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. Miles. We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a hilarious stand up comedium writer, accurate improviser. You can catch her on stage at the monthly Facial Recognition comedy show,
which she also produces. It's Pobby, all right, I prefer the Steve Winwood for that is a shot directly at me. I didn't even know you guys were referencing the dance track Michael McDonald Steve Winwood classic, some classic wind Wood, well done backstories. He a good guy, Steve Winwood. I don't know.
I looked him up and related names included Eric Clapton, and I just stopped looking because.
Right, well, he is one of those other guys where like you hear it and you're like, oh ship, Like I forgot this guy was white because sometimes he had those soul songs.
You're like, oh, hold on, Steve Winwood, hold on, what a name for an artist, you know? For a musician wind Wood. Yeah, just take the woodwind and flip him REVERSI or a neighborhood in Miami. Yeah, it's all there. It is all there, Paula. We do like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Oh?
Wait, I had this? Uh what was it?
Too late? Moving on? Underrated come back?
No, No, I did search the word corvids. No I I I've been looking up a lot of references. Okay, I'm rewatching or for the first time, I'm watching The Real Housewives. Like I watched all of Saltlake City, and then I watched all of Beverly Hills and now I'm
in the middle of Atlanta. So I've been watching, like I've been looking up different references and I and one of the characters was throwing this icons black female icons of Hollywood party, and she was like assigning everyone address in certain ways, and she assigned like one person like Diana Ross and one person Tina Turner. And then she made her enemy be Halle Berry from BAPS. And so I just needed a refresher like because I remembered like some of the outfit.
But then I looked it up and.
Then that person refused and then she kicked her out of the party. So I've just been looking up like all of these references from like season five of the Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Are you doing like a rewatch? Like you're just I had never seen them before. Oh, but I am like.
I am watching that. It it is like historical for me because I'm like, oh my god, like this was what people were saying on TV like twelve years ago and was okay for people to say that's insane. That is like like this, I don't know there was the only white woman who was cast on the first few seasons was like yeah, I'm a singer and she's like the worst singer of all of them. And then she kept saying she was black on the inside and all of this shit that like this is from like.
Two oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's something.
But yeah, I had never seen any of it, so I'm like, oh my god, this is fascinating, and like they're all these like cameos from people and like guest, like I saw Tommy from Martin was on an episode for like no reason. I don't know why he wasn't on there. They were planning this event, and he just was at a meeting about it. I'm like, what is Tommy doing this show? Everybody wants to be in the show.
It's serious, real movie. I know, passed away R I P Tom, I know it's sad. What is something that you think is underrated? Okay?
So for these?
I asked my fiance because I feel like I've done a lot of these. So these are his answers? Wow, I said, what things underrated?
Did your homework okay? He said?
Okay, Well, I don't know if you like these answers. I said what's underrated? He said my dick?
Okay and then overrated?
He said, AI, So look well I needed It's fine. This is first his first time answering these questions.
Uh huh.
We'll get them to a more new ways place.
Under the wait. So underrated his dick? Overrated?
AI? AI?
Yeah?
Can is he available to speak on in the room with us? Right in the room in the room. Okay?
For the record, I don't think his dick is underrated depending on who's writing it. I feel like I've rated his dick quite favorite properly.
Yeah, but when that cost some alarm bells, you're like hold on, is there are there other people who are involved in the adjudication and valuation?
Up said Dick that.
I don't know his doctor. Maybe his doctor's rating his dick.
Yeah, doctor has so many notes on my dick. It's so annoying.
I'm just like he said, he said, I wish I had more hands. So you give that four thumbs down, and it's like it's an old Chappelle show line. Why would you say that about me?
Doc? Could be better, could be better? I mean, look, you want pointers. Yeah, so a TikTok finance person thinks AI is overrated. We we happened to concur on this podcast. We're not We're not big AI fans here? What what? What are? What are the reasons for AI being overrated?
Yeah, he does have more legit reasons for that, But it sounds like an easy line to say. But part I think part of it is just I guess the short version is sort of what we're talking about is like most people don't use AI. For most people talking about how exciting AI is aren't using AI in the way that it should. Like everyone's just talking to chat
GPT or having them right an essay. But it's really the people using AI are the villains, right, like these fake websites data harvesting, But most of us don't know how to use it like that, and so it did make me think though, if we all got more literate, we could be using AI to fight things like that.
But I think we're so far behind right now.
More interested, I mean, because we're talking about finance. Is there a way to invest in your partner's dick if it's underrated?
Interesting?
Yeah, that's n I'll consult with him. Yeah, okay, you want to get in the ground floor of his dick.
I mean, look, I'm always looking for I'm always looking for the next thing.
You know what I mean.
We are looking to take his dick public.
Immediately. Fortunately, there are some laws that are Yeah.
Yeah, I went to the New York to take my dick public. They arrested me immediately because you're not supposed to do that with the gabbl.
Rang the bell with my dick. Yeah, I mean, that would be an impressive dick, if you could ring the bell with his dick.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll be discussing this in congress.
