Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Uh.
These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles, we are killed to be joined in our third seat by one of our favorites. One of your favorites. A stand up comedian, writer, producer, podcaster who you know from Lady to Lady. She performed everywhere from a basement in Whitesburg, Kentucky, to the stage of the Kennedy Center. It's Brandy, Posy, Brandy.
Cleaning up all this glass from all these broken Uh, you killed, you broke all these things over here?
Thank you?
Like what was that movie the tornado flew around in there?
Splash is not like a thing in Splash like shatters all the glass from like talking because her voice is so high pitched.
Anyway, and as some as a problem I thought I was gonna have to be dealing with as an adult based.
On glass shattering.
Yeah, glass shattering because of high pitch noise or bad sounding music or yeah ye they loved that.
Do you think, Yeah, yeah, I think it's in splash.
Yeah, I want to believe it is. I've mean, god, I'm such a fan of Daryl Hannah.
So do you guys feel like Mariah Carey has ever like her assistants have ever had to like fake shatter glass around her because of her voice, just.
Like reinforce it. I mean, as someone who has that kind of range, she's probably you know, her and Ariana Grande probably can get up there with those whistle tones. But that would be funny, like did you did you get the fucking breakaway glass? She's Oh fuck, I'm gonna have to break a real pane of glass once in a while. My hands all cut up from punching the window. Oh, my hands weeding too, and are completely unrelated. No, probably not from putting through a pane of glass anyway.
Yeah, I am googling has always ever broken glass, and according to PBS Learning Media, even resonance produced by sound waves can cause the material to break, such as when a glass goblet is shattered by sound. It is not made up, folks, it's real. Take it seriously. A sufficiently high note r right research also, a sufficiently high note can break glass. According to this person on Reddit and that's all we can trust. Because the Google AI doesn't
know how many rs are in strawberry. I can't successfully answer how many rs are in strawberry because they're wrong.
Oh yeah arguing with it, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, let's move on to.
It's given me a number of wrong answers lately.
It's just not great.
It came out out we were like this is bad, but like probably buggy, and they just like dropped it too early, and then it's like since continued to be bad because it's just they don't have the technology to crawl that many resort results and get the right answer.
It's going to be fun to tell our kids and nieces and nephews and stuff later, like twenty years from now.
Yeah. The Internet used to have the answers.
Yeah yeah, yeah, right, used to be able to find them. Yeah, but now it's like buried under auto auto finds. This is your friend who is going to tell you confidently the wrong answer. So basically like what it was like before the first five years of the internet.
Yeah, the Internet is just a guy at the bar now, yeah.
Right, or being in sixth grade, you know what I mean. Like, that's just where we're going to go revert to It's like someone told me that, Like you really think Richard Gear did that with a bunch of Gerbils. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I do think that I'm a truther on that one. In this household we live, Yeah, we need one of those signs. Twitter is always X is always Twitter.
Of his and Taco bell is health food.
Yeah, Brandy, the Kennedy Center, I just wanted to be clear that was we performed on the stagees of the Kennedy Center. That was the Robert F. Kennedy Junior Center.
Yes, absolutely, It actually was a dumpster behind his house for his bones.
Yeah, I just want to make sure it wasn't the Washington DC one named after Kennedy j from m t V.
Yeah yeah, yeah Fox Now on Fox, Yes one of ours.
Yeah, hers as actually her Kennedy Center is actually just is a is a cyber truck that people also think is a dumpster?
That's right? What is something from your search history?
Okay, I googled dunkle Latte. Have you heard about these?
I can almost in for where it's from and what it might be about.
My friend was like, I've been hearing about these dunk a lattes. Let's go get one and for.
Very kind of Jamie not my friend at it.
It actually wasn't, but it was our mutual friend Bryant who he Jamie and I are in a group chat together called wait for it, all of Garden friends.
But so you're a't Olive Garden, but at the Olive Garden you're not friends your family, So what's going on with you guys?
That's the thing. We're very it's we're very subversive.
Okay, kind of energy in that way.
It's like when we're all of Garden, we're friends, is how WOW feel about it.
And so.
Group chat together and we were making because it's right now, endless like limitless pasta the Olive Garden and so we were trying to figure out when to go and then Brian was like, well, I also need to get a dunk a latte. And so if you don't know, apparently and this is this is what I learned upon my Internet search. It is a latte that is made from espresso and then something called coffee milk. And you're like, what's coffee milk?
It is cereal milk. I have not heard of coffee milk.
Coffee milk is a blend of whole milk and coffee extract.
Coffee extract, okay, yeah.
So I guess they mix that together and that's the milk, and then they put espresso in that, and that equals a dunk a latte.
Huh.
Now I know.
You have you taste tested it?
I have not. Yeah, we have not. Well, we've made grand plans to go to Olive Garden and then go to Duncantone.
This is or whatever it's called. I mean, but a latte is espresso with the steamed milk.
Yeah, but this is taking it one step.
Further, espresso with steamed coffee milk. So it's just adding like a redundant coffee layer to this.
Yeah, there's just extra coffee. I guess.
Oh so is it like higher caffeine because there's like a coffee extract. Let me, let's find out.
I'm on it, Miles. Yeah. So we're looking at it like thirty eight milligram's total for the small dun Collette that do anything for old Banjo eric or not? Yeah, I mean that's not bad. That's pretty good. That's about as much as a you know, drip blonde roast of Starbucks but you know, drip coffee is actually more highly caffemated than people give it credit for, and espresso less caffeine because it's so little rite the amount sure, sure, sure, okay, huh,
but it's a it's a solid amount of caffeine. This all feels like I don't know when something goes viral from Duncan or like what Starbucks are you know, one of these coffee chains, it's usually they're doing way too much, right, it's like a pino corn thing that looks like cotton candy or some ship. But this just feels like they've invented something called coffee milk and are doing a latte with coffee milk.
