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. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Andrew, we are very thrilled and honored. You know, we like to we had to elevate. We'd like to elevate. Sometimes it's not just all It's not just a second rate people, It's not just a second rate podcast. Sometimes we have fantastic farmless show like today. You might know him as the editor of the Left Hook Substack. You might know him from his show with Francesca Fiorentini America Unhinged. You may know him from countless other things, maybe the
co host of the Democracy Ish podcast. We know him as would you know it?
Spoon Man, with your hands with me? I'm together with your plan, spool I am, and that's why I'm an English major and was never part of a ska rock band. But a deep cut old school reference has to be rewarded and respected.
Thank you, Thank you. Also, you're from the Bay Area. I'm surprised you need to hit us with some barrier rap or something.
I am from the the I am from the Bay. I'll give you a ye yea.
Uh.
There we go.
We'll do some Golden State Warriors of Fanning and hopefully, hopefully the Angels of Basketball give them a victory over the Grizzlies.
Yeah, oh boy, that was a roughout that lost to the Clippers. I was very painful. I was surprised. I was looking at them like the Clippers Kawhi and James Harden what I mean. I know this on paper was supposed to work, but.
But my clip, my La Clipper friends who are fans, they're just like nihilists and they're like, just wait, something bad's gonna happen. Oh yeah, I'm like, can you just take a moment to enjoy the No, no, something terrible is about to happen. And it sounds like Donald Trump for some reason too.
Yeah right, Kawhi's knees are gonna turn Yeah truly, I mean yeah, I mean, as an unwell Laker fan, I'm also the same on my friend. All right, Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you had you a little fun because he's about to get ugly.
Baby.
But hey, look we got our own. I mean we're gonna play the Timberwolf, so we'll see.
We'll see how that.
To ask you a question, because all my Lakers, you know, we're on WhatsApp a chat, and all my college friends they talk Matt Ship whenever it's Lakers Warriors, they were dead quiet yesterday because I think everyone Warriors fans and the Lakers fans were like, we don't have to face each other.
Yeah, hell yeah, of course that was we don't want but we all knew it was like a hidden dude code. We all knew don't don't need that, don't need to start. And that's also the rivalry everyone else was praying for you, like, let one of these teams just knock each other out and help it make it a little bit easier.
In the postseason ed, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that it's revealing about who you are?
So Robs, it's lyrics rob Sonic meaning so I've been listen Lyrics Sonic meaning yes, so Rob Sonic is an excellent rapper. However, I've been listening to him a lot, and I sent to my mate Casey, I'm like, oh, what do you think of this? He goes the lyrics are nonsense, and they are And the first result is a Reddit post being like do these mean anything? And people being like I don't think so, and it's like
the phrases mean stuff, but together they do not. So it was like reading that and being like.
Am I stupid? Am I?
Just?
Am? I?
Is this like coca melon for like white boys? Like?
Like what is? And I still listen to it? Rob Sonics?
I love that.
Yeah, I'm not familiar with rob Sonic, but have you gone to genius and like watch people try to ascribe meaning.
To entirely people just being like this one phrase means this, and this one phrase means this.
Literally, this is what it means?
Yes, like this is it? I respect it because it's so fun to listen to. And I found him through acep Rock, who is an excellent ex rapper and of.
Like fun word play that would that is fun to look at.
On rap g and one of their best one of the best rob Sonic songs is Killjoy, which has asp Rock on it.
I cannot recommend it enough.
All right, we'll check that out. What is something that you think is underrated?
So about two weeks ago I had like a minor breakdown. It's like I was just like called a friend crying like it's the normal way, and.
More friends crying, by the way, that's underrated.
That's the only way I call friends.
My wonderful, beautiful friends were very much there for me.
But I was like I hit burnout and one of my anti burnout measures because I found myself just like forcing myself to like listen to music with how I felt, just to like reinforce the feeling. So I've been listening to albums through the whole way. That's my underrate.
I think.
I think people really need to like.
Sit down and say, I'm gonna listen to this thing front to back and like see what a thing I done it mostly successfully. Like I've listened to a few like Inflames clay Man Robsonics album I can't remember the name of.
First, you can't remember the name because none of the nonsense.
So it's like how would I possibly append meaning LP's I'll Sleep when You're Dead, absolute banger, incredible. Then I listened to the Blows Great Escape, and that album does not hold up at all.
There was there's like four or five really.
