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're through to be joined in our third seat, but one of our favorite guests, a very commented writer, stand up the median co host of one of the great film podcasts, The Bechdel Cast. They also happen to have a master
to Graham film. They also happen to have the most anagrammable name in the English language. What so, if you've been given their name in a jumble of scrabble tiles, you may know them as Lauren d Titan or nine hit Dracula or Latin dancer Uti. But to us they will always be Caitlin.
Daronte did Yeah, and my dad is we were discussing previously, Jimmy Duranny.
Yeah. Something going on with that snow or maybe it was the hat.
Because wow, maybe it was the mass hallucinations of the children who thought he came to life. You know what, Joe will like the comedy stylings of Jimmy Durany for years to come.
Oh man, that's oh yeah, that is the most I think that's the Frosty the Snowman song I would play the most on, like the kid friendly Christmas playlist I was playing in the house, was like.
I can't really sing, but it's charming. Yeah. And speaking of charming, Caitlin, how are you doing?
Oh gosh, I am doing period.
I'm doing. You are doing, I'm doing.
You're in the act of doing, aren't well yeah.
Yeah exactly how are you doing?
Oh my gosh, I'm I'm actually still salty that Jack stole the hot sauce from me at the White Elephant party. Oh my god, I actually stole Ian stole it from me and then Jack stole it from the hot one. And I've been meaning to ask you, Jack since that very contentious moment at our holiday white Elephant gift party.
How's the hot sauce? Oh man, I just threw that ship out when I got way too spicy for me.
Spicy ad, you know how I I think Mayo is too spicy on.
It was like a three on this scovel scale, and Jacket is like, oh power move just looking at it.
Catch up the spiciest thing I'll allow my body.
Deranny, what did you walk away with at the White Elephant?
I ended up with a bottle of Jamison, bottle of Jamo.
Okay, some coffee arms, oh, little starter pack brought by yours truly Irish coffee starter pack. Yeah? Yeah, good? Well? Uh. There there was also a twenty five dollars Taco Bell It's actually thirty, wasn't it? Thirty dollars Taco Bell gift card. Yeah, I won five dollars over the limit because I'm kind of a big, big spend. But there was a studio the one percent. There was a gem between my presence, which was diarrhea things that will make you shit your
pants inducing gifts. Yeah, to see it. We love it, don't we, folks? We do? What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Okay?
So here are the most the three most recent things that I've googled. One is our fifty mile per hour winds deadly. Second our one hundhundred mile per our winds deadly. The answer that for fifty is not really. The answer for one hundred is yes wow. And the third thing that I've searched is sad pictures of Garfield, because you know, I find a post about Garfield, and sometimes you just got to find a sad picture of Garfield that.
Genuinely does tell me a lot about how your mind works. Because I'm going to let you know right now, my third search would have been to seventy five mile hour.
No, I mean I got my answer.
I was like, oh, one hundred mile hour winds are deadly?
Are we seeing one hundred right now?
I think it's I think it's supposed to be fifty to one hundred.
Potentially it's a big range Los Angeles Weather Service.
That's a Jesus, what is happening? I didn't even realize this was a thing.
I mean, we are recording this while in a tornado right now?
For sure? Yeah, just in the vortext going by our windows. This is the.
Twister from Twisters sleeping off the Golden Glows, right right, folks?
Am I right? I didn't watch all of the Golden Globes, so I don't think I got that reference. But I didn't.
Oh, I didn't watch any of it, nor did I watch Twisters. I just assume Twister.
Is just assume that one best actor. Yeah, right, I mean, maybe I didn't watch the Twister. Twister, the Twister, the Twister.
It was not. It was nominated for the best uh Best Cinematic Theatrical Experience or whatever was that. I think Wicked ended up winning.
Thats so there was more than one twister in this movie. So some of you the main Twisters, the main twister got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't watch it a weird twister.
No, I need. I genuinely hear that. It's very fun. There's a lot of fun. People keep getting sucked off into the sky as much. Just like to point out out loud while he was watching it to her majesty, sad pictures of Garfield. Maybe, Garfield said, because also ineligible for the Oscars. According to this article, not enough diversity in the Garfield movie.
He should look that. I mean, look, best animated, Best animated feature at least should have been like something that was dominated for it was great.
Oh yeah, are you a huge You're that's right, you're a huge.
Always joways doctor Garfield.
Gar Garfield, Yeah, exact Garfield.
Yeah, I'm genuinely wearing like a Garfield cardigan right now.
Oh my god. Wow.
Yeah, yo, listeners, you're getting fucked by not having this, not having a.
Video that is a beautiful cardigan with a big old Garfield on one of the sides. Miles. We tell the people what he thinks underrated, what we think is overrated? What you got you got? Anything you canted underrated?
A few things I think like you with many observations hit us and we we kept.
Them for this moment.
I will start off with the convenience of watching movies that are out in theaters on your couch.
It's a slippery slope, y'all.
I love going to move to the movies.
I always will, but the ease at which you can summon a new movie and watch it on the couch almost had me thinking, why do I bother going to the theater? Yea, but then you want to go and rent that shit on your couch. And I still can't wrap my head around renting of a temporary stream from like an Apple TV or whatever for twenty dollars. It's like, somehow I can't even fathom that it's cheaper than actually going to the movies. I'm like, no, no, no, twenty
dollars to rent. I go, Brian, is this on the server?