Yeah, what is something you think is overrated?
I'm done with the summer. I think we fucked the earth to the point where it's the worst season now. I know people will go on vacation during the it's just that, It's just I would much rather be in freezing temperatures in the winter because you can layer up than deal with being hot. And I know you all are getting a big heat wave now or soon, but yeah, I'm so done with the summer. Getting the first cold day on the East Coast is like the nicest thing.
I'm like, Oh good, I don't have to sweat twenty four hours a day. How far if I don't want to? How far off are you from that day?
Though? On the East Coast, it's.
Been fifties at night, like high fifties for the past few days. Yeah, it's been high eight rate at night.
Yeah, so brutal.
Yeah, dude, last thing at night.
When I moved to LA I thought that air conditioning was like forty five dollars a minute to run, and so my roommate and my roommate was also an idiot, so we didn't get it for like two years, and there were times when it would be one hundred You know that that's stretching late September early October, where it's
just in like one tens every single day. And I was, of course unemployed, so I would like almost like a hippo, go into the shower and like splash water on my body to cool off, like cold water.
Get out and do that multiple times a day.
And then fan shit just everywhere around you like a hippos.
Yeah, and then I would put a whole watermelon in my mouth and crush it in front of a bunch of a bunch.
Of amazed, odd children.
Yeah, they loved it. I would do it with a pumpkin during the fall.
Swash am I hippo, Peppa hippo.
I'm sorry I missed everything because there was another what you said about pumpkins, but it's okay, David s pumpkins the thing I would do, uh when I was because also famously, for some reason, Asian moms don't like air conditioning either, so I grew up also believing that it was forty five dollars a second that like sometimes you
just ring out, I would. I would soak a bath towel and water and then ring it out and then use that as like a blanket because that, like the very wet towel created a nice you know, insulating layer to keep my body cool.
That's really funny that you would wear a wet a wet well as a cooling blanket. Where I had the opposite issue where we lived in like this townhouse, and I had where I my bedroom was was like air conditioned, finished attic, like really like a great place to like sleep,
but it didn't have heat up there. So in the winter I would it was like a nice room, but I would have to wear like a coat to bed, like in the winter when I was home from like college, and quilts and also to add like what really made it a sad visual is that I was sleeping alone in a bunk bed too, because we just never got to do a bed for me. So yeah, when I was home from school, I would be in a coat, shivering in a bunk bed, but in a nice townhouse, right it was.
It was already a very sad visual. Yeah, yeah, okay, you set it up. It was such a nice attic.
But then the second you added trench coat, I'm like picturing some like turn of the century Russian novel where it's like.
You know, you got like shivering in my coat in the attic.
The tin plates that they would pass through the little doggy hole in the door for me to eat, you know, with the mush on it. Those would get cleared out pretty quickly. So it's it's not as sad as the problem.
It wasn't a problem. They cleared up, cleared up my tin plates real quick, real quick.
As three raccoons I lived up there with didn't get to it first.
And they got handsy.
Yeah, they And I do want to say for if anyone ever sees the visual of this, which seems less and less.
Likely, we're working it out, folks.
Moving to New York next week, so by wall, we're moving. I'm not as psychotic as everything that I've said so far on this program would lead you to believe.
It looks like you're just squatting. Really, but it doesn't matter. I know, I know the truth.
We know that I bring my own Wi Fi router with me everywhere I squat and yah it's high speed.
Yeah that's right. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and learn what flagstocks.
And we're back.
Here with us.
Is that Humpy's Dumpy?
This is Sammy. He's a little one humpy Umpy.
He's all damn all right, all right, well we did want to check in with the story about what actually caused inflation. We had speculated idly. Yeah that you know,
as so as inflation is happening. You can listen to the earnings calls of corporations whose prices going way up and hear them talk about how they're having record profit all during pandemic and when inflation was this out of control weather pattern that the global markets were dealing with, And if you suggested such a thing that like they were doing it on purpose because it was causing record profits, you would be ridiculed.
It's like, but where'd the profits come from? You also say you had lower costs to shut it's not because it because because we're doing so good.
Yeah. I don't know about you, guys.
I have never heard of a corporation.
Being never okay for greed, never, never, never, never never never.
Excuse me, Well, it's just wild because only because Kroger and Albertson's are trying to have a merger that like, you know, the FEDS are like, ah wait a tick here that we got some testimony from one of the Kroger executives and they bring up this fucking email we're in an email, it is discussed that said quote on milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation, and then goes on to say, our objective is to quote pas through our inflation to consumers mm hm.
And they're like, oh, wait, that you mean you mean you're you're charging them more that that's what It sounds like you're passing the inflation onto us. And like again, like other people commenting on this, like this was like no secret that was happening, especially when it comes to
like milk and eggs. A lot of people who were defending this are like they just cherry picked a couple comments here and like make it seem like that's like, this is an email from a top executive at Kroger who is talking to other executives about how they're even there. They're saying, right here, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation.
So the retail price is going up higher than what our costs are going up.