Yeah, and I'm surprised it doesn't already exist.
Right, you know, yeah, well they they made coffee milk, so of course it doesn't exist. That's cutting edge technology. They use the large hay drunk collider to invent coffee milk precisely, and.
They got Kristin Wig. This like whole, They really launched this whole. Duncan dunk a.
Lot at it. They're like you can get.
And the sweatpants.
Oh yeah, you're gonna want to dunk a latte yeah, I think so, that's cool. I'm trying to imagine wanting a big, creamy dunk a late after a bowl of endless pasta, and I can't. I can't get there. Yeah, but I'm sure. I'm sure it's possible.
I just like it's a it's a pairing that makes that makes perfect sense palate.
Yeah, I'm not there yet. Okay, Yes, Jason, what is something do you think is overrated?
I think all of the panic about like fake news generated by AI and it was deep fakes for a while, and all of that to like generating a completely fake story from whole cloth is not and has never been the real threat. I think the way that the news media manipulates you will always be based on what stories they choose to cover and not cover, Like all of the news outlets choosing not to publish those hacked Trump
emails and side they're going to sit on that. But like the thing that you guys, you know, referenced about the story with the Haitian immigrants eating the pets. The reason that fake story worked is because Fox News had been laying the groundwork for years by just cherry picking actual crimes. Because in a country of three hundred million people,
you can find a trend, whatever trend you want. So anytime a an illegal immigrant ran a stoplight, Fox News ran that as a headline and creates by just carefully sorting through. Again, you know, if a report comes out that says, well, actually, you know, native born people are more likely to commit crimes and immigrants, you simply you
simply don't report it. Yeah, And likewise, like this thing with the you know, the governor North Carolina and the guy that is Mark Rabinson's his name, but all that crazy scan like Fox News devoted like seven minutes to that yesterday, Like they simply just bury it in they're broadcast.
That will always be.
The way by which people get into bubbles and get programmed. It's not it does not require the fake news stuff will be a problem. It doesn't require a hoax. Just filtering what you report and choose not to report will always by far be the most powerful thing, because for the most part you're sticking to things that are real. It's just that they're not representative of what's going on, but you can absolutely create the impression.
That they are.
Yeah, just a wild selection bias has always been the way that the US media tends to operate because it's a big country and they know what stories they can get a lot of eyeballs on because they're scary and reinforced preconceived fears and beliefs.
And probably like the easiest way to manufacturer consent too. It was just by being like, and what if we just tell people about this all the.
Time, and now when the decision comes to do something awful, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense. I didn't know that. Like they so they're just not
publishing the Trump emails. They're because the political The Washington Post, I think jud Lugum also at Popular Information said he was offered these documents, and he said because he was involved in the Podesta emails and he just doesn't think that anything in the emails are necessarily of note outside of just showing like a shitty campaign.
That was like his logic. But then it's also like, well, what's the logic of these other papers, because they were more than willing to publish the emails in the last like in the twenty sixteen cycle. But it's yeah, it's just kind of like, well, what what exactly, like tell us what the the logic is of it.
Yeah, but yeah, that's that's sort of like where I feel like that story's kind of out at the moment. Yeah, we were talking about this a little bit last week with regards to there was a Russian creative fake media like fake a local news story about Kamala Harris like running someone over in her car and then like driving away in San Francisco, and like people were just you know, you could see that it was a fake news site that doesn't actually exist. They created the URL two days before.
It wasn't overly convincing, and it didn't seem to like get that much media attention other than the debunking of it got a lot of attention. Whereas you know, just Elon Musk having as many followers and as much sway as he has just tweeting any dumb bullshit absent mindedly is pretty I think, more influential than I want to believe it is. Also, well yeah, now especially with the block function being like, ah, even if you block me, you're still going to see my bullshit.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that the thing with Hillary's emails in twenty sixteen, I think that is the perfect cause sample of what I'm talking about here, because that was the case where I think if you interviewed one thousand people both sides and said, can you summarize what was scandalous about her emails the whole but her email theme, which became the number one story that entire campaign because those were released in a drip feed where it's like a
new revelation every day, can you summarize what the deal was with those emails and why that should be a deciding factor in who you vote for. I think not five people in a thousand could accurately explain. But when The New York Times has Hillary clinton emails as the a one story every day Hillary Clinton email scandal, by putting it at the top of the front page, you are saying that it's important. You are saying that it's huge and impactful, and this must be a terrible crime
that's been like this must be disqualifying. So even if you watching it don't fully understand what's bad about it or what it means or whatever, it doesn't matter because giving it that place on the front page indicates that it matters, and it's a negative story. So he's saying, Hey, all the other stuff in this selection not important. This
email server, your personal email server. Security candidates using personal email for like, that's what matters, that's the thing that's at stake in the selection, and they set the agenda that way. Again, the stuff they were reporting wasn't fake, it's just the amount of spotlight they chose to give to it as opposed to anything else that created the impression that it is I think as false, as in something that was you know, that had been gend up out of whole cloth.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think yeah, it gave a look into like sort of what was going on in the DNC. But then people like John Podesta called a guy a prick and this is his risotto recipe and what. But they're at the same time like, uh, you know, Colin Powell also had a private email server. A lot of people like what what, what what's the emphasis about? But yeah, now it's just very much like it's not in the public interest. Blake, what's something you think is underrated?
Underrated?
Cuckoo clocks? We have clock, don't don't you there?
The anti cooker?
Okay, go on, go on?
Why was that was that a hard like Jesus being a foot curver?
No?