Great songs and a lot of stuff where you're just like, oh, I didn't listen to this album through, you know what, for a reason.
I just had I'm actually not going to say that that would have just destroyed my mentions for the rest of my life.
But there's a say it.
So for a long time. Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, Mad City. It has the highest highs, has the highest highs of Kendrick's albums. But I just went back and listened to it all the way through, and there are some dead spots that I had.
Told I'm going to burn down your house. I'm going to burn your house down.
Just a couple of dead spots that I totally reatten out of my memory.
I do.
I have one album that I just consistently listened to all the way through and it gets better and better every time, which is Blonde by frankosh Not. I can't stop. It's a great album. Yeah one, Are you okay?
Are you meant to be okay?
I don't think in.
My case, no one album I will recommend that. I don't think anyone else will have mentioned. But if you like jazz, Charles Mingus is Black Saint and The Sinner Lady is one of my top three albums of all time, and I have not sat down and listened to that all the way through in like twelve years, and I
was like brought to tears by. It's fucking incredible. But yeah, this has been like a I've really been avoiding doing it for no good reason, just like listening to music to poke my brain to feel better rather than enjoying it.
And it's just been it's been lovely, been really enjoyable.
We just had yesterday's guest, Jody Everergan, who is like releases a new podcast as every week like a new like entire different podcast week, has a new show called Winter Album Summer Album, which is you go through and talk about albums and from that perspective you like categorize them, which I thought was kind of a fun way to think about stuff. But we're an album podcast these past
couple of days talking a lot about albums. I agree with this though, that this is, uh, yeah, I'm a dark though, Like, yeah, you have.
You read Questlove's Momenta Blues.
No, I've heard.
It's like it's so good and it's.
Like an autobiography kind of and it talks about like from when he was like a Toddler on, but like every chapter is interspersed with like letters to and from the roots manager, and then also with all of his recommendations of albums from that year, so like from when he was like four or five, like the albums he would recommend from that year and why, like how they're ranked, So like every year of his life he has albus recommendations.
Hell yeah, somebody asked the list of those online, what's what's something you think is overrated?
Well, this one, I'm curious your thoughts on. But my overrated is uh is maga. So here's here's here's something I've been thinking scene And no he has magazines. Uh no, here's what I've been thinking about. And I actually would love your love your thoughts. But you know, on my history podcast this Day, we did an episode right before inauguration where we were chatting a little bit about kind of the present moment, and I said, then, and I
think I kind of feel like I was right. I said then, whether I was wondering whether the window between Trump's second election and inauguration was the high water mark for the kind of cultural cachet for Trump world, and purely in a cultural sense, you know that was when it was like felt coolest, felt edgiest, like let's take a chance, let's roll the dice. And a lot of people I know who voted for Trump, like that was kind of the vibe in those last couple of weeks
heading into the election. You know, it's just like, well, let's let's see you know this, this feels this feels cool, which I think is a big part of help people make political decisions.
Uh.
And I just feel like in the last couple of weeks, for some maybe for obvious reasons, just the cool factor is gone.
I mean it's gone.
Yeah.
And you know, I think a lot of the people I know who were the like anti left, heterodox thinker types who found themselves voting for Trump or at least flirting with that, like they're kind of horrified by what Musk is doing and then more of our by what happened to their portfolios.
Over the last few weeks.
But you know, like some guy went on Joe Rogan and like kind of called him out and was like, what's going on here? Like I'm just seeing like the cracks seem to be forming in a way from a cultural sense, Like I'm not trying to say that like the real war fallout of maca world is not real,
but the cool factor seems to be disappearing. And the sort of knock off to this is I've also been thinking about how, like Mark Zuckerberg looks like the biggest dufist in the world, Like that guy no one has ever bought high more than Mark Zuckerberg, like showing up in that chain and talking about like at the very very very peak moment that I feel like the wind started shifting two weeks later and look back at it and I'm like, oh, man, like you really you're You're yeah.
I mean he was like flirting, he was getting into UFC. The the evolution of Zuck. The thing you got to understand about the evolution of Zuck is.
The second he did joined the JITs mob. It was over when he got into jiu jitsu.
You're the mob now.
I don't know now masculinity and crisis perhaps.
But he'll just switch back. I mean he'll be He'll probably and this is a controversial take, billionaire will probably be fine.
Yeah, But do you feel like the vibes have shifted him? I am I is this wishful thinking of my part?