That this is like the sorry, I like that. This is like the grocery store version of the Jinks where he's like, I did it, Oh, I raised all the prices.
I do it again, yeah, but the response from economists, a lot of economists, not all economists, but a lot of economists who coincidentally seem to usually work for or be you know, speaking to or being interviewed by mainstream media outlets that are owned by corporations. It seems to be like, yeah, it's just like one or two bad actors and it like there's no correlation. But like so again, just the bottom line thing is like, how are when inflations at a record high, their profits are at a
record high. Like those are the two things that like the I need an argument that's going to dispel those things.
But like you said, Miles, meanwhile, Kroger's fighting the government for their right to merge with Albertson, like two massive grocery chains, which again like a big problem with this, and the reason they're able to do that is not enough competition, so they're able to raise prices and not be worried that, you know, another retailer is gonna lower the prices, which is how the whole system is supposed to work. But because these massive corporations got so much power,
they can now just kind of fix things. Yep. So a lot of places are picking it up, but it's like not really mainstream, Like Business Insider picked up the story of the burg this is weird Bloomberg, but not the Washington Post, which absolutely mocked Kamala Harris for suggesting corporate greed played a significant role in inflation.
Which it's not like you're getting that from some like far left extremist person just being like, yeah, I'm pretty sure they're going up because they're making a ton of money.
They're no, yeah, no, And then I just look, I just searched their website.
Uh, there's nothing like where they're headlining that this executive, Like they have a headline where like that's referencing what this Kroger executive mentioned sharing this testimony.
But hey, this cherry picked. It's just a little look back. Listen.
I don't know what you guys are talking about, but I'm going to continue hiding eggs under my mattress, okay, because that's where the gold is.
Always look under the mattress. Yeah, it's pretty sulphuric, I would say, But like the wild part is too. I was like searching, like the news search function on covering is it only Jacobin not even dude, Barstool Sports Barstool Sports. I want to just read something from barstool from Barstool Sports about this. Okay, they're talking about the the this guy Graf who Andy Groff, who's the Kroger price guy,
said he spilled the beans during an FTC hearing. His internal email a masterpiece of corporate honesty, revealed their strategy pass through our inflation to customers. Translation, let's squeeze those four those poor fucking plubs for every penny we can, the American way. Kroger's defense, Oh, that email was cherry pick. They say they're decades long business model is all about lowering prices. Okay, mother Teresa, what a barstool sports this.
Is in barstools Dave or noise.
The end, they were like and bitches got titties just to.
Like, yeah, exactly, That's why I should be allowed to sexually harass my coworker.
Now check out the nasty ten nastiest strip clubs in Bogota, Columbia.
But like where that costume is too high?
Yeah right?
They go on it says quote, this revelation isn't just about Kroger. It's a symptom of a larger disease. Plaguing corporate America. Companies across the board have been posting record profits while consumers struggle with sky high inflation. Uh remember those quote supply chain issues we kept hearing about. Sure they played a role, but let's be honest. Some prices were elevated simply because businesses knew they could get away with it. It's the American way, right, profit over people.
This is in Barstools Sports, Comrade.
You know how like climate change has made like like Seattle is like having less rain than La, but like La is having more and like everything shifting. That's what it feels like with media. Like remember when teen Vogue was like doing hard hitting pieces and we were like, wait, we forgot to pay attention to teen Vogue. Like all of the world has gone so upside down that all of the so called like hard hitting journalists are doing
the dumbest shit. So now like Barstool Sports has to step up to fill that need.
Yeah, I'm like.
I was a little curious about this because it's like who is like who's writing this?
And I found the author's Twitter feed.
And it does not strike me as someone who is out here with their like critiques of capitalism. Like there's another paragraphs and even this is all I'm just this is capitalism, after all, you and your work is worth what somebody's willing to pay. And but then like their Twitter feed is like Kamala misinformation RFK video quotes have been like well this is a weird this is an interesting take about Russia, and then like weird stuff again.
That's why I got the strip club stuff. It was a video about strip clubs in Columbia, and I'm like what. And then also George old George Carlin stand up about class consciousness. So I'm wondering if this person got like rat like quasi radicalized, because at the bottom of this Barstool Sports article is a George Carlin clip. Yeah, the
illusion of choice. So it feels like a dude who may have been on the barstool wagon caught some Carlin, got some class consciousness, got momentarily radicalized, and then went back to their regularly scheduled programing like this is the hottest pool vaulter in the pac ten.
I mean, the political world has been has been talking about Republican like barstool Republicans for a long time now, being right, you know, people who are like I define myself as masculine, and therefore I hate Democrats and I love Republicans because Dave Portanoy says things that make me laugh sometime. But but like I didn't realize that that included like economic populism. I don't think it does generally.
I'm just yeah, that's m Like, I want to know more about whom, like, like if this is just a cobbled together with AI they're using some guy's name to attribute it to it, or if this is just kind of or maybe I'm I'm not reading enough barstool and I'm realizing I do.