No, something cute? No, I'm just gonna take the foot. I'm like anticipating, just laughing really hard. That's I'm like, get the fuck out of here, because I know you about Okay, go on, I don't I don't have to tell you what this uh what this pick makes me do? Makes me go cuckoo yep, because your cuckoo for cuckoo clocks. Yes, thanks for your problem for cocoa clocks.
But by my friend Todd and I used to have a bit where it'd be like, toddlast, I don't Yes, yes, it would be like, did you hear about I'm about our friend Eric. Yeah, he's in really bad shape. He cuckoo for cocoa puffs and he's so he's sick. He's completely sick. He knocks on the door in the middle of the night trying to get them. But yeah, no, I think I don't know if you notice, most clocks
don't have a bird that comes out of them. I would say fifty five percent of clocks don't have birds that come out, Yeah, but the ones the other forty five percent do And I love the fact that it kind of helps you keep track of the day and kind of takes the edge off of the eternal clock ticking towards your death off a little bit where it's like I lost another hour, but loose listen to how many times the bird? Yeah, it's like it's really not that bad.
Full of life it Wait, cuckoo's for every hour? Is that how it works too?
Like how grandfather oh Man when it hits eleven o'clock saw, Yeah it is bad. You're like, yeah, it's actually cuckoo for punctuality. Yeah it is, you know stick or ye, so assuming cuckoo for punctuality?
So what so wide are that bad? But yeah, no I love them. But one o'clock, two o'clock three, we're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
This show is no good.
We really are.
We're gonna show the show is.
I wonder if people like didn't recognize it was bad when it was just recorded, but now that there's like a video component, like, wait, what the fuck are we listeners?
Okay, this is people, this is people with brains.
They're just saying nursery rhymes right now. All right, let's take a quick break and come back and talk about a Bridger ten themed ball.
We'll be right.
Back, and we're back. We're bad it's true. We are, We're back, we are and this is yeah, this is.
The theme giving Glasgow, Yep, Willy Wonka Chia Factory, a little bit.
A lot of lot of scammy balls and fan events out there, and yeah, it's happened again. So obviously, like Bridgerton is a huge show with a ton of fans that would like love to pretend that they are in the show. I totally get the appeal, Like it has its own aesthetic and like musically, you know, bashion wise,
et cetera. And so Netflix knows this, and they have a legit event called the Queen's Ball that has like gone like traveled across the country and world like cities like in like La New York, Melbourne in Australia, and it's like a fucking full on production, like set recreations.
They have actual outfits from the productions that you can look at really like a portrait photo, booth themed bars with bartenders dressed in period clothing, a dance show like a queen that shows up and chooses a diamond of the evening. It's like an event and that Netflix already has tickets starting at thirty nine dollars. So I'm like, okay,
that's not bad. So when people in Detroit, reasonable, yeah, when people in Detroit heard about a Bridgerton ball with tickets costing anywhere from one hundred and twenty dollars to one thousand dollars, people got excited.
The web miles my brain when I hear okay, the other one's forty dollars, this.
One starts at one hundred.
To be it's gonna be three times better minimum at least that is. Yeah. I'm such a sucker for ship like that. Oh yeah, that's that's definitely fan math. High price equels good goodness. We have the website said is it made in America? Can I ask you that is the effect? Because I know the shows in Britain? But is the event made in America? The event is built
for it tough. Yes, it is built for tough exactly. Okay, it's patriotic, but so the the on the event website it said, step into the enchanting world of the Regency era at the Detroit Bridgerton Themed Ball, join us the highatt Regency that was the Regency era that we were.
Two thousand and two to two thousand and we know it's a bando now, but we've turned it into a whimsical event space. So it says, join us for an evening of sophistication, grace and historical charm. Experience a night like no other, filled with music, dance, and exquisite costumes. But this event started off shaky though. The event was originally supposed to happen in late August, but at the last minute organizers had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances
and people didn't get a refund. That's the first red flag for people. Okay, they rescheduled it to this last weekend, and people still shelled out the money to get in on the unique experience and paid a lot of money. Also, like people were dressed up like custom custom made outfits, doing their hair, all kinds of shit like that, and what they got was not quite what was advertised here, Like this is from a local news report about the would be fantastic event.
The way that it was described is that this was going to be a Bridgerton evening. We were going to have classical music, good dinner, and there was going to be a play and they were gonna pick dime into the season. They were going to give away all of these prizes and we went in and it's gonna share hip.
Me in there.
Organizers Uncle in the LLC have since disabled its website and turned off social media comments. I reaching out to the co owner, Chelsea Beard as early as five am Monday Monday afternoon, Seven News Detroit's Whitney Bernie also called.
And then doorstep in someone.
They got no response.
Okay, and yes you did have a hype man who was also like a play because they really if if either of us ever gets interviewed for a local like what something terrible happens to us, we have to make a promise right now the other of us will go and.
We should just be for news cruise just to be normal. Yeah, exactly, And I'll just do like West Sky, I'll do West Side Gun fucking like anyway.
So the event was fucking shaky. The the like the event space was empty.
Uh. The food was some regular ass buffet that ran out within one hour. I put a picture here in the dock that you can see that is it.
Shi.
It is all giving like a mediocre prom. It's like a line outside like the Yeah, the food, I guess does proms have food? Maybe maybe it's like a cash bar wedding.
They have food. Yeah, they have Blake's. I'm a prom king is what I have. So this ship was like you know the they said, people weren't even scanning your like tickets at the door. There was like nothing, So Randalls are just walking in and eating the food that ran out within one hour. Like I said, the Netflix event had a full bar. They were promising people drinks. The only drinks they had was I'm not joking blue kool aid. You had to buy. That was the only
beverages on sale for people. They were promised libations. Okay, they marked it up too. Apparently the woman who is playing the queen people were saying was totally out of character while basically hustling her business card to anyone that would listen. So I think you could pose and take a picture and she was like like, okay, that's my favorite detail, just not even in characters, like okay, yeah, so if you need me, this is my card. Yeah, good to see you. Okay, I'm the Queen of Detroit
Real Estate. I'm a real order here. Why don't I answer, I'm Detroit's muffler queen. You got any muffler problems? You come see me, okay, car making too much noise here. It takes absolutely oh shut that car. Yeah.