Yeah? Plus you always get mad that I'm laughing at inappropriate moments when I'm taking the video of the movie exactly, I watch and then send to you.
I mean, thank you for sending me that nas Faratu screen cap, But did you did you just film that off your tvither or in the theater? But yeah, that's one. I'm just gonna get through all these. The next one la weather and how I perceive winter. We all know I am obsessed with the cold and not and basically getting my whole shit frost bit okay reference to Jack getting his whole shit bit by yeah.
But yeah.
All I could talk about this break with people who weren't from LA was what is your winter like in the land where you come from?
And then I went to Colorado.
The thing, basically, what I noticed was a lot of places that get snow weren't getting snow as like sort of around the typical time, thanks climate change. I was also reading about how snow days are like becoming less and less of a frequent occurrence.
And now I never.
Knew about that. I didn't even know that was a fucking thing.
But when I know that from movies, which has shaped my entire idea of what winter is because I thought, basically, when December hits, everywhere is a winter wonderland.
Turns out that's not true. Earth has different patterns.
But anyway, I just I just have to say I was just I went to skate on a frozen lake and that shit was so whimsical I had to skate it in a minute.
Wait, where were you?
I went to Colorado for a couple of days.
Shatayan, Shock, Kelly, you know, shout out the whole crew out there, and we skated on a frozen lake.
That shit was so fun.
But then I was also talking to someone else who's from the East Coast and like, I used to do this all the time, but the lakes don't freeze over with the same frequency they did as a kid, and like the kids in my town, like my town growing up, don't kind of know the same way we used to do winter. And then I had like this like weird blade runner moment where I'm like just like shedding a tear for like everything and everyone I'd been through. It
got kind of kind of grim. As I stated, on this lake, I thought a lot about climate change.
Lakes here gobbling people up. Yeah, yeah they are. I'm just saying like, maybe maybe it would help with the climate catastrophe if we had ways to dramatize it. No, snow days and lakes are gobbling people up who try and and I.
Think I think it also makes it a little bit different me because like I'm so used to the one note climate that I'm not realizing how wacky the variations. I mean, I obviously know that intellectually that earth death is happening in real time, but there's something about living in la where you're just.
Kind of like, oh, it's not as cold in December.
And then you go a little bit further up, like where there's usually like Big Bear where their ski season is like getting destroyed like a year after year because of the lack of snowfall.
Yeah.
All that to say my next underrated beef tallow get in, folks. I made a roasted a lot of holiday meat, rendered the fat, and I've used it to make frozen hash browns tastier okay, grilled cheese sandoz from Okay because they're so fucking beef fatty Okay, the way I grill them and the vibe of steak and eggs with just eggs and using the beef tallot to fry the eggs.
Anyway, you're rendering the fat just by like cooking a steak on a grill on a you know.
Like I made like a I made a prime rib roast like for Christmas, and so all the fat trimming and leftover fat from that meal, I just cut up into small pieces and just put that on low heat, all the fat, just to get all that fat out. Then you strain it and now you have just the essence of beef flavor that you can use to do anything with. So anyway, so I think.
I'm raising a couple miles is in the in the sense of like really I took I drove, just me and my boys went up to Sequoia National Park. I was really excited about the big trees. I was like, damn, look how big those trees are. Those trees are huge.
And kids, guys, they were into that, but like really what they were They just like there was a a field with snow in it, and they just like went and lot wanted to play in the snow the whole time and just like pick up chunks of ice and hit hit piles of snow with sticks.
The geist child every time we saw snow. He go Santa. Santa is Santa because like a couple of like the weird you know Santa things that we saw always have like these very winter depictions that he meet.
Is like Santa.
And I'm like, nah, Son, that's just snow.
That's we don't know, we.
Know, not of snow can come from.
All right, my underrated leg day. So this is a weird run. But on the basketball podcast, I listened to The Flagrant Ones hosted by a friend of the show, Carl Tart, friend of the show, Hayes Davenport. The third host who we should have on at some point but have not, ye Shawn Clements. Uh So, Sean Clements was talking about this tennis movie he wrote and that just
wrapped that he was shooting. And they had as like a tennis consultant, the number one tennis coach in America, like in pros there to consult and he was like, is really what he's like? Great guy, but he kept talking about men's legs and he was just obsessed with legs and like, and they like had a professional tennis player come in and they were like talking about how the coaches about all about legs and the professional tennis
players like guys, let me stop you right there. I would love to join in and make fun of him, but like, I'm also obsessed with men's legs, and apparently like just having real some plumper rocks down there is what actually like makes you a great tennis player, which isn't what I would I would assume you just go out there looking like Popeye, big arms, tiny tiny legs and just whacking that thing around. But apparently it's all about leg So it got me checking checking some legs.