I mean, I think just from watching I mean, I think just the last few weeks with the tariffs, I think it's especially been pronounced because a lot of the influencers, especially online, who were like, yeah, man, it's Trump baby, let's do this. Because right after the election, everyone got their bump and their crypto and stuff, and all these mouthpieces that like the Dave Portnoy's and the Aiden Rosses of it all were like, yeah, dude, this is what
I'm talking about. And then then came reality and now all these guys like what the fuck is going on? And I think that's that's like that. I think that's like sort of the first layer. Then I also think like the tesla of it all has also brought to the surface, like this idea that suddenly now the the sort of ideology that was screaming about how dumb electronic electric vehicles are are suddenly like caping for them and
being like the cyber truck's actually really sick. It's just like you see a lot of these like even comedians online, We're like, dude, this the truck fucking sucks. It looks stupid, Like why are people even like pretending so that rights?
Yeah, which I feel like that is like now the thing that no.
But like like what it is? Like, what is I would love to hear what Like Theovonn really feels like right now, you know, because that guy, clearly, I think, was just like, oh this feels cool. All my friends are doing this, let me get on board in the last few weeks and sort of shit, And I wonder if he's just like what.
He's just a useful what I signed up for?
Yeah.
I feel like a lot of those guys, you know that Pete Davidson character on SNL who's just like following like the girls like put this on. He's like okay, okay, then yeah, okay, you know, just like says okay to whatever people are. I feel like that's him. That's like Rogan in a lot of cases, like they're just what you put somebody in front of them saying a thing and they're like, yeah, yeah, that's interesting, man, that's interesting because yeah, I was doing some research.
Yeah, well yeah, I think even with THEO Vaughn, like one of his recent episodes, I saw a clip from it and they were talking about the tariffs and he was just kind of like confused. He's like, why would they do I don't get anything, like this is like bad. Like and before I think a lot of these people who would just be like, yeah, everything's good, everything's great, this is the way to go, they're now they're kind
of falling into this bucket. Like at best, they're like, I'm I think he knows what he's doing, but like this doesn't make sense to me. And then you have the people who are like fuck all this, I'm not I'm seeing less and less of like the people fully come out at least and from like that manisphere area that got a lot of attention where they're like, you know, this is it, this is this is the way.
I did have the question heading into this presidency of like, how are these people who are like edge lords, you know, mega fans going to continue to be edge lords when
Trump is president? Like how they just like tune in every day and be like I think the president's doing a good job, right, I think he's cool, but like now, like the presidency's going so badly, like I feel like maybe they can continue to be edge lords because it's like such a counterfactual to be like, yeah, I don't know, I think I think he's doing a great job, but Yeah, the degree to which they have to whiplash what they support like on it from day to day is probably a little bit deflating.
Yeah.
I mean, my my friend Nicole Hammer, who who's the co host on My History Show and is like a historian, but she really watches right wing spaces, bless her heart. She listens to like hours of right wing talk and sort of watches this stuff every day, and she's like, there are very few even the like pure uncut maga folks. There are very few like defenses of the tariff policy and even the Doge stuff, and it is entirely do you trust Trump?
Like that? Is this that is the safe hit?
Yeah, still left.
And I mean that's pretty powerful, you know, and so it might still work, but even that doesn't feel like like Trump's cool and doesn't it feel great to own the libs like that is just seems to have evaporated.
Or it's it's definitely diminish return, and.
So who knows.
I mean, I don't know what that means for coming next, but I don't know if the pendulum swings all the way back to you know, the EI is cool, but uh, you know, but it is that's that's Uh, that's my that's my overrated I think, like, yeah.
I meaning Megas, I'm buying low on Mega. I think they're going through a rough patch, but buying the dip that day. Well, that's because I am buying that dip. Ben. What's some of these things over toes.
Toes?
Uh huh, it's the lack of hesitation for me.
I just you know, I was, I was looking my own earlier and I was like, I have Bill's what the fuck are you guys contributing? Like, I know, the big to u in the human is necessary, the big toes in the humans are necessary for balance and stuff like that. Shout out Matt Boosties. But you yeah, you'll look at you know, we talked about Tozies and Fingy. Since Jack once said not too.
Homely, I also call him Fings.
Yeah.
Anyway, well, Sophia, one of Jack's many street names is Fingy's O'Brien. And I'm sorry I had to learn that on air.
Yeah.
Nice, super into it.
Uh along, he love stealing, so we know.
