fuck my f I put my thumb up and now the zoom now keeping this in, I.
Just want rows your fucking video screen. I have a video stream right now.
This is an important AI related thing that proves my larger point. So if you raise your thumb in front of the camera now on Zoom, it does a weird pop up bubble of a thumbs up, and then it freezes your video through the power of AI. And that's exactly the ship that someone would like Eric yuan See of Zoom, or any number of people at Microsoft to Google who don't use their products to think that sounds great,
that's awesome. What if on top of showing my thumb, thus giving the thumbs up, it also showed another thumb.
Yeah, but this is the problem across all of this.
Elon Musk doesn't drive anywhere Google Sundit doesn't google anything such a Nendella, doesn't use fucking Microsoft word. He probably sends outlook like emails. But that's about it, right. None of these people interact with the economy with labor. They don't do work, they don't do anything so like of course, But yeah, I done if fucking mirrors on a car you asked white, right, you know I need to see behind you.
That's what my drivers for, right exactly. Yeah, this thing can go off road, cut to it cannot really go off road.
Yeah he said it could double as a boat. And like someone's test cyber truck got totled because he drove it through a very small puddle of water.
Yeah, it didn't even actually reach like the door line. I saw like where they showed where the water reached, Like it didn't even really even get in the car, not even close. And like the insurers like, yeah, dude, we're not fucking we're not touching this thing. Sorry, it's so cool. Yeah, I love all of it. Well, And now, like you see too, a lot of cyber truck owners, there's like a bunch of stuff too where they're like, this is how you remove your side view mirrors from
your fucking cyber truck. And I'm like, that's a great idea. Your seven thousand pound missile car now has no sure cause it just looks cooler. Man, When I mount my fifty cow machine gun in the back with my big American flag, and you see a lot of people doing this like it, it's just interesting too.
Like it.
It also has an appeal to people who are also not quite living in the same reality as us. Like you see so many people who are like putting like they're wrapping it to look like a World War two fucking fighter plane or someone mounting a machine gun and having like a gigantic American flag because it looks like a meme they saw and they're like, and that's what it does. Man, it's a meme. It's a terrible car and I hurt my thumbs trying to load it in some kibble. So thanks you loon.
Yeah, it's so good, and I love that this guy is a billionaire. That's good as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are times you get a little bit black piled when you think about this stuff too much.
Right, Yeah, I mean it's I know, it's hard, especially again, like you said, you're watching someone who's an evil doer just continue to compound financial wins and you're like, I don't, But again, that's how the game is set up, so if you know at a certain point you can.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's inherently competitive, so those that cheat win. Here's my thing is, I really do feel you guys probably won't agree with this, but I feel like being that rich is a wild burden and terrible for you for your spiritual life. That it's like because think about it this way, like I don't If I have very little money, what is required to make me happy. All it takes is a shower orange.
That's it.
I just need one peach to take into the shower with me. But if I'm wildly rich and I'm used to spending millions of dollars, the amount of money I have to spend to get more new exciting sensory information is cocaine, ketamine and a couple of sex workers who have to do stuff that is not even sex anymore.
You know, likes right, you know so, and then you watch what happens with these You watch what happens with these people too, which is the profound lack of maturity, the internet behavior of a thirteen year old who's like, yeah, what if I tweeted the word kweef?
Can you imagine? You know, twenty? Yeah, you're pretty funny.
It's absurd, you know. So, I'm so grateful that I don't have that amount of money.
We're real, we're real.
Hand it over to me and I'll tell you how it goes. But also I agree, I actually think when you because the thing about someone like Elon mosk Mark about got paid two hundred and twenty million dollars to fuck up Google in two thousand and sorry, twenty twenty two.
These guys they don't have bills, right, they don't have that. They don't wake up in the morning worrying about anything. Yeah, but they could get fired that day, get nothing in return, and have probably fifty to one hundred million dollars of liquid capital and a bunch of assets, and probably walk into another job the same day. They don't have trouble getting introduced to people. They don't need to worry about career progression. They don't need to worry about anything.
All of the things that they person worries about pretty much any income level, are just concepts to them, and problems that you have are things that they can mitigate. In pretty much every way. On Us could probably look better than he does. He just chooses not to, which is very funny. But it's I think when you think of it like that, like it does sound like hell, But at the same time, give me the money, give.
It to me. I will be smart. I'm smart enough to know what I don't.
Yeah for that, Ed I'll support you get a couple bill.
But also on top of that, only CEOs and this is such a cheesy thing to say for smit to therapy. You can't be the CEO of one of these companies without like three hours of therapy a week and beginning or week.
Or you know, just cap the fucking the wages that you can get as CEO and then you know, leave it there. But Ed, I gotta thank you for stopping by and uh, you know, just making me feel even better about my uh heritage series or foundation series cyber truck that's going to be delivered later today.
I've seen that this beauty, all those eagles on the Really it's a beaute, dude, gotta say it's a beaute.
Got Conan right there.
He's a woman for the rest of us man.
Yeah, oh yeah, dude, I will. I will thank you so much for joining us on the daily side. Gust Ed, where do people find you? Follow you, hear you, read you all of that good stuff.
Where's your edge dot at better offline dot com you can find me where you red head at which my newsletter and my podcast Better Offline. Please go to that link download every episode listen to every episode. Force the people you know with a knife to.
Listen to it every episode, like a common Gallagher. Yeah exactly, Yeah, forced them at knife point. Is there a work of social media or otherwise that you have been enjoying enjoying?
So there is a tweet which I will get you the link of after the thing where someone tweeted and I'm paraphrasing here, but it was like I saw your man crashing his flying machine in the town square. Your man was saying confound it and dratt or something like that.
It's just it's a wonderful tweet. Yeah, I saw that one too. Who was it?
Also one another thing I've been laughing at, which is underscore Latino. So Senkygira, who has had a very strange turn, posted going to debate the omniliberal and wolf shbreed and on Biden staying and or dropping out. Brianna Woo is on my side for dropping out. I have never heard a conversation I wanted to hear less. Yeah, Jesus, like, it's between that and ten minutes of people punching dogs and.
Yeah it's tough. Yeah. The only destiny I'm interested in was a Microsoft product destiny I care about was destiny too, but I guess that was Bungee technically right.
I'm by Sony PlayStation now.
Ah see How the Mighty Fall, How the Mighty Fall?
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like, The show means the world the miles he he needs your.
Validation, folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday.
Bye.
Stating nothing