You think it's I think things like that are super believable because I do think that, like now, more than ever, people's beliefs are in like a blender and it's more of a grab bag. Like you'll find people who are really like socially like liberal who are anti vaxers or you know, like that's where it started, but now it's like it you really like, if you're out in the dating scene, you have to ask like all of the questions right right, because at any point could someone be like, yeah,
this is this is normal, this is normal. Sell me alarm, Sell me alarm, right, right, because people are like that with like just the most random random beliefs, Like it's no longer like okay, like this party believes this and this other party believes this. It's like kind of a general divide. It's like you could be insane and like all sorts of things.
I think there's also like this other thing too, where regardless of maybe what you're like sort of you know, registered voting political beliefs, are that the world you interact with, a world where like your observations are like why the fuck is all this shit so expensive and they're making money, and just on your own through just existing, you kind of arrive at this conclusion too, even though right, yeah, even though you're like I thought you're supposed to be
like one of these free market like conservative type people, but at the end you're like, nah, I write for barstool and shit's expensive, so this is kind of fucked up.
But anyway, here the top strip clubs in Bogata. It's like how that like there was that article is really good by the way that you kid is really good, like they go deep they it's.
Actually about a universal health care No, there was actually like somebody in like Indiana or something like. I remember like listening to all these interviews during the last election cycle about how people are like pro Trump, but they actually do believe in the tenets of universal health care, but they hate they like don't want Obamacare, like so
they don't. People don't fully understand necessarily like the labels or the so called theory, like they're not like Marxists, you know what I mean, but they do.
They do still.
Have that feeling that you were describing and like something isn't right here, and like you should all be able to afford food and rent.
But I don't want to call it it'd be funny.
Like the end, it really is like sincerely, guys, Like I don't know about you, guys, but it's like I clock in for a job where like they take the work that I do and they get rich off of it, and I just feel so distinct the means whatever I'm created, you know, it's just odd that I feel so disconnected and isolated from it as a working person.
Whatever. Anyway, here's the top.
And break down unions like.
Dude, would you kill man? What you kill? Okay, like a carnivore or like somebody a worker who's trying to Yeah, it's just wild that there's a policy position that's so popular on both sides that neither major party will openly agree to take. And when one does, like with Kamala Harris's you know policy, it's pretty tame and it gets absolutely destroyed by mainstream media. Let's for being like extremist and unrealistic, and she's not a real adult, right right, right, Sorry, miss,
we're adulting here. We are three economists. Anyways, let's talk about phones in school. I guess I didn't realize that kids were on their phones in classes as much as they are. There's this episode of The Daily Today that is, I didn't realize, like they're saying, like people came back from the pandemic and they were just like everybody's like on their phones. They got so used to interacting with each other and school via screens, Like now that's just
like impossible to take away. And now they're trying to institute these bands. But there's like mixed messaging on how popular that is or how successful or even feasible it is. We talked a few weeks back about the fact that the most posh prep school in London has banned smartphones and given students dumb phones instead.
They're like those phones with bubble gum in them from when we were kids exactly. They come everywhere.
Yeah, and I can't call my mom.
Yeah.
That was the thing that they were fighting against when I was in school was gum chewing. That was all I had to contend with.
We this is a this is a type of friends I had. My science teacher had to impose a Magic the Gathering tax because so many of my friends were playing it, and she also knew how to play it, so she would take She was like, if I see those cards out, I'm gonna take your best cards.
And we did, I'm gonna take you your best card.
Yeah.
She was like really good at Magic the Gathering, so she was she just building her sets of.
Ultimate hotly shit.
Yeah, ours was just like playing like drug Wars on like T I eighty three, Like that was like the biggest distraction we had at the time.
But yeah, it is. It is funny though too.
Like Jack, both when you said that, both you and are like, damn, my kids are like on their phone, like just like as if we couldn't per conceive a world where that was even possible like it used to be you get in big trouble for chewing gum.
Yeah right, I'm enjoying watching you to continue parenting. Were like kids phones, They don't seem to like those.
But I mean they like them to I don't know. So the daily episode lands in a place in between being like, we get why they're banning it, but we don't have the data to support whether this ban is good or bad. It really feels like I don't know, how how are you not just taking the comments like, I mean, come on, we know it's fucking bad for kids.
Like The anecdotal evidence includes watching kids walk around like zombies, watching like seeing their mental health deteriorate like in this generation, the way they react like addicts when your takeaway take away their phone, the fact that the people who design the phones and the software don't allow their kids to use this shit, everything about the software being designed to make money and surveil and manipulate their behavior and nothing
has to do with like any anything that's good for them. And the detail they used a question whether it's bad is like, but there are these like learning applications on phones, and we don't know if those are like canceling out all the other ship and it's a little.
Right, here's a compromise that I think will be really good. I think, sure, you take away the kids' phones whatever, but in every class there's the most like the funniest kid gets to keep their phone just so that they get to be the racist teacher monitor and like pull it out anytime the teacher is doing us ship, you know what I mean.
I can't lose.