It was just, you know, I know, people like fetishize any part of the human body or whatever. There's someone listening right now who is like, oh fuck, is this the episode where they get the elbows? It's not, bro, it's probably not, but uh, but to trends. But but anyway, you know, I've always had a difficult time calling stuff overrated because it's cool to like believe in people, even if they're Quentin Tarantino. But the thing is the I just don't understand the function of most of the toes.
Our main overrated that we were talking about a little bit earlier that we can all agree with is uh, this is the moment where Sophia, you and I gang up on a good old fingies O'Brien. This guy owns a printer, like on purpose, you have a printer one percenter one person printers that.
Will worry printers overrated, printers overrated? Why is there never a solution where they just keep printing? Like why is it that I always have homework which I bought you for one purpose to print? Now I have to buy friends for you, Like That's how I feel. It's like offensive to me.
It's like babies.
They'll let you have them for free, but they don't tell you how much they're gonna cost, you know, to keep feeding them.
You gotta keep Yeah, you got to act like their ideas are interesting when they're around, like four.
Yeah, they're freeing your fingies, O'Brien over here.
I just feel like they're like air pods, you know what I mean. It's like, oh, now I have fucking homework to go with my headphones.
Like why are printers or children printers?
Okay?
Children? Question mark for me?
I don't know.
All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about our FK and we're back, and we're back any kind of fool could see. You can't stop saying that when we come back from things now for some reason. Anyways, we do have our Kate Junior as the death Czar and health Czar, and we've seen quite the boom in anti vax grifter activity since measles is now a thing that we have to worry about.
People aligned with RFK are trying their best to obscure the threat of measles and simultaneously profit off of the fear of parents who refused to use vaccines.
You know.
So last week, the guy behind the Pandemic documentary had a webinar along with Children's Health Defense, which is an organization that RFK Junior founded. And on that webinar he made the claim that measles actually, and I don't know if you guys knew this, it's actually a bio weapon and that's why shit is out of hand in West Texas. So yeah, you guys probably thought it was an illness that was happening to these families because they haven't vaccinated
their children. But to quote him from the webinar, my belief after interviewing these families is that this has been manipulated and targeted toward a community that is a threat because of their natural way of living. Can you call it what it is and that is a bio weapon?
Okay, okay, I hate when podcasts say this ordinarily, but pause, Uh the natural way of living.
Is Do you hate it when they do that because it's confusing and you pause the podcast? Wait they said the pause?
Yeah, Like I I.
Think we're all on the same page together here in that getting measles is not the ideal, you know, Tuesday or whatever, right, Like, I can probably.
Fit it in on Wednesday, but definitely not Tuesday.
You gotta talk my afternoon vibe, but like I can't come in right now.
Yeah, morning measles means you have a problem, saved measles for like after five.
Get some.
This is fucking scary, though, and part of my my blue language there because we've.
I'm not going to I can't, I can't detailed notes about it.
Oh my gosh, I'm still in court podcast court pause.
All right, so the.
Can we unpost, we can't overruled, we get overall overalled.
But yeah, if you remember last week, the media was breathlessly claiming that RFK Junior had come around on vaccines because he said the words measles can be prevented by the m M R vaccine. And then the media was like, and then we stopped listening, so we didn't hear what he said after that, But they left out the part where he turned around a few hours after that statement and celebrated the healers that were helping kids in the
Mennonite community. One of those healers is Richard Bartlett, the guy who was doing this, hosting this webinar.
Oh, I thought he's the guy that makes pairs.
He's the Bartlett family, the pair am I Yeah, okay, I think you're the pair entrepreneurs.
Sorry, prepared for this current events, prepare fingies.
He used the webinar to also sell and this is really like next level grifting. This probably should be in the Ken GRIFTI Singer segment, but he is selling AI powered snake oil as part of a Measles protocol quote, along with mouthwashed supplemental oxygen, and a few other items.
The Measles protocol includes Rebel Lions own Fierce Immunity capsules, which cost fifty dollars for a single bottle and contain a blend of five supplements available off the shelf that the company claims have been formulated with a supposed AI technology known as swarm Intelligence.
Oh my god, this is so nine.
I just want to say that unpopular opinion, But those motherfuckers, if they're going to be doing dumb shit, are gonna have fresh breath while doing it?
Yeah? So yeah, it's probably mouthwash that makes your breath smell like shit.
To be honest, No, why are you ruining the one good thing about this.