And then I went and saw No Sparatu, and I really enjoyed No Saratu. Bobby Eggs I think has officially Robert Eggers has officially entered the cannon of like directors who like just will open them like enough people will go see the movie like whatever whatever he does. It's like a weird vampire origin story, but it feels like you're Hermanoudic sealed in like a different time. Like it just feels so completely engrossing or hermetically hermetically hermenetically is
from Herman inside Herman's head. Hermetically yes, but anyways, uh, it's it's real horny. This is real horny dark vampire origin story. A lot of people went and saw it was like, I'm not that into this ship, but I'm gonna go see it and really really enjoyed it. The dragula count Orlock is there's this one shot of him and I feel I feel like they were on the verge of launching a sex symbol with this count Orlock guy.
And then they show him and he is walking around on some flats like after I get done with some chicken wing flats, Like they are just bare bones, just bare bones down there, just like split my bones.
What this picture you put in for reference?
It is fucking you're so is this dude walking around like this the whole movie?
So all right here, here's the problem.
Is it spoilers or no?
Yeah, it's kind of spoilers, So I can't tell you exactly, you know what, Okay, do a spoiler for you to say exactly what you're looking at. But he is revealed at the very end to you know, you get to see the whole body it he's he's not working with much down there. He's been he's been floating around too much, like just two inches off the ground. I guess that's
what happened to you. If you you know, if you're just if you're just in a Spike Lee tracking shot, anytime you want to move around, you know, that's I feel like that. Uh that's that's where you end up. His legs are just so tiny. So anyways, that was, you know, I think ultimately knows Fratu is a good movie and a cautionary tale about like the vampiric nature of like capitalism and sex. And but the cautionary tale I took away is don't don't skip leg day. Yeah yeah, wow,
that's uh those are my two big ones. And yeah, I started doing legs, started lifting legs, yeah, legs, started doing started using my legs. The first time.
You go too hard, you're like, oh man, I tore my hamstring.
Yeah, uh go easy.
Go easy on those legs, Jack, take care of them.
I do my best. What is something blake that you think is overrated?
So I think overrated as a practice is street cleaning, like residential street cleaning in cities where I've never First of all, i've never seen street cleaning happen. And I go outside and look and like, wow, look how clean this fucking street is? Like they don't nothing gets cleaned. And if you don't know what it is. Like, Basically,
it's alternate street cleaning. So if you're in a city they like, you're not allowed to park on a side of the street from X time deck time because allegedly a fucking sweeper truck comes by and cleans the street and you get ticketed if you leave your car there. So I don't have a like a garage or a parking spot, so like I move my car. And this also happened when I lived in La too, But it just seems to me like a shitty way for the city to get revenue with no benefit to people whatsoever
street cleaning. So there is an interesting where I saw in Brooklyn, there's this weird community thing that like neighborhoods will do where they'll double stack their cars on one side of the street, so say, like the right side it's being cleaned street cleaning. Cars from the right side will just park next to the cars and trap them in on the left side of the street. But like I guess people know each other and have each other's
numbers where if they have to leave. Yeah, it's a pretty elaborate system that I would imagine doesn't work.
Yeah, that just stressed me out so much too. My heart rate shot through the roof just hearing about that arrangement.
I do kind of genuinely believe that it's a little bit like velociraptor rules for the non ticketable side of the street on on alternate side parking, like yeah, fucking double park the entire street. Like I feel like, and I know this can't be true, but I genuinely feel like the fucking like traffic cops, the whatever, the people giving tickets, it's like they can only see the side of the street where people were like, you're not supposed to be parked, and it's lawless on the other side on here.
Yeah, all right, this is this is crazy. Brian the editor has come through and described a situation that doesn't make any sense to me. Brand the editor lives in Mexico City, where soon to be America City. Just you, yeah, whatever, But they employ people who need money, okay, weird, and give them a high viz vest and broom and then they just actually clean the streets every day. So like, where do you get the big machine that comes through and blows shit in your face if you have to
be Yeah, because I have seen the streets. Yeah, it does. It just turns it out of the way into a different direction.
Because it makes it makes It's like what if you only had a broom and no dust pan.
Yeah, it's exactly what's.
Great if we created a three hundred thousand dollars machine that was like a broom with no dust pan and uh there's some water I think mixed in a little bit where likes it down.
Yeah, it's a change. The leaves are moved, but they are there.
So many things could be fixed with just like we're gonna and four hundred jobs based on like talking to people in the city, like jobs that they think should exist, and yeah, the task we're going to pay them.
Well yeah, yeah, one utility for those street cleaning things.
I don't know if this is actually as.
True anymore in the era of three D printing, but if you're looking to create DIY lock picks, the bristles from a street cleaning thing are some of the best in the bids as far as lock picking tools.
How the fuck do you know that mustache as well?
I want to add that.
But only at certain times of the month. You have to get it at a certain times.
After they molt.
Yes, right before they molt, so you can't get it unless you can make friends with the walrus right before they molt off.
The lock pick thing, editor Brian has in Chats started on a path of proclamations that I'm worried are going to become legally actionable.
So I'll just say he agrees it works.
So well, you know that. That's amazing, all right, you guys are much cooler than me. Also, the street cleaning thing, I wasn't talking about you, Blake. The street cleaning thing does tie in with I think what we're going to talk about with regards to the police, because it's like, how do we have just every what if the only tool you had was a hammer and you had to make it do every job with the blunt end of a hammer.