There are pictures from inside the event that have like promotions for other like events on the wall and shit, like it's supposed to be this immersive thing and it just looks like you're inside a fucking yeah bus stage.
My favorite part is like, so there was a main sort of dining room floor that filled up immediately, so people were relegated to the upstairs that was this It was just a fucking empty room like yeah, bummed out people in the nicest fancy dress like sitting like on their phones, like, man, this shit was it looks like a radicon. Yeah, not a high regency honestly.
No, not even a region. The live music they were promised, okay they had live music.
It was. People felt so bad for this woman. It was just this young woman on violin by herself, who played they said, for like four hours straight, damn no breaks, just having to work that violin. I don't know how many times you can play, you know, Desposito on violin
for people, But that's what she did. Classy though, it is, I mean, look shout out to what is it that vitamin string quartet that their entire catalog blew up because they were using their like sort of rethought up remixed current songs with like string arrangements throughout the show.
M hmm.
They said that, right though, right, well, what if we played yellow on violin? Yeah, we had one of those of my wedding fys. Oh really?
Oh yeah?
Have you heard clocks on cello?
Yeah?
Actually it kind of goes is that that's a Cold Play song? Is that? Yeah? Cloths? Are we making fun of this? Are we saying that we like it because I was making.
Fun of it and also saying that I fully did it at my wedding?
This shit goes hard. But like the backdrops again, this is supposed to be a like again anywhere from one hundred and twenty to one thousand dollars. You could see like they just unfrilled some plastic rose like tablecloth print and they're like, and that's your backdrop for photos. This is this poor lady having to serve a bunch of angry, upset people in fancy dress. The food, and then the dancing. Right, the dancing was one exotic dancer. They wheeled out the
play or whatever. They wheeled out like one of those like, you don't need a ceiling to put this pole up for someone to dance on. And then this is the quote unquote entertainment for the evening. I'll just play quick clip this. I don't remember this. These four people remember you weren't looking hard enough because obviously.
There was string music. Okay, the Royal pole Dancer has arrived. Now please get out your singers, get out your shillings for this intrepid young business person. But yeah, like every other fucking scam event, the organizers are saying anything but sorry, here's your money back.
This is what they said. Quote. We understand that not everyone had the experience they This is like almost like identical to the fucking Glasgow Willy Wonka one. We understand that not everyone had the experience they hope for at our most recent event, Sunday Night at the Harmony Club, and for that we sincerely apologize. Our intention was to provide a magical evening, but we recognize that organizational challenges affected the enjoyment of some guests.
We take full responsibility and accountability for these shortcomings. Please know that we are working diligently to address all concerns to ensure that all guests have the enjoyable experience they deserve. Your feedback is invaluable, and we truly appreciate both the
positive and constructive comments shared with us. They deactivated their webs like, they took down their website, they took down fun and everything you can, like there's no comments, Like all the comments are disabled on their Instagram account, so that's where things are, and people are basically out a lot of money.
Unfortunately this one.
It seems like I don't know if this is funnier or sadder, which is a question I ask myself about pretty much any topic. But because a lot of these had to do these scam events were geared towards children, sure, yeah, right, yeah, and this is one of the first ones that's geared towards adults, so like it is sadder in a way where at least you could get angry. We're like, oh my god, these people they deceive my child, and like yeah, yeah, yeah,
I feel some more righteous anger. Yeah yeah, that was just like, oh, I wanted to have a nice, magical evening as a princess, took this away from it.
I mean yeah, like as someone who is part of a few fandoms like I totally understand the urge to do something like this, like you know, someone is creating the world that you secretly want to live in, or not even secretly, you tell everybody about how you wish
you lived on a Corellian cruiser. But people, I think this is the thing to your point, Blake, for an adult event like this, we have to be more diligent when it comes to assessing the bullshit because you start just like vague clip art and stock images from the show without anything really being there.
And again they canceled the first event. I was looking on Instagram. Someone claimed in a comment they worked for the first venue and they said the reason the first event was shut down is because the event planners did not fully pay out all the deposits they needed to to actually hold the event. Now, I don't know if that's how true that is, but red Flags, you already paid one. They didn't give you a reach. The company that the.
Company that organized it was called Uncle and me LLC, So I don't know. I don't know why that gives you the sense that they're going to do a good job of putting on a Bridgerton Galla.
Yeah, have you ever done anything with your uncle, and it was like, okay, I remember like helping my uncle bill something wasteful.
Yeah, it's a support group for perverts, is what you would call. Uncle, And me like that's what that should be called.
I big unc energy.
But huge unc energy.
I got scammed recently where with stand up, which I should know better, Like this is a thing where I should know better. I've been doing this long enough. Where there was this a book or a quote unquote book er being like, hey, we're putting on this event. It's uh Keenan Thompson is presenting it and it's a talent event, and I'm like, it's saying he's hosting it. He said he's presenting it, and it was very vague as to like who the like talent bookers were going to be there.
And I'm like, all right, this thing's not costing me money. It's five minutes from my place, Like it's really no sweat off my back if this is a scam. But this seems like a scam, Fuck it, I'm going for it. I'm like, Keenan Thompson is also in France for the Olympics right now, Like I know he's not coming to.