Those tiktoks where the teacher just like goes off and you're like, are we living in the fifties? What?
It's funny too, like those teachers like someone was videotaping that. Yeah, but there being like they're allowed to have phones in class.
See them use a crank and put a sheet over there.
Sorry, I meant to say about the trail of tears. It wasn't that. You're like, whoa, whoa easy, eas easy. Some people do have tears of laughter. I'm just saying it's possible, it's possible, it's possible, but this is happening. As we just got new evidence that phones are listening to smartphone microphones and using AI to capture real time intent data.
Yeah, this felt like a thing we would talk about a lot early on in the show of just being like our phones were like, I think our phones are listening to us. How come a thing I've never searched for, talked about, but never even interacted with anything in my browsing history. I'm suddenly being served ads for this thing.
And it's because Miles, we recorded the show in person and had out loud conversations about what we were going to cover on the show. Yeah, and then as we were like putting the doc together, we would be like, weird, now it's like serving me a ad for lawnmowers, even though like I was randomly talking about lawnmowers.
And the Miles, Miles is only obsessed with like Casper, and and he's like, why do I keep getting ads for that that? Even though that's all I ever wanted in life?
What mean?
Yeah, I love Casper mattresses or loved but like you know, even like when you would search right like all the time, I remember, we'd be like this, this can't be and like all the articles you'd get when you searched for like the question of like our our phones listening to us.
There was some techie breakdown about how like algorithms figure out that you might be in proximity to someone that you're friends with and they know you are via Facebook, and therefore it you it may be relevant to you, so that's why the ad will show up or whatever.
But even then I'm like, okay, that seemed feasible.
At least it was feasible enough that I was like, all right, that that could that totally could be.
And then we kind of moved on.
But then this leak came out from Cox Media Group and there was a pitch deck that.
Ban coxes Media g braan.
Cox Yes, exactly, fuck fuck off, fuck off Media Group. And so in this leaked pitch deck to prospective customers, and they were one of Facebook's like marketing partners, although now like after this, Meta and a few other companies have been to distance themselves from Cox. It talked about
how it listens to users smartphone microphones and advertises to them. Accordingly, the TV and radio news giant Cox Media Group claims that it's so called quote active listening software uses AI to quote capture real time intent data by listening to our conversations.
That's why I'm always like, oh my god, you know what I could really go for right now is healthcare or like lower guess right?
Or to Suddy it's like, hey, man, come through to mobile where it's way expensive.
But we heard you need gues. Sorry, don't know what else to tell you.
And then it says goes on quote advertisers compare this voice data with behavioral data to target in market consumers.
That's what the deck said. That all sounds perfectly nonsinister to me.
Point the technology is gonna be like girl dump him.
Yeah, you know he's been like visiting like a rite aid.
That's way out of the way from y'all right, I don't know what for, but based on what I'm saying from this map view, there's a corner of the parking lot where it's not visible to cameras or people on the street anyway, I don't know, can check that out.
FBI agents like really, DM, the FBI just uses this software to just find people.
That's how they found bin Laden.
Actually it wasn't even the CIA, it was just this Facebook as.
Man, come on, nobody likes volleyball and Whitney Houston this much except for we got him the pacer.
So then like apparently this is the third time in the last year that Cox has gotten media attention for their active listening feature. They also delete a Cox media group. They deleted a blog post from their own website from last year that was talking about active listening and you can see it through the Internet archive.
Thank god.
It said there's one section like is it legal? You know, is active listeners? Like this is their active listening faq? Is active listening legal?
Answer?
Yeah?
Right? Oh wow?
Is selling human organs that you've procured outside of you know, normal channels illegal? Well, allow us to answer that. This says, quote, we know what you're thinking. Is this even legal?
Funny, there's no he said this.
The short answer is yes, it is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app, download or update prompts consumers with a multi page terms of use agreement, somewhere in the fine print, active listening is often included. And you're like, oh, holy shit, okay that's in there. Yeah, your part read you could become widowed the way you could.
I just want to say it's not your fault. That that's the thing that's like unspoken. We all like for a long time, we're like, yeah, we just agree to this. Ship who cares, like, what are we going to do? Read it? But like kind of being like ha ha, we're idiots. No, it's impossible to live life without agreeing to that ship. Like or.
It's like when the when Disney tried to like invalidate that lady's lawsuit by being like, well you watched the TV.
You got Disney plus right, Oh well well well asshole, Look who doesn't read the fine print because you gave up your I thought we couldn't kill you.
The plus stands for negative rights, right.
Yeah, yeah, that's funny.
Also, like really fucked up with them to call it active listening after everything I learned in school about how important act is.
Yeah right, right right, But.
They're doing a woke is up you got.
There, very smart.
They're therapy speaking their way through surveillance. States.
Well, they've been active listening in all those classrooms, so they heard the teachers teaching kids that active listening is good. So that's how they got the idea that are like, yeah.
You're just sitting there like on your phone, and their friend's like, oh that's nice. You're like, what's the fun They're like, I hear you, I.