A bunch of hammers that actually shoot really little hammers via concussive force, and that's all you can do with them. They're not really designed for hammering anything.
The way we don't have people who go out in the street clean the street. We have one really fast, heavy machine that goes around and if you get in it the fucking way, you have to deal with the cops. Asshole. A weird way to streets, clean, clean up the streets. We're taking out the trash. Were No, we just like literally mean we want the streets to.
Be not literally trash.
Yes, asshole. As Biden said, we count on police to be our teachers, are psychiatrists, our librarians, our custodians, our wives. We don't need to defund the police. We need to fund more. That was his argument, giving them more fun. Anyway, let's take a quick break, we'll come back, we'll talk about the wildfires. And we're back. And as mentioned up top, Miles is not here because of the wildfires. I'm gonna, you know, give him space to to you know, talk
about it when he gets back. But you know, sending a lot of love and good energy to him and his family. But you know, we're ore. Producer Justin is out because you know, his area has been without power for forty eight hours. Just a lot of people dealing with a lot of shit. I've got somebody who's a good friend of mine who was evacuated, who's staying with
us right now. Andrew, it sounds like you've got some of that, yeah in your way, yea, And yeah, it just it's it's not one of those like I know a guy who has a friend who like this impacted. It's like every everybody's like one degree of separation away from people who are losing.
And you know, to the extent that there is any kind of silver lining to this, well, I don't know. And I'm also going to say something that I'm not even totally sure is true, but I think this is the first like climate major climate disaster that has affected large numbers of middle and upper middle class white people.
Yeah, I think that's true.
I mean maybe assumption in the UK that is, but you know, in the Far Australia and dry you know, this is certainly like I don't know what sort of like change in political will this could possibly bring, but it is sort of that where it's like, you know, you can't hide from this, like you know, as much as it's a result of us, like you know, exploiting the global South and people of color and poor people everywhere, it's like, yeah, but it's it's we're changing shit, and
it's it's there's no protection from this really.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think that's right.
It's not that that feels good, but that's the truth.
Right.
It feels like we're in a you know, the scale seems biblical, Like I feel like it needs to be biblical for like people to get their heads around what is happening and like the amount of change that needs to happen. But yeah, hopefully this is cutting across enough borders that there's political will to do something beyond the guy being like, hey, is anybody know any private firefighters that could come through and save my house? Uh?
Andrew rained on that parade for me because I thought there were cool, like you know, yeah fighters.
During that And look, I'm not saying I know for sure that there are not, But it's just a thing where it's like it's not from what I read about like the private fire services that exist. It's not like a uber for firefighters. It's more like a service that you have worked with for years or.
It's not a last second you can't cram it as the fire is closing in on your home.
You can't yo fire fighters. Oh yeah, I guess there's right.
There are planes that you can hire, but the general firefighting I think is like part of like, you know, a service that you've had. I've I heard it described as like a lot of it was honestly landscaping advice. Like it's just like you know, you're you're you're maintaining a house that can be saved in the event of a fire rather than just like Blackwater but for firefighters.
Right, Yeah, that is a movie starring Mark Wahlberg that is going to be made because of this tragedy. That that is one outcome that I can foresee is like a person facing down wildfire season and they're like, we got to call in the fizz or whatever, just.
Shit face drunk in like Quincy, Massachusetts, turns on the news cease fire and then yeah that Logan Airport on a Jet Blue flight to La Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know where Mark Wahlberg was this week, but Victor suproducer Victor points out that if he was here, it wouldn't have gone down the way it was. Fucking sure it.
Would have punched that fire right out.
Yeah.
But yeah, which is not to say that there's not like resources to be marshaled, but like the best way to spend you know, this money is on things like taxes and an appropriate city budget that funds the Los Angeles Fire Department or whatever fire department you're in.
Yes, like it or not, we're all on some level in this together.
Yes, I do just want to like firefighters. I think they come into the national spotlight every once in a while, and when they do, it's not like the cup where we're just like, wait, why the fuck do we have these guys anything, like these guys are fucking terrible, Like it's uh, you kind of get reminded why everybody wants to fuck them and uh and why Like if you have to give a movie character a heroic job, you
go with firefight, Like to give this guy a calendar. Yeah, yeah, I don't care what he looks like, turn him into Jack Off material. But there was I don't know, like I'm probably in the midst of you know, of just this story, but like there was the equivalent of an NBA like highlight a fire. Helicopter just dropped a swimming pool of water on a fire that was like spreading
out of the Hollywood Hills. It was literally like everybody, it's you know, fairly close to where we live, and like all our neighbors were like, holy shit, like here comes the one that's gonna and this. Yeah, I don't think this single handedly stopped it, but like a helicopter dropped a swimming pool of water on a fire and it just fucking went out like the It was like swish from way downtown. I was like, holy shit.
Without getting too dark, I saw I don't know, blue sky. I guess the comment threat underneath it was like like you know various things that you could yell when you when you make a great shot in basketball. And someone was like, you know that pilot was yelling Kobe.
And then people pointing out.
Scream yeah, I'm zooming in on the photo of the helicopter. Oh my god, that's Mark Wahlberg flying that bird.