This parifiably not even on the same content. But you're like, I'm watching him with Kevin Hart on NBC right now. I know he's not flying back for this shit. And uh, yeah, it was a total ripoff, but it was funny because it didn't cost me money, whereas if it cost like one hundred and twenty bucks a thousand, but like that is.
So you it's doubled the book. So they booked you for this gig and you're like, I'll do it, and then you showed up and there just was no gig, or just was no Keenan.
There was no Keenan. There were no talent book like you know, like agents or like you know, talent bookers. So it was just some scumbag from Atlantic City and stand up. I did, stand up killed, but it was all,
you know, like the organizer, who fucking I killed? I committed, Yeah, first degree murder and we're trying to get that down to manslaughter because no one's ever Hey listen, I have passion for everything I do, particularly crimes of And yeah, it was a thing where you know, they clearly were taking the door the money. This was the saddest part is that the audience who did pay money. Thought Keenan
Thompson was going to be there. So there were like two hundred and fifty audience members there, and then the host in passing is like.
All right, everybody, we got a great show for you tonight.
You know, Kenan couldn't make it, but I think and then you just heard the whole crowd go oh it was.
Such did people get up?
Couldn't make it. But he's still confidently and fully presents this.
Yeah, but we we are using his name with or without his knowledge, so there's that.
Please don't tag him in anything. Don't tag him.
Got a bunch of seasons desists already A yeah, you know it is dealing these stars. I'm sorry that that it didn't work out for you, but you know we're here to support you.
Thank you. Yeah. I think those Bridgerton things.
Are going to be more and more calm, Like I
think this is just the beginning. Like we I read an article about the orb or whatever the fuck is, you know, the sphere in Las Vegas, and like that is part of this big like thing that whoever like advertisers and marketers whoever like, creates psychographic networks like says that is like it's the big thing that people just like want immersive experiences because our lives are bad, and so we're like, they're like, yeah, they just like want to feel like they don't exist in the context of
their lives. They want to feel like they are in some other world. And so I think other than the ORB, the ORB is the only one that I've like heard of that like consistently people are like, yeah, it's really weird, like you don't feel like you're on the planet at all.
From some people.
Some people are like, yeah, it's just a weird bed motion sickness experience. But like if you go to like disney Land or Disney World, like as an adult, it does like that. That's what that whole experience is about, is like immersive feeling like you're not there, And it
still feels kind of to me, not to everyone. Obviously, they're like Disney adults who like love Disney, and I think that's great, but like, to me, it still feels like you're like in a bar when the lights come on, like on your childhood.
Right, yes, yeah, because you don't just see many and you don't just see like goofy or whatever. You also see a guy vomiting. Yeah, in the corner, you know, like it's you do get the whole right, Yeah, that's why it's you know, for kids, it's they don't they have tunnel vision, like they see like, oh my god, it's it's you know, I'm trying to think of a celebrity equivalent for an adult. Jeff Bezos was the Oh my god, it's Bezosozos. Have you been to Amazon Land.
It's one of my It's incredible, And everybody's.
Gonna be disappointed in because I think the the ideal that we have is like most of being like transported by an immersive experience is mostly from our childhood. I totally sympathize with it. I think like we all crave that, especially more and more in the current environment of a disintegrating empire. But I do feel like we're just going to continue to have stories where people are like, yeah, yeah,
come on in here. If you just go through that door, it's fully immersive and like you're gonna forget the world that you live in.
There's there's like a sports bar like a venue downtown called or not by the Sofide like in Inglewood called Cosm that's basically a half spear screen where they show sporting events now and it's like a like it's the fucking screen is oh yeah wild and they show like soccer games there and I was gonna go see Arsenal play, and like the tickets are so much money, it's unbelievable here, Like this is just give you an idea of like what these seats look like. God, like, look at this.
It's prob oh my god. Like, so it's a full it's like two levels and you can buy like a booth has eight seats and it's like three hundred or four hundred dollars. It's a shit ton of money just to watch on like a freaky screen. But again, I think for a lot of people, especially if you like to watch sports in a new way, it's kind of
worth the money. But yeah, like everything is just becoming more and more immersive, and like they pump stadium sound into there and they try and give you a feel of like hey can't make the game, give us ninety dollars to sit down and like yeah, it's like I could just go to the game right yeah, to your to your point miles, Like that's you know. Arsenal plays in London, you can't just go to the game, so
there must be some people who love fans in other countries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like, hey man, you know, doing drugs is pretty cool, and you're like the real thing I've read.
All right, let's uh, let's take a quick break and we'll come back.
And we're back.
We're back, and NATO wants to improve your movie going experience. No wonder Biden was so reticent to drop his bragging about NATO. You know, NATO's about to do big things. They're planning to put two point two billion dollar investment into Oh I'm sorry, this is the National Association of Theater Owners. I love that they are just sticking with that, like we're actually the more famous NATO. So yeah, everybody
should just shut the fuck up. And if we're that NATO, ask them if they're that NAT, because they're not.
We're not.
We are that NATO. They're gonna invest two point two billion dollars in movie theaters to fix problems that I personally didn't notice movies having. But yeah, Kaitling, you go to more movies than I do.
Thank you so much.
Are you ready? Was this something you're asking for? They're like asking for. They're like, well, I had bowling alleys and video game arcades like nineteen eighties. Shit, better air conditioning and better projectors, and I don't.
Line down to where the movies are played. It's dope, it's fresh, it's cinema arcave, all right, work.
Great world reference. That was wonderful. Uh yeah, I don't want any of that stuff necessarily. What I do want is honestly more air conditioning. Bad idea. AMC's are too cold, freezing, oh my god, freezing, and so like lay off the AC and it's like and they're too loud.
You need to pack for mountaineering to like go to an AMC. It's fucking freezing there. Yeah, you know layers.