Get I've got a new idea, what the fun? But yeah, so these are the people that the daily episode is like, we don't it's too soon to tell. But I don't know. It just feels it feels like it's not too soon to tell if having smartphones in school is better than not having them in school. I just don't.
Yeah, And I'm sure, Hey, I know there are people who are educators that listen to this show. I feel like you even people who I know who are teachers and stuff, they always talk about how much of a distraction it is, and depending on the school, you have policies or they're like just it's like lightly discouraging, or it's like a huge problem if your phone comes out. But it just feels like a thing where it's like if you if if it's an emergency, there there are ways for you to be contacted.
That's yeah, no, no, no, for sure, And it's probably you know, enforced in a really fucked up way where like the teachers being the front line are just forced to deal with kids who are addicted to their phone.
Hey, try and get these guys the cold Turkey heroin in your in your in your in your eighty minute class.
Yeah, yeah, you're acting like the students or the problem. When I'm sure the teachers are like, please, don't make me give up my phone. They're like please, Yeah, no, we shouldn't have phones in classrooms, but they should all be in my drawer. I'm on a candy crush Crush Street.
Okay, Hey, someone hooked me up with some credits. You can transferm you can transform if you have my email.
He needs who needs extra credit?
Yeah, oh my god. I had a teacher like that. Did you ever ever ever teach you wanted extra credit? I need some extra credit, dude. We had a teacher, my biology teacher sophomore year, said we could get like, uh, like a.
Half letter grade adjustment upward if we donated to the cross country running team.
That's fucking insane.
And we were like, yeah, yeah, say let's say let's because I'm not fucking with the I'm not fucking with cell respiration, So yeah, how much you want?
Ten bucks?
And I remember and then it then I remember, like at the time, I was like, this is great, dude, ten bucks and I don't have to study. And then a student who was much smarter like went to the school and was like, uh, they're saying if we give them money, they'll change our grades. And like the teacher had to give us all our money back, but then also had to keep our grades like with the adjustment too. Wow no, no, yeah, we got the grades and our money back.
And we're like there you go, thank you go. Yeah. Away, all right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back, and we're back Hello the internet. There he is always, he's just always ready to you know, hop bitch, Yeah he is.
That's right.
All right, Let's check out Jesse Waters because he just blasted Tim Walls for not being masculine enough. And we know that's true because a women that Jesse Waters personally claims to have talked to don't want to fuck Tim Walls, gotcha and b and uh So that one you might be like, okay, hearsay, your honor, Well be we have actual scientific evidence, an expert witness, your honor. I bring Jesse Waters to the stand, who has a theory on why.
I think not even a theory, right, I feel like because this has been born out scientifically, I think we can call this a long now right, Yeah, yeah, this is it helps me.
That helps me not having seen this yet, Yeah, so what this is going to be exactly?
Now, take everything Jesse Waters says as just absolute, immutable truth that you must accept.
Here's Jesse Waters on his take on masculinity.
Women love masculinity and women do not love Tim Walls, So should just tell you about how masculine Tim Walls is. The other day you saw him with a vanilla ice cream shake, had a straw in it. Oh, ice cream, that tells you everything, Judge, Janine.
Judge Janine, over to you. Sorry, it was that he had a straw in it, and that tells you everything you need you know.
Yeah, yeah, no, we know, we can tell when we are all in agreement.
Obviously I haven't been used. I didn't even think you had to say that. Everyone knows that if you drink through a straw, that's yeah, unmasculine.
Oxygen to live. It's like what yeah yeah yeah. Also, real men don't go fucking uh snorkeling because that shit sus as hell. Dude, having a fucking sle in your mouth. Dude, having a straw in your mouth.
Dude.
Even when I go to the dentist, I don't even let them do the suction for to get my survival.
I just let him pull out and just fall.
Out of my face, all over my face because I have no tube in my mouth.
You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Man, you look like Rocky with just bloods, looking like a million dollar baby.
I've been intubated or something. Dude, fucking tough ship.
I saw this beta horse eating straw, and I got so straw eating eating straw.
I threw a hamburger.
As hard as I could at that thing, stupid brainless head, and it's stopped and it ate that, and I'm like, there we go make progress.
It's it's it's wild that he's been like holding onto this for a very like it's part of his brand. Obviously, weird takes on masculinity. It's a thing he tends to come back to the way I come back to the cold gas study or Havanas right right right, right, right right. But it's so I'm not gonna begrudge him that, but I am a little confused why he thinks it's so compelling.
Well here, like, you know, let's just let's this is from last year when again.
He was like, dude, did you see that fucking guy using a fucking straw?
Is he Okay, this is again Jesse Waters with his straw straw Man Takes.
On Monday, I covered Joe Biden's Thanksgiving trip to Nantucket. He Poller plunged at a little Black Friday shopping with Hunter, and he called one of our correspondents stupid. And we're willing to look past that little outburst. But some things we just can't let slide.
And then straw of Joe Biden.