Hey you know he wouldn't tell anybody if he did. He's just like a humble.
By.
The helicopter is just a fancy drone. So I just want to say that as a Jersey person, I saw a copter and I wanted to shoot it down.
Then is that thing doing up there? I started spinning it. I was spinning at the sky. New Jersey people would be freaked out by l a man lord aliens. So I've been kind of like glued to this coverage. Uh you know, our kids are out of school. Uh so we're just you know.
I had a friend who had school yesterday, which is also insane.
Really God, but you know, glued to the fire. I see fire maps when I close my eyes now, like the varying colors which Andrew you were pointing out before.
I do have a note for the listen. I understand fire watch app wonderful service. People have been really enjoying it.
Watch duty.
We'll say there, U I bright red fire makes sense, dark magentaish or dark pink. Let's say fire warning, yellow fire whatever, the equivalent of tornado watches.
It's like, you'll be ready to be evacuated, but.
Then they just have a you're in a dry fire prone area and that's like a different shade of pink, which is very alarming. And get the map, yeah, because you're like, yeah, I guess the other one's orange. The point is the gradations of danger go from red dark pink, yellow, and then least dangerous is light pink, which I think is bad UI.
On a personal level, we.
All agree that it should be like yellow, orange, red, and some like grading it in there right like that that's my pitch. That's what they're doing inherent. Yeah, they are doing a great job. Also, like my eight year old is like addicted to that app now, like he just we were like he's like scrolling it and like obsessed.
Yeah, yeah, one of the It's different where in La, we had like an earthquake kit in our place because I love for the listeners. I live in LA for ten years and it's one of the only it's the only place I've ever lived where I had an emergency kit basicly go bag.
Yeah, yeah, I could.
Go bag, which isn't necessarily you know, like there are obviously situations in other places where you could need that. But I remember having like earthquake water, Like we would always have like a case of water somewhere and then we would get thirsty on our way out and grab the water, so we just wouldn't have any water. Yeah, is this something that you like, Do you guys have earthquake kits? Like I know, like some of you have packed up I was talking to yeah before.
Yeah, mine's not freshened up since the last time. I probably put in the big work to do it in twenty twenty, Like I think my cube of water cannot possibly be good. I will say before that I did have an earthquake kit that was based on gallons of water and being hungover in my late twenties early thirties.
The fact that I like.
Drank my earthquake water really says something about America. I think because I was too hot. But yeah, I got the cube that's allegedly non toxic.
But there's just no way. The Cube's been there for like four years. It can't be good.
It's earthquake diet coke. Yeah, I've got a twelve pack of ye coke for what lukewarm diet coke from the early dies What the cube is like a separate It's not just like a two gallon thing of arrow.
Oh, I mean it's it's it's like a water container that someone recommended.
That's like, okay, the square. You can see a square.
Everyone can see a square.
Can't can't Now you've lost tell.
You about spears afterwards, and you're gonna flip that.
Wait, so you're talking about like a third dimension. That's I'm not you.
Know what doesn't make sense to people would say that.
Yeah. So I was watching this press conference yesterday and it just really drove home the thing we were talking about about the police, Like the police are coming into this in a couple of ways. One because people noticed that the firefighting budget was cut a small amount last year. You know, like people who are defensive or you know, hate the Republicans are like the Republican are making this seem like they slashed the entire budget. It was, you know,
a two percent budget cut. Fine, they also like massively increased the police budget as crime is going down and the fire the danger of fire is going up. And it's not specific politicians fault. It's the entire American apparatus that does this. But I was actually this press conference yesterday. It was like the Pasadena fire chief and then police chief, and just the rhythm of this press conference was so wild,
Like they first half it's the fire chief. He's just this weird little guy, just answering difficult questions, like here's why it's spread. Here are the challenges we faced. Here are where like we could have done better. Here, here's what's still going on, like ending his answers with like,
did that answer your question? And like it seemed genuinely curious about whether it had like not a genius, nothing particularly noteworthy, just a person doing doing the job that they have at a difficult time when people like not a job speaker, not a public speaker in any way.
Then they give the next part of the press conference to the police chief and he like opens up like bragging about individual people that they had evacuated from their homes, like just having to like just flex on everybody, and then started talking about and he's like, and now we're moving into the problem solving situation where we're gonna deal with anybody who's looting, and like starts seating this like
looting story. By the way, could a better funded fire department have done the evacuations?
Yeah?
Who's to say.
There's the thing with like we're watching the argument for defund the police, Like literally, even if you're the most like conservative, non maniac possible who thinks we need some kind of police, like, most of the money that goes to the police is the least efficient way to do those job descriptions like the non fucking law enforcement allegedly side of things.
You're like, what the fuck are you talking about?
You you got in like the cops having five times more budget or more than the than the fire department. But talking on a retail level about helping individuals versus people try to help communities. Several orders of magnitude in both the wrong direction. Yes, so this is just a bad investment, you fucking business dickheads, Like, yeah, explain that exactly.
Well, the police, there are, there are teachers, there are doctors, and there are firemen.
Police are our firemen. Yes, exactly, there are doctors, there are wives, there are firemen.