So this is so NATO, right. They represent the likes of AMC, Cinemak, regal cinemas, and they control about like seventy percent of the market. So they're talking like we're putting two point two billion, like twenty one thousand screens basically.
And I think ever since Barbenheimer summer, like the industry has been really positive, like the theater industry has been really positive, like that the movies are fully back, but now they want to evolve in order to compete with like smaller chains that offer premium experiences like IPIIC or Alamo Draft House, And we're like, how do we get
in on that? So again it's like Arcades, it's bowling better, better sound systems, Caitlin, better seating, improving concessions, and like all this other stuff new signs, revamped carpeting, which you're like, okay, But they also said that the competition, the quote competition
for consumers hard earned dollars is fiercer than ever. But I'm like, is making the movies a more premium experience the way like if you acknowledge the hard earned dollars part, but then make the move like, then make the movies easier to go to, rather than be like, well now you got recliners and shit this year forty five bucks for a ticket, right, And the.
Thing that gets me to see so many movies is any is like a pass a movie, pass the amc A list, because yeah, movies are inaccessible price wise, right for most people unless you have some kind of thing like that. The reason I go to AMC's is because I have the thing. So they need to like incentivize people that way, right, not by being like we have a bowling alley now, and it's like, well, I'm not I'm going to see a movie. I'm not gonna go.
I'm not going to fast bowling. I get that they probably see an opportunity with like families and shit like that, but like to your point, Caitlin, like if the point like if I think the emphasis should be on ease rather than like so there's more friction as it can. So for example, I saw Beetlejuice Beetle Juice the other night, and when her Mazinye, and I were looking at tickets,
we based our decision on the price. You're like, how come to fucking Grove is like ten bucks more than this other theater that's like closer, Like fuck all that, Like I'm gonna pay fucking thirty dollars to be disappointed in a movie. I'll pay I guess twenty to do that. So, like I get though too, like on a premium experience
is nights for like a date night. But I just like, if I get the itch to see something, I don't want to pay more and be like, well I need all this other shit, Like I've I've always been fine with a dark theater that has a functioning chair that isn't dirty, and it's reasonably temperature controlled, and that's fine. I don't need to fucking like I don't think the reason I'm gonna sit down and sit through Sonic the Hedgehog seven is just because I get to eat pizza in a suede recliner.
Like, no, you're gonna go for the film Gry one of the characters is called Miles.
Yeah, they do have those, like what are the what's it called? I think there are a few different versions of this, but they basically you watch a movie ever heard of it?
And please.
It's an existing movie, like one that came out probably ten twenty years ago, but it's like a beloved movie, and then they design a menu around it, and then they bring out so like, for example, this is a thing with Shrek, so you buy a ticket to this like Shrek experience where at certain points of the movie they bring out food like the food that they're eating on screen, and they're like.
Oh.
Yeah, a little eyeball cocktail and you drink that, but it's whatever apple juice or some shit. So I would pay more money for like a fun immersive experience like that, but that's only like something I would do once every six months or so.
Yeah, so something like.
That, I get it, but don't upgrade your like shitty theater and sticking an arcade that I'm not going to go to and use that to justify higher ticket prices.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, like we this is going to entirely be passed on to us the phone doors.
Like whatever. Two point two billion dollars so much fucking money. Well, and what's crazy is it's because they've made so much money from raising their prices over the years too, that they're like, man, we got a lot of money we can play with right now. And that's kind of like, all right, next phase, make it more expensive, right.
It's also like, don't spend don't give Nicole Kidman twenty five million dollars to make a commercial for the theater that I'm already at right, like like make your concession prices a little lower, because then I'll buy a popcorn. But I'm not going to buy a twelve dollars pop corn.
No, Well, Caitlin, but you can't recreate poetry like Nicole Kidman saying, and we go to the movies because here to come to his.
Place for magic. We come to his place to laugh, to cry, to care, because we need that all.
Really hit that last line where she's like because here it is like it's the fucking best line that's ever been written. It's like it feels good in a place like this.
You sick.
All right, So I'm a weird though I mainly go to the movies because of the movies they are showing there what.
I'm a I'm a sick.
Of banjo, Eric Banjo.
Come on.
The two pictures I've heard that are actually I think would benefit and make like movie theaters more solvent. One is the one that you always talk about, Miles. Do you want to pitch your idea? Yeah, you know, smoke weed in the movie. Yeah, you can smoke weed in the theater. You can or at least vape weed in the theater, or have like designated smoking shows.
Yeah.
Yeah, and like sell weed and like it's basically a glorified like weed cafe anywhere.
Yeah, because half these places got a little mini bar like out front. So just what can burn up whatever? Okay, all right, all right.
One.
The other one is like doing the thing that you said Kaylan about like having the like locally programmed, basically replacing there. There used to be this thing at video rental places where you would have people who worked there who had the same taste of movies as you, and they would have a section of like movies that they were picking. If you create because the other thing that we're lacking other than like independent cinema right now is community.
If you make theaters a place where people can like have like we're all fans of Banjo Eric's taste in movies. Let and like Key shows year every like Wednesday and gives a little speech before and then like everybody comes and like watches like his great movie selections for this month. Like I feel like that would be cool that and you know, especially if it's a place where people can like have drinks and smoke, like that would actually and
local theaters do that. But like I don't know if you're gonna invest in like making this a really cool place, Like it would be great if people could just pay to Like right now, you can rent to theater and screen a movie, but it has to be like one of the movies that's out right now. It'd be awesome if like you could just be like, yeah, like I want to show this movie from the eighties, and like if I let you know, a month and a month and a half in advance, like you know, the fucking
public library can get a book for you. That's like rare, Like why why shouldn't they be able to just like get a digital print or like a print of the movie. And I feel like people would pay for that. It would be a lot of fun.