They're like, you gotta do like a rinse with something that smells like vinegar or something.
Now, AI is is a pretty controversial thing at the moment, often misunderstood. In fact, I fundamentally disagree with the phrase artificial intelligence. I think it's often misused. We're really talking about large language models or algorithms. But Jack, as you found, there is a difference here for the swarm intelligence.
Yeah, unlike regular AI. His technology is the natural form of intelligence. That's the way our brain works, that's the way our body works.
All organic AI is it fucking cage free is free range.
It's free range, cage free AI intelligence. And it doesn't hallucinate because everything we are doing is based on reality, based on the real evidence. It's like real. It reminds me of like a Tim Robinson like character. It's a natural form of intelligence. That's the way our brain works, that's the where our body works.
I can totally picture that. And also, I just think it's weird to be like it's a bioweapon when like, yeah, it is if no one is vaccinated. Yeah, yeah, you are literally making it into a bio weapon. So that's a really confusing accusation to make. It's being like, hey, guys, I've made this lethal to children and then being like you know what's crazy. This thing is lethal to children, and it's like, no, you didn't vaccinate. We already solved
this problem. It's the MMR vaccine. It's been solved. You don't need to come through being like oh now it's mouthwashed and bleach and like clicking my heels three times and getting a perm like yeah, no.
I hope perm is one of the things.
Yeah, that's what the side effects.
Everybody needs perms to fight easles.
Oh uh uh yeah, hot dog costume. We're all trying to find the guys who did that.
Everybody needs to be looking like Art Garfunkle. If they're the only way.
It's the only onest free the future is now.
All right, we do have to move on to complicity Huffman. And this does tie into science and are rfk Junior because there is something called the Breakthrough Awards that are considered the Oscars for Science and seth Rogen, But you know, I think they try and have some entertainers there to like kind of make it underline that idea of like the Oscars for Science, this is like the glitz and glam.
Hey I love seth Rogen.
Yeah, I like him too, and I like him even more after this story because so this being a room full of scientists being rewarded for breakthroughs and like progressing human knowledge and understanding of the universe. You you might think that this would be a place for some commiseration on the blatantly anti scientific values that have overtaken the US government and that are kind of on the march
around the world. And then you look at who funds the awards and you start to realize that nowhere is safe, nowhere that the long fingies of capitalism touch is actually safe. The event that quote, the event which was attended by Jeff Bezos and the founding sponsors Mark Zuckerberg and Sir
j Brinn, Sir gay Bryn. So Seth Rogen thought it was worth noting the irony of an award honoring science sponsored and attended by the very oligarchs who are most responsible or at least partially responsible for dismantling scientific values in the United States. So his speech opened, it's amazing that others in this room over underwrote, electing a man who in the last week single handedly destroyed all of
American science. It's amazing. It's amazing how much good science you can destroy with three hundred and twenty million dollars in RFK Junior, very fast, get it, fucking dog. Yeah, I am assuming that got like a pretty good pop from the actual scientists in the room. And I'm going to be forced to just assume that because whoever edited the award show for broadcasts thought that irony was less worth noting and cut his comments. In the version those broadcasts,
Rogan just starts talking about the person they're honoring. They just like have a picture of him that they just like move out to the podium, and then he just starts like a fucking where'd Smoochie go? Smoochie went back to his home planets.
That's a position where what do we say, or what we used to say? Only a cat can stare.
At a king. I can't believe they edited that part out. That's probably the part that meant the fucking most to them.
Yeah. Yeah, even more frustrating is and this just like seems like it's the way things operate right now. The people who make the show or who like the behind the show just made a statement to the Hollywood Reporter that said the cuts to the YouTube broadcasts were made
because of time constraints. It's just like, yeah, I don't know, I just feel like this slide into authoritarian oligarchy and fascism, like we have we just have so much experience now at this point just having marketing and all the various forces of capitalism, and like the market just tell us blatant lies with like just careful wording and you know, message discipline that the entire thing is just happening in like very polite language by polite people, you know, or.
You know, just straight up lies, being like oh the zero to nine Supreme Court decision, No it was for you for me, the zero wasn't for you.
Yeah, Like the administration itself doesn't give a fuck. They're gonna just tell blatant lies and like to not even try and make them sound real. But I just feel like the lies that these organizations are telling themselves are like they're they're just like yeah, whatever, I don't know, man, just say like it was time constraints or whatever.