It's just an expensive, least effective version of all those things.
Yeah, why would you want that?
And then the second half of the police part was just the most fired is going to incrutable. Essentially the verbal equivalent of firing is gun in the air with the like inscrutable police speak about the possibility of looters where they're just like, uh, and we just got one message for you, don't even try it. We're now shifting into the safety operation where we will be on the
lookout for looters. Make no mistake, we will act decisively and with definitive kinetic means in the eventuality that we you know, just like throwing all those fucking bullshit police worth any individual perpetrating such criminal activity for the fullest extent of the law. Yeah, exactly.
Shit not to invoke you know, previous week's biggest story, but the biggest theft that will be occurring in southern California will be on behalf.
Of insurance companies.
Oh, we have already stolen tons of money and will not be paying out on things that they owe.
That is oh yeah, my prediction.
My prediction is that that they are going to be going bankrupt and it's going to be up to the government to yeah that there as all people's yeah, which I don't know.
People will simply not be made whole on the things that are absolutely owed, which I feel like is likely anyway. And if you're thinking about theft Californians and the globe, just remember the theft already happened, and it's a bunch of guys in board rooms.
Two nights into many homes across the city being evacuated, and the police the reporting they've encountered three instances of looting, I think, and by the way, they give themselves a very wide latitude when determined something is looting.
So someone picked a quarter up off the ground, and yeah, so they were looting the ground.
Yes, yeah, we saw they're looting our city. The very foundation of our city is our grounds. It's our ground. Yeah, And that is true, and you can't you can't deny that and we're not taking questions and we will take no for the answers at this time. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. And we're back, and we are ten days out, nine days out from the Academy Awards being announced on January seventeenth. One movie that definitely won't get nominated for Best Picture is Madam Web.
It's a fun movie. Yeah.
It's also the best of those Spider Man movies that got put out this year.
No, the the other ones, craveh Venom three.
Okay, I guess my Craven is the quote unquote best, but Madam Web is the best.
Yeah, well I think that Madam Web.
It's just like what's so fun about Madam Web is it's basically watching people take the biggest possible swings on screen and just like whiffing it every single time. Like it's just like a like get get together with your friends and watch it on like a Saturday night.
It's like a fun watch.
I really liked it. I really liked watching it. I had a lot of fun.
I there's some bizarre cg in it that is like truly delightful.
You're just like the adr is insane.
The thing that is so cre Having now worked in a little bit of television, I'm just like, how is this allowed? Like how did this get approved to be like put in theaters? Just in terms of pieces of the craft, I'm just like, this is wild to me. The star of Madame Web to me was the pepsi can. There's a floating PEPs in it. That's so amazing.
Several scenes of a pepsi can that that Matt trying.
To pepsi can? Was that like she had it but like never drank at it? What was the deal with the pepsi can? I just like saw that meme without volume on, so I don't know what it is.
So she's at a baby shower for a car spider. It's a carry baby shower for Peter Parker, but for probably sony legal reasons, they can't say Peter Parker. There's literally a point in this sequence where they say like, oh, what's the baby's name, and then she goes to say Peter, and then a car honks. You can't hear Peter. Yeah, yeah, this is all real. This really like Parker? Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
It's like Austin Powers didn't realize he didn't have the rights to Spider Man, but still has to produce a movie.
Yeah.
Yeah, So so this pepsican it's at you know, car Honk Parker's baby shower, and the lead in the movie is carrying this pepsi can around. I'm definitely presenting it, like clearly they have some brand deal with pepsi, but at no point does she open it. And she like goes to try to open it several times, but then she'll get interrupted like inner conversation, and it's like son
roll scenes of this. It's like she goes from the kitchen to the outside to like another area holding this pepsi can, displaying it like it's a commercial, going to like act like she's about to open it and then stopping because she like gets distracted by a bird or something like that, and going, well.
They won't say of our modern cinemat Yeah.
I feel like it's genuinely they just caught Dakota Johnson trying to figure out what a can of pepsi was, and that's what it was.
So something I also really appreciate is that in the movie they established that Spider Man's outfit is inspired by this outfit from like an unnamed indigenous tribe and I believe like South America or something like that. So by saying that, you're basically saying that Spider Man is like a culturally appropriating this tribe.
That's right.
So you're like attractively making Spider Man racist, which is great.
At least they didn't do the Back to the Future thing where the indigenous tribe was hoppying off of Spider Man, because that's how Back the Future worst, where Marty McFly white teenage Marty McFly goes back in time and gives Chuck Berry the idea for Rock and Roll.
Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, so probably what happened.
So maybe, yeah, but that that is the the famous quote of like the guy who was there before my mom died and when she was studying spiders in.
Oh god, so wonderful.
Yeah. Anyways, none of these are the reasons that it won't be winning Best Picture because in order to be included, you need to meet Hollywood's inclusion and representation standards, which are they've been criticized for being like very loose and you know, things that you could just accidentally do while still like not having an inclusion and representation in your film.
But these Madam Web, and one hundred and sixteen other feature films were released this year did not meet the rules did not meet the standard, including Bad Boys, Ride or Die, The Mean Girls Musical, and Sadly the Garfield Movie.