Yeah, me and my friends want to see Dunstan checks in, Oh.
Yeah a menu, Yeah, Baby's day out, fuck you, and we get on the same page here.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's just like it's just so funny. Like what they perceive as the friction, you know, to getting
more people in the theater. They think it's, oh, this thing has to cease to be a movie theater with affordable prices rather than like I'm sure so many these like you know, movie passes are becoming like huge parts of their business and realizing, oh, maybe like it should just be that it's easier to come to the movies, and that through having more affordable prices and I'm sure you're gonna sell, you'll offset the amount of empty seats you have by having seats that are just reasonably priced
but again, these are mostly publicly traded companies, so line has to go up. And now they're like, yeah, they're gonna love these two point two billion dollars you put into like new seats or whatever. Like I feel like we're at the peak of the cinema experience right now. Like I don't know what else you need to add for people to be like, oh god, there's such a gaping hole in the offerings of what a movie theater is giving people. And I don't think they just don't. I don't see it.
People are craving that four D experience where that is flash water in your face.
With water, make it smell like someone farted on me. Yeah, you call me a dirty, filthy.
Banjo, Eric, Yeah, exactly.
All right. Should we check in with the billionaires because we are always concerned about the billionaires. Over the past four years, we were worried, you know, like Bernie Sanders got a little bit of heat, you know, he got some attent, national attention, and we on this podcast were like, Okay, that is dangerous. What is going to happen to the billionaire's wealth now?
Because what if I become a billionaire?
Yes, news for those of us with a growth mentality. Billionaire wealth has grown by eighty eight percent in the last four years. Fucking percent is so wild after the scene Trump left office, it's grown by eighty eight percent
because the pandemic was really good for them. Because basically every event it turns out in our current system is really good for them, because they will take any opportunity to manipulate the rules to be better for them, and we live in a society where that is entirely possible and will not stop unless they are stopped. So billionaire wealth way up, staggering amount of money that should never be accumulated by a single person.
Right, But if they're not, like, if they're not unburdening themselves of this wealth by buying Nazi memorabilia, Yeah, because.
That's apparently not allowed anymore.
Shout out Harley Crow. So what do they do then? Where do you take your gotten gay?
Well, So the problem with having that much money, we're learning it's bad for us who don't have that much money, also bad for them because they go a little bit crazy and they get very scared of us. When you get that much money, you start to be afraid of all the money you have because it is a unjust, just irrational amount of money that you have, and you turn into Gollam and you start just wanting to be isolated from everything around you and treating everyone around you
like an enemy combatant. And so that brings us to Indian Creek, which is a island that is privately incorporated by billionaires in Miami's Biscayne Bay. Jeff Bezos recently bought in bought like three homes on this island. It is essentially a military fortress at this point, Okay, says guns and stuff. Yeah, yeah, oh well it has so it has basically a cop for every person who lives there. Not quite, but they have nineteen cops and I think
like sixty something people who live there. So if New York had the equivalent citizen too cop ratio, it would be it would have like six point five.
Millions or something like that. It's crazy.
But they all also have private security for it, like Elon Musk travels with twenty travels with up to twenty bodyguards at a time. So this Indian Creek place, it used to be just you know, a place where rich people lived. In Miami. There is a publicly funded bridge that goes to the island that is part of the Miami like city municipality, and it used to be a
thing where like people like this. One guy said, who lives like on the other side of that bridge, on the Miami side of that bridge, said the security is very different from how it used to be, and then recalled a time in the early nineties when he could bring his college friends to Indian Creeksgate and get permission from the police to give them a tour of the island. Now, if he approaches the bridge, the cops start flashing their
lights and order him to back away. Approaches, approach, roaches the bridge, not even on get the don't even fucking approach this. We can tell what you're thinking. And no, don't even fucking come close.
You're visibly too poor to be anywhere near here.
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Threat threat identified. Threat identified. The community on.
The other side of the bridge is called Surf Side, and people are like, uh and on the island they call it surf with an E surf Oh my. So, but if you if you want to approach it or just like be in the same bay as this island, that's gonna be a bit of a problem for the billionaires who live there, because the trees all have AI equipped cameras that watch every boat that passes basically between the island and the horizon and is attempting to determine if it's a threat.
People who like.
Run tours out of Miami Bay are like, yeah, like you will just see a red light, like lock onto your boat and just follow you across the entire bay, and then if you come within a certain distance, the they will, basically the security force will come out meet you and probably give you some bullshit ticket for like creating too large of a week or something. Basically, it's just stay the fuck away from our island Lebowski And yeah, so I don't know, like a lot of the surveillance
technology and weaponry comes from Israel. So that's another kind of detail. We'll link off to the article. It's worth giving it a but in case you're a person who lacks empathy and wants to know why you should care about Gaza and the West Bank from a self interest perspective, it's because the wealthy want to do what Israel does to Palestinian people to all of us, and that is where they're headed. The extremely wealthy want to watch you and monitor your every move in the name of their safety.
I just want to read a couple paragraphs from this article. It was on MSN. I think it was originally written by Business Insider. It says multiple billionaire security professionals I spoke with described an increased interest in security among their ultra high net worth clients. Some are shelling out millions on highly trained bodyguards or deploying high tech surveillance drones. Elon Musk travels with up to twenty bodyguards at a time. Others are building bunkers to wait out the apocalypse in
Indian which we've covered before on Every Green episode. If people want to go find that in Indian Creek, If you somehow have the island wide surveillance dragnet that Bezos and his neighbors have amassed through public funding, it still have to contend with the formidable private dragnets guarding their
individual mansions. And then they speak to somebody who's an expert in this, and he says security has become a really big concern for billionaires now because there's never been more talk about the divide between the haves and the have nots. Says Brian Daniel, who operates the Celebrity Personal Assistant Network, a company that connects billionaires to security staff.