How scary is it that Orwellian doublethink has become cliche? And yeah, you know it's Orwellian doublethink is like too much work. Like they're just like, no, just tell the easiest lie, Like we don't have to create new language for just fucking use like highly you have, like you know,
the marketing industry. Like I always think about the fact that like the most educated people graduating from like colleges every year are going into rooms where they like come up with the best language to lie to people, like that's what our world is. And yeah, I mean it's just it's been stacked up again against everybody for so long that we like don't even notice, Like we're just all all of the you know, our immune system is down, like we just like don't.
Even As someone that grew up in the Soviet Union, you know, I can tell you that this is like a really familiar yea.
And it is.
Especially like I was thinking about a dis in connection to the White House Correspondence dinner thing that I think we might talk about later, right, yeah, Amber Ruffin. Yeah, but just the idea that everything changes to where it's essentially like, you know, people after Stalin spoke would clap for like twenty minutes straight because you never wanted to be the first one to stop. Yeah, because you were afraid.
And now we do that for movies at times.
So no, but just the idea that like you can completely warp, yeah, what people actually think about a thing based on all of this other stuff. So it's like you you want to warp the idea of oh Seth Rogan was at this thing and he fully approves it, right, Like you're putting out a YouTube thing that is actually like based on a false premise that Seth Rogan, I guarantee you would not have said yes to this shit if he knew that they were going to cut his
speech like that. So now as far as history is concerned, Hey, Seth Rogan was that the Jeff Bezos and Sid gay Brin thing and he fully supports it, right, And that I think is vary to me, like Soviet Union manipulation. Just take out this little part and now the history's totally changed.
Yeah, and the fact that he was completely erased for any pictures that they evactually that's that was actually done to conserve to printer inc. We actually needed to, like I don't know if you guys know how sensitive that it is.
So we just also credit where do Joseph Stalin very much, very much a good pioneer in the world of photoshop weaponized.
Really truly like one of one of our first He would just erase people by hand. Yeah, he was really an.
Old school kind of Oh god, it's it's also it's a terrible and an impactful point. You know, the what we're what we're saying here, folks, is that we need to pay attention to how quickly things can road like how quickly unnormal things can be normalized right now.
And we just have so much experience just being like, no, it's done for time constraints. I've had to tell that lie before that like edits were made because of time constraints, when it was actually like no, that just like didn't work.
Yeah, I was there, thanks, Yeah, it was yeah.
Ben's holding at the beginning of this episode.
I remember that episode I was on, but it you know, it's I don't know.
So yeah, let's let's get into the Amber Ruffin thing because it kind of flew under the radar. But a couple weeks ago, I mean like a month ago, was announced Amber Ruffin was going to host the White House Correspondence Dinner, which is a super funny comedian used to have a podcast on her network, but a late.
Night show, late night host, super funny stand up and incredible fashion and.
So she had said on a podcast that her roasting duties like wouldn't necessarily be even handed and would focus on the administration and office, like you know, every single White House correspondent senter ever, but the explanation so she she was removed a couple of weeks ago, and after like one of the you know, partisan mega people in the Trump administration was like, Jay's like, look at this, She's admitting it's not going to be even handed, Like
she this is a disgrace. But I just want to read the explanation from the president of the White House Correspondence Association, who is like from Politico, you know, so presumably thinks of himself as a you know I call balls and strikes just right down the middle.
Taste maker umpire.
Yes, yeah, he said that it's not because Trump mad. It's actually the reason they removed her is because it was like part of his He kind of had like a vision for this dinner vision board. Yeah, yeah, Eugene, White House Correspondence Association.
Sorry, are you a fourteen year old girl planning your wedding?
Eugene Daniels said his group wanted to refocus the Ritzy annual event on journalistic excellence and wouldn't have a comedian, he said in his statement, he said he'd been planning for a couple of weeks to reimagine the dinner tradition for a couple of weeks. I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division, but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing
scholarship and mentorship to the new generation of journalists. What it's He's just yeah, it's I like, I feel like this one he might actually believe this himself, that that's
why he's doing this. But it's again, it's somebody who a sensive like tells themselves like, I'm a good I'm not for what Trump is for ye, but is just doing the thing to, you know, be complicit, but like not have to admit to himself or to anybody else that he's complicit by being like, actually, it's like more about wanting to focus on excellence as opposed to the politics of division. It's like, go truly go yourself. Yeah, my arm is not long enough for the jerk offhand motion.