Is this list of rules for quote diversity inclusion like Hollywood diversity inclusion, as in, they're just saying this needs to have people of color or.
It's so these are the four categories, and you have to meet two out of the four standards on screen representation, themes and narratives, creative leadership, and project team. So that's behind the scenes, presumably, industry access and opportunities, and audience development on this development.
Mate, So could this podcast be nominated for Best Picture?
I don't know.
It's a great well, yeah, obviously, yeah, the rules for anything that's as perfect as this. I mean not to be the Madame Web apologist that I clearly am, but I actually don't see how it does it. I mean, assuming that Hollywood, like most American industries, counts white women as you know, a group in the diversity requirement, I'm just like, is Madame Web not all of these things?
I guess it's probably behind the scenes, is probably pretty straight white dude.
But that's just kind of my guests.
Yeah, but I'm just saying the creative the I mean, the lead.
I'm assuming Dakoda Dotson was an EP on this, Like am I am?
I Am I wrong? Like it just feels like it's there.
Seems like it probably passes the Bechdel test, right, so it.
Depends on They're mostly talking about spiders, so they're talking Yeah, I think it's a spider Man.
Shit. It does feel like maybe what's happening is they will go through the exercise of like making a movie eligible if they think it has any award chances, because like another one that didn't make it this year, Harold and the Purple Crown. So it's Boy Kills World? Is that a sequel to Boy Meets World?
I don't know that Kills World does thee.
Uh it's the The Count orlock first person one with John Benjamin as the voice in like a that's a shootery type of thing that I did not see.
Okay. I think it's just like they like probably hire a spend spend like a million dollars to hire McKinsey to like if they think it has a chance, like making being nominated.
Sony couldn't argue that Madame Webb does these things. And I'm also shocked that I'm gonna say, just off the top of my head, illumination could argue that Garth the Garfield movie didn't also do these things.
Look, look, people of color. Orange is of color. I'm just saying, that's.
Right, that's right, casts that's right, Odie, wherever the fuck Odie is.
There's like that movie probably I feel like I don't know this for a fact, but I feel like there's probably seeing that movie where Garfield's girlfriend Arlene and a female security guard talk about lasagna for more than four lines.
So, like, you know, I think this probably passes the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test is not one of the standards, by the way. That was just me.
We're just throwing this out there, you know, we're just starting.
We put us in charge, Hollywood. We'll let everybody in, all right. And finally, sex spots are going a little bit viral right now thanks to this article from the Sun back in twenty sixteen. Then somebody went back and screen capped it was tweeted out revealed women will be having more sex with robots than men by twenty twenty five, came out June thirtieth, twenty sixteen, is accompanied by a picture of a like robot from Yeah well roby I robot.
Yeah yeah, the I robot robot just like laying there looking off pensively as a naked woman like nuzzles his chest.
Yeah, the robot is thinking about the price of microchips right now.
What weird day at the photoshop minds?
I know, Yeah, photoshop woman having sex with a robot and the robot does have emotions and is not into this, you know what.
Probably the weirder part is the graphic designer having to pretend to mock something up rather than pulling from their vast files.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, it is kind of that's the picture.
Yeah, let me let me get right to see take a couple of days.
Yet like a flip into personal stash robots. I also loved it in this article the word of robots is an all caps that's like they're yelling at at you.
Yeah.
More sex with robots than men by twenty twenty five. Yeah, this person's got an ax to grind with robots.
Not to be not to be that guy.
But probably even before twenty twenty five, when you realize this is this article is implying inferring that women will be having sex with androids, you know, humanoid robots, sex bots. I think that probably the definition of robot probably goes down to including a decent number of existing commercial products that are out on the market now in terms of sex.
Havn't that's why everyone look that hot and pensive. Well, you nuzzle its chest, because that's the that's I'm just saying.
If you draw a frownie face on a vibrator, you kind of robot said face vibrator.
But yeah, I don't know. So people start sharing this when January first hit, and you know, people crowned twenty twenty five the Year of robot. Fucking uh the headline, And this is going to surprise people because this article is from the Sun, which is, you know, one of the finest news.
Outlets in one of the Murdoch ones.
Yeah, the Sun is one of the one one of the Murdoch ones that uh, I was shower of the Murdock ones. Yeah, really bad. Like also like nude pictures of women in it. Like there's just a page that's like, oh and this is the so you got your sports section, you got your World news section, you got your Playboy like magazine that we just became news. You know.
It's basically just you know, a broadsheet Reddit.
It is, That's right. So it cites one future ologist, doctor Ian Pearson, who said that there was probably going to be an era of robot fucking that starts in twenty twenty five, and that humans won't be overtaken by sex robots until likely twenty fifty. But he and he's he's pissed that this is going viral. So I never said that. I said that. Like he specifically says in his abstract that like it'll probably seem weird at first, and like he's going to be doing it five until it becomes delightful.
Oh my god, I does no one do.
We're just not questioning anyone who calls themselves a fucking future ologist. Has any one of those fools ever been right about anything.
That you're gonna say? Has any of those fools ever been to the future?
Yeah?
Yeah, exactly where are they from?
There?
Yeah? Yeah.