So basically, it by pointing out that they have too much money for the successful operation of a civilization, we are forcing them to arm themselves to the teeth and invest in military technology to aim at us when we're taking a boat by their private island, their private military fortress island.
Ah man, idea.
Look, I also count Brady lives here, so it's everyone from Tom Brady to bezos.
Baby. I don't want to have killer drones. You know, it's the last thing I want. But I'm sorry pours the increase in class consciousness. It's kind of freaking me out, I gotta admit. So now I have to arm the robots with weapons because yes, oh man, I just heard about like proletarian revolution. I don't miss it. It's just like freaky stop, just freaky stuff. So we're gonna go to this island and you will fucking die if you get near the bridge.
How's that every time you point out how much money I have, another gun gets cocked behind me. I'm not even looking back there, but you're gonna hear it. And uh just know that you're making me nervous, and when I get nervous, somebody else shoots you.
So yeah, yeah, why I can't more billionaires just like go in those submarines looking for the Titanic wreckage and then really implode.
Yeah, it's really the greatest.
It was like the best we could hope for.
Can't like sea level rise just consume this island or something too and just render it fucking non like non operational at some point, I know, I mean like maybe not in the immediate future, but I know that is a huge obviously concern in Miami. Yeah, yeah, Miami especially.
I mean it was originally dredged from the bottom of Biscayne Bay, and so it was like man made I believe that's what that means. Originally just a place exclusively for white gentiles, that where they would not allow any non white or Jewish person to live. And the way they enforced that is all electricity was dulled out by the local country club, so if somebody moved there and was either not white or Jewish, they just couldn't get electricity.
So wow, But they they've come along and now they're super woke billionaires who will kill you for not having a high net worth. God make these fuckers sweat more, please, But I don't know, but this is it's interesting how this like the increase in awareness around the absolute greed of these freak billionaires.
It also like manifests and how like different political campaigns are elevated or how discourse is controlled, because yeah, they're like, no, brute, we need to stop with this like conscious shit, Like we we need more ignorant people to like completely ignore the fact that I exist and I might be the architect of a huge portion of climate change or whatever,
or inequality or lack of access to certain things. Please just shut the fuck up, or else you know, more of us are gonna have to vote for Trump unfortunately.
Yeah, you know, it is interesting that they the people who have access to like all the information about like what they're doing to fuck up the world and to keep the proper amount of resources from the rest.
Of the world.
They are like, we better arm ourselves with fucking radar on every tree, Like we we better treat it like a military bunker, because when they find out what we're doing, you know, like it's very telling.
Yeah, they're preparing for a violent backlash from people, and.
So we should do it.
We should.
Like resolution, you're forcing our hands. We're gonna have to put missiles next to the radars now because Yeah, I was telling my friend about this. He was like, why have a bridge? Like why why do they even have a bridge, And the answer is because they have hundreds of laborers coming out because they're all like Jeff Bezos just bought three properties and he's like building them into one giant mega mansion. So there's tons of blue collar
workers having to go onto the island every day. So just a note.
Yeah, what we need to do.
We need to learn a trade, we need to become masons or something.
Get hired electricians.
Yeah right, and then we're like, yeah, we're here to work on your house. And then we do something.
Bad and we make their good their stone fireplace ugly? Yeah, not as good.
What's the new Daisy Ridley movie that's coming out, A New Days rid Daisy or no, which one is it?
Is it?
There's like some movie where it's like activists take over a thing and then it's like it's like all about like it's sort of painting activism, like these like Boogeyman type characters.
Oh yeah, I mean that's coming for sure.
No, But I mean, like it's funny again. How then you're gonna see like movies made that are kind of sort of being like, well, these people suck, because you know, I'd love to see a movie that was about kind of what we're describing Kaitlin, where it's like working people being four steps ahead of billionaires in this race to the end. So like when they think they can close up shop, it's like we had the keys the whole time. Now, Yeah, I know that's.
What the Ministry for the Future covers. If people we've talked about that last year. That's a cool novel that talks about like potential ways to activate some manner of change. But it's also I feel like, if you want to actually sell a movie in Hollywood, that shit's not going to resonate with the studio heads and the people who are approving the movie. The thing that's gonna resonate with them is like, man, it's poor people are like getting scary, right, Yeah, that's why I do.
I don't know.
It feels like now more than ever a phrase that I love to say, we do we're ripe for a resurgence in independent film because right there's better technology that people have access to, and also the studios are just making dog shit. But I also feel like we're kind of in a sticky situation because distribution is now being kind of controlled more and more by the big companies.
But by NATO.
Yeah, by NATO exactly. So I don't know, Like I do hope that there's a resurgence in people making movies that actually are from the perspective of people who don't have a billion dollars.
Right, that's on that SDE.
I highly recommend the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Yeah, which is about like activists who I mean, just watch the movie.
This is what's This is the synopsis for the movie Cleaner, which is an upcoming British action thriller film starring Daisy Ridley. When activists take over an energy company's annual gala held at the Shard in London, some more radical members of their group try to take the guests as hostages, and that's where Daisy Ridley's character enters to to help.
She's the cleaner. She's like, I take care of problems. Knuckle cracked, knuckle crack. She was like apparently a soldier with a secret type of character in the buildings, like I actually do have a such special set of skills, and I don't know why these people would attack the people who are destroying the earth.
With their energy. I don't know. I don't know what exactly the tone is, but that just sounds when you're like, what the tone?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, this billionaire is actually fucking cool.
Oh I'm sorry, just because we're making the earth uninhabitable, you think you can like resort to this kind of extreme shit. I don't think so, Honey, shout out of those words, because.
All right, that's gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, Please like and review the show. If you like the show, uh means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.