Now, if you've seen me on the Five or on Prime Time, you know I recommend that all men refrained from using straws the way a man's lips purse. The size of the straw is just too dainty, the way your fingers clasp on it.
No, come on, wait, I'm sorry. You like a size? Is he like a size?
He's like, I don't like like I want to I want to wrap my I want stretch marks on my mouth when I when I sip from a sto, that's some little puny.
Thing, you know what I mean?
I drink through PCP pipe is what what is it called?
I'm smoking out of a piece? Yeah, this is by the way, We've had to edit all the other times Blake is accidentally brought in this episode.
So many and used yeah and used on the show. You know, I like to drink out of a gutter. I like to remove gutters off my house and then you drink yeah through them in ice.
Luish.
I guess I'll We'll let him continue. There's a little bit on the end of this, right Jack, you're saying as he continues to talk about yeah.
Okay, he also has like some some soup takes.
Okay, straws are for women and little kids. But apparently this is controversial.
So then we showed Jimmy Kimmel, who's making fun of him.
Men should never suck anything through a straw?
Is that if a thing? Now, I don't.
Jimmy, you know, I don't apologize that, along with the straws and others one of my many tenants. And I'm sure Trump would agree that wasn't a good look. He's better than that. And as you've heard me say, it's not just straws, Jimmy. Soup is another problem area. Men should need soup in public. Again, you're pursing your lips in anticipation.
Okay, we got a stock photo something soup.
You lean your head out trying not to spill it.
Come on, it's like a balancing act.
Isn't even filling.
Sometimes you have to if it's too hot. It's too hot, dude.
I what what happened in Jesse waters life?
You know what I mean?
When you end up so like so in your head with your like homophobic shit where you're like, dude, fucking like put a tube near your mouth or something, and then you gotta blow on something, dude, And like men should be like fully reclined, laying down, eating with their hands.
That's the only way to eat. Otherwise, you know, I don't know, Look a little only manly way to take in calories is have grapes fed to you while you're being fanned. Yeah, otherwise starved to death with peacock feathers. I mean, based on what we know about Tucker his predecessor, like, one would have to suspect that Jesse Waters as his dad got cooked by like.
A straw straw, Yeah, a straw salesman, A soup guy. I don't know, yeah, the soup. Like people don't even purse their lips to eat soup, as far as I know. Is he talking about blowing on something that's hot, Yeah.
It would just burn your mouth again, it doesn't make any sense. The thing that for me resonated because I do agree with someone what he's saying, you know, more than anything is like you know, like when you're a kid and you take shit from like TV and movies and you kind of like bring that into your personality like most kids thought they were Ace Ventura at some point.
Yeah, or like you're like.
I talked out of my ass literally before and now it's only.
Figured out, but you know what I mean, And like you're kind of like, oh, that's that that thing that character said, I'm going to take that on in my life as a philosophy. But you're like twelve. This guy is doing it like in his forties. Because I don't know if you remember the film Crazy Stupid Love, Like Ryan Gosling's cool guy character tells the nerdy Steve Correll character in that film to knock it off with using a straw because it looks like they're sucking on a little dick.
Oh, I mean, that's he's just like stealing it, you know.
I think I think I think he saw that, and it was like, dude, this Ryan got this, Ryan got my shit. The sickest dude I've ever fucking seen. And if his rule is like you don't sip fucking anything out of a straw to be a man, that's just one of Jesse's laws.
Baby, it is.
What and that idiot only used it for one line. I can stretch this out for years ever. Yeah, really, Jesse.
No straws. Yeah, I'll tell you why.
Gotta push your lips, you gotta tell you, gotta cup the ball, you gotta drink the water.
It's just it's just it's just unbecoming. It's unbecoming, especially not of a president.
So yeah, what you gotta do is freeze the soup and lick it like a block of a popsicle. That's how many soup.
Just lap it up, you know what I mean?
Like a dog, like a male dog.
Yeah, poor tough man dog. Yeah that is.
That has to be haunting to have a movie character's voice ringing through your head like and be like, oh my god, I'm doing the thing Ryan Gosling's character said to not doing that rom com that most people kind of remember.
Fuck yeah, I wonder if it's just like one of his writers is like stealing from that and he's just like confidently like this is good stuff, right right right, we're killing it more stuff like that. Yeah, that's it. It's also like Donald Trump has like talked about the fact that he, because he's a German phobe, will not like drink anything not through a straw, including like if he's at a black tie event, right, will only drink through a straw because he doesn't trust the glasses to be clear.
Yeah, and to the point where like in the Culture Wars they were hawking there, like full PVC pipe straws that they were putting out like in response to like, oh everything's a paper straw or like not plastic anymore by your Trump Maga straws.
It's a big part of the brand.
But anyway, it doesn't matter because nothing is consistent with their outrage. It's just they just say whatever and I'm sorry.
Thing kind of fucked me up because my mother in law for a long time has been complimenting me on how much I like soup because I love Korean soup, since it.
Is a great thing about you, it's one of the only good things. Well, yeah, and you come back on the show, Blake. Yeah, it's because of his love, so yeah you.