All these fuckers are doing is across a broad spectrum of people parroting sci fi tropes, and then they each put a different year, so that retroactively, one of them will get the right year and then they can the field of future ology.
Is correct, right, it's like fortune teller grift.
Well, I mean yeah, well that's that's like one hundred percent. It is like it's like the click baitization of the news is like it's not even focused on like is this person an expert or not? It's just is this a clickable headline? And it's like, yeah, does this person have any sort of real background in this or are they just like making up bullshit? And people are like, well that's spicy, you know, like it's annoying.
Yeah. Yeah, fan sourcing the news now, yeah, it's all like fan fiction at this point. Like I can't get over the new Jersey drones thing going as viral as it did. But it just seemed like people are like, I don't know, man, it's like kind of boring right now. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So the company that is the closest to making the sex robot, so, first of all, you're going to be shocked to learn that the actual sex robot industry in twenty twenty five is more of a by dudes for dudes type of thing, Like a lot of straight men with disposable income, and that it's like a very insular community where they all probably have like weird shorthand, Like you could probably go spend a fascinating afternoon like in a red subreddit about like you know, sex doll enthusiasts
and just like learning all the lingo and shot right now, treat yourself subreddit and just take a day. The highest end or like the the closest to a you know, android level sex robot can't even stand up because the only robotic bit is her head. As it's a it's a woman. As our writer J M McNabb said, it kind of looks like a collaboration between Maxim magazine and Disney World's Hall of Presidence. Like that's kind of the energy that you're getting from. It's just all very yeah,
not a lot of diversity. It's just a bunch of fifty to sixty year old white guys being like, yeah, if you could fuck a Barbie doll.
I mean that's like the classic Silicon Valley thing, which is you're just seeing in the most extreme version, which is like creating a product and a fake market that doesn't exist.
You're just like, yeah, there's no need for this. Yeah, there's I hate these people so much.
But it's also like creating a product that's like actively making the world worse.
You know, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
Can I How can I make the world worse?
Full the venture capitalists until they have they're pot committed, so they have to back my cockamamy idea. I mean it's you know, that's the uber lyft Yeah for sure, a waimo business model.
And it's like, oh good.
Yeah, just like ear you'ar in for several million dollars, let's go. You can't know backing out now.
Brian the editor just shared the link to our sex dolls, and yeah, it looks like you can spend a lot of time in here just being weirded out.
All right, I'm fucking clicking now.
Yeah, our sex dolls off. Here's good grade fun one favorite. Thank you Trian found my favorite one for me. I mean the rules. The very first rule is no dolls that represented child, which is fucking bleak as hell that that has to be the very first rule.
I will just say my favorite question from this and I am realizing I guess I clicked this. I am absolutely signed in under my own Reddit account. Are these dolls sex dolls legal? Okay whatever. The second half of this question is will this doll pass customs, which tells.
Me, h, this is also really good. How can you dispose of dolls discreetly? And the first sentence of the answer you should be able to cut it into smaller pieces if you have a wrench or other tools to symbol the skeleton underneath as well. It might just be easier to put it out for sale. Put it out for sale like in a fucking yard sale or giveaway on dollform dot com. Uh. Used sex doll is goddamn.
What a weird interaction that must be to show up at somebody's house and buy their used sex doll, like hear them refer to it, but like it's a person.
Yeah, oh this is I'm loving being signed in on my account here.
This is great. I would you?
Should you dispose of the sex doll discreetly at all?
I feel like crowd.
You should absolutely sit it on the curb next to your trash can, a little.
Sign around invariably hernack saying like.
Just trade its thumbs so it looks like it's like, yeah, how do.
You clean the orifice after use? Is one of the questions, these are all things that we can go check out, uh, you know, whenever we want.
This is if there was any justice in the world.
Were able to read about this in the Sun, right, we have to go to our slash sex dolls?
Yeah, the Sun got too too excited, were able to dolls soon? Yeah?
But also this this idea, like like the scary headline of women will be having more sexual with robots, you know, obviously from a right wing mag is probably troubling. Yeah, scary thing, Like, yeah, all the actual facts are about no woman is remotely interested in this.
There's no market for this.
The only market is again, you know, probably the same two hundred white guys that you can identify.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly they So they spoke to a non future. By the way, the futurist. The futuist they talked to was like, I never said that. That's crazy, Like you just obviously took what I was saying out
of context. But they asked somebody who has more of a expertise on this and said that it's a complex issue with a number of different considerations, but sex robots probably may never really be a thing, even if they're produced, they will remain a niche product and mostly used for companionship, with sex almost secondary to that which we're already seeing like AIS being used to help people's loneliness, and like the way we interact with actual people is not face
to face and in person, so like, why spend all the money on you know these things cost an incredible amount of money? Ten thousand dollars.
Yeah, I got to say our sex dollars. There's a eighty seven thousand members of the subreddit thirteen online now, so shout out to those thirteen dudes.
Yeah, that is more than I would have thought though, eighty seven thousand, and maybe it's people doing it for the ULLs.
But yeah, closing that and back to regular sex dollstock.
Hang out here for a little bit. 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 de Miles. He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to him Monday. Bye.