And but then recently was like, you know, most men don't like soups. When she was like telling me about soups, and she was like, so that's why we think. It's like so nice that you like soups. And yeah, now now I don't eat soup because I feel like you can't.
It makes me look like, Jack, I made it, made your favorite soup. Yeah, put it on a plate for me. Let's plate that place.
Yeah. Are you gonna don't worry about it in a rocks glass? Oh yeah, burns. It's going all the side of my face. But I gotta have it hot. I'm not gonna blow on it and purse my lips.
No wait, but so she's it was the implication there that soup is truly not a man's food.
I think that is a thing in Creaan culture. Maybe that it's like not or that men are like soup is too easy for you to make make me something that's not sure.
She's a big Jesse Waters fan. Huge.
I mean I should mention that. Yeah, she's like, oh, you want me to get you a straw for your soup? Jack? Like what, because you're a real man, aren't you. Yeah? Yeah. Seventy percent of what she says about me is in Korean within your shot of me, and I don't speak Korean, so she entirely would be like Jesus Chris, She's like wow, She's like I wanted more for you as my daughter, but hey, you know it is what it is. Huh that getting behind me and giving a thumbs down to
everyone else in the room at straw motion? Yeah, what's that? Oh nothing, Jack? Your soup is ready? All right? Should we look at some Halloween costumes? Yes, it's Halloween costume season already, even though it is one hundred and eleven degrees in Los Angeles, which would melt most Halloween costumes, which are made out of yeah, basically rough yeah candle wax. All right, So it has arrived in stores earlier than
ever this year. Target Home Depot and Low's rolled out their Halloween collections back in July, and Spirit Halloween has already opened over a thousand stores in the US, with more to come. Amazingly, Spirit Halloween's worst costume is not the inflatable skibbity toilet, but it's pretty it's pretty bad. Did they have a mask on the skibbity toilet? Like that's what that guy looks like? Because the face the
model a cartoon character. It's yeah, this skip strange, they felt because the head of the skibbity toilet is not It is just a dude with it.
Looks like Elon Musk got ran over by like a steamroller. Yeah you know what I mean. Yeah, lattened it fully out. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. God, your kids aren't asking for a skibbity toilet. Yeah, probably my nephews, but not my kid. That's what they're getting.
Yeah, or made your choice, kids. But probably the worst costume we've seen thus far is a Chipotle theme costume. They're just unicolor body suits that are meant to represent a nap can fork water cup burrito and to go back, And for some reason, all except the burrito cover your entire face. Yeah, why does the burrito get a face hole? And everyone else He was.
The only handsome one, I think is why the others are so ugly. The rest of the guys are the skibbity toilet guy underneath the mask so exactly.
It really just looks like like even if I saw them walking down the street together side by side, I would be like Chipotle branded sleep paralysis demon Like, yeah, why I couldn't have put it together because yeah, none of them really look like the thing they like. The skin tightness of it feels strange. It feels like it doesn't help in any way. Right, Well, like, what's I get that?
It's against morals, it's revealing, it's yeah, it's not. It's indecent. I think it is what. Yeah, I was trying to.
Say it should look like old timey bathing costumes, very baggy down to the ankles. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like one of those things too, Like where I get that. On the internet, people were joking like with like a really nondescript thing and we're like, how m a Chipotle fork and you're just wearing an all black body suit and like that's what they're sort of.
Being like, Oh man, the Internet love that.
Let's make let's do literally that because we're brands and we're so savvy with like internet culture that they're like, hey, now we did it. You guys like it and everyone like this. In the midst of people were like, man, Chipotle's.
Fucking falling off. Yeah, they're like, well you think we've fallen off, Well, we've been investing money and we're going to do nothing. Yeah, we're gonna do this with it. Yeah, there was a like meme where, you know, somebody created a fake spirit Halloween costume bag that said Chipotle fork and was just a black body suit and they were like, wait a minute, we have an idea.
No you don't, No, you don't know, you don't, that's not an idea. Idea is yeah, and it's and it's not funny when you do it. It's funny because someone said this this dumb thing is now a Chipotle fork, rather than be like, guess what, this Chipotle fork is now a dumb thing and you're like, yeah, no, no, no, no, I see you know the sequence is, the sequence is all off.
It's all off. Yeah. Yeah. I think the burrito got a breathing hole because it it's suit appears to be made of like a real unbreathable.
Plastic, right right, Yeah, yeah.
You don't want someone to pass away dressed as a Chipotle burrito? Good lord?
I second that it's I mean, like this year, I feel like if we're talking Chipotle, like the costume would have been about like those assholes who are like filming Chipotle workers.
Don't get cheap on me with the carnitas. All right, you know what I mean?
Like that felt like the more of the popular culture thing about Chipotle that was brewing more than.
Hey, I can be a bag. Yeah.
Well, I guess we know what Miles is going to be for Halloween. He's just snapping at.
Service workers.
Nice trying, gotcha. 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 to Miles. He he needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to him one day by st