Oh yeah, I was doing that in my head the entire time.
Yeah.
Also, the thing about it is like, at the most basic level, it's like showing up to your own roast and being like whoa, whoa, whoa. So you're saying you're gonna make fun of me mostly right, I think it should be even handed between me and the other people on the dais and like all the audience, because like that seems really unfair. It's like, motherfucker, that's the point of the roast. Yeah, that's what the White House Correspondents
Dinner is. And the whole thing about being roasted and being good natured about it is you were in power, so the least you can do is take a couple of hajas, okay, and the fact that you're so soft that you couldn't let this happen. I'm like, this is so embarrassing. And then you're like out here being like you guys are snowflakes. Yes, you can't literally can't take a joke.
Yes, they didn't have.
The last time that they didn't have a comedian at the White House Correspondence Dinner was in twenty nineteen, when Trump was in office the first time around. So uh yeah, it seems like they're a little thin skin, did guys? The Friars Club roast should really be about excellence and friaredom Yeah excellent. What are the who has the best fries?
Y as?
What we're talking about?
Pretty much?
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk Ken Grifty Senior, and we are back.
So, the.
The Blue Origin flight with the star studded crew including Katie Perry, Gail King, and Bezos's fiance Lauren Sanchez, among others. Uh gwent up up there into the Great Beyond for a little bit and came back and everyone is safe. Apparently this is the quote first all female flight crew in more than six decades to head to space. So I didn't even realize this is wait, so what was that sixty years in the sixties?
Okay?
Is this the same shit? Where like when they had the deep Water Horizon, like everyone, all the passengers technically have to be classified as crew to get around liability. Probably, I mean, I mean, like, in what sense is Katy Perry crew? Well, hold on, that's really unfair.
Let me just tell you she was preparing Andrew, so please don't be flipping about this absolutely significant contribution to scientific research. In advance of the launch, Katy Perry was telling people she was preparing by reading Carl Sagan and learning about string theory, Okay, which may I mean she was crewe for a flight that was fully automated and only lasted for ten minutes.
She also wore an eleven dollars setting spray to quote lock in her makeup during the flight, and she said it truly held.
Wow. See yeah, and that's how I ad too when they go what was that? Oh, this is my brand that I just launched into space with me baby. She also held a daisy, I think to commemorate her child Daisy. So she brought a daisy and look, and now you went to space, just wandered. This is a quote from when she was talking about the lead up to this from Katie Perry. I think, actually, I'm really excited about
the engineering of it all. I'm excited to learn more about STEM and just the math about what it takes to accomplish this type of thing. I was winding down from our rehearsal the other day and I I was listening to Cosmos by Carl Sagan and reading a book on string theory, and yeah, I was like going to bed. That was definitely like helping. I was Likethagoris Pythagoris, it
says snoring. Parenthetical it goes on to say, but you know, I've always been interested in astrophysics and interested in astronomy and astrology and the stars. The first two were sciences, those were actual scientific those were bodies of scientific research. The other one that's a more vibe based thing, but connected to the stars. And I do respect that, Katy Perry, that you tried to elevate astrology.
I'm glad she didn't go on a SpaceX rocket because that would be a firework. Yeah.
No, oh, deep cut, deep cut, you know, they said. Gail King said oddly enough that she didn't sing firework or roar because quote, according to Gail King, she didn't want to make the moment about herself.
But she did sing.
She covered what a wonderful world for her literally captive audience.
Oh my god, we are being destroyed by the dumbest people on earth.
It's like really frightening.
I mean, my favorite evidence is listen. And Katy Perry's an entertainer. She does not need to be a mathematician.
No, but just go up there.
Fas is the first and often last thing that has the word theorem attached to it that Americans learn, right, and that ship is from when you're twelve years old.
Yeah, Heyl just said.
Serious, that's when you when like dumb like stars try to like appear like they're scientific and smart intellect just be like yo bezos DM me. So you want to go on a rocket? I said, dope.
I said, yeah, that thick.
Yeah it was California girl in space.
That's thick, dude, you know what I mean? Remember remember that track I did E T Yeah, I was et for a second. Yeah, exactly, I'm extra to restaurant. I again, great, I think, But yeah, to your point where y'all had like, there's just you can just be like, I don't know, man, gave me a chance to go on a spaceship. That's cool, Rather like I was in the.
Lab fucking looking at all these theorems, some string theory I was looking at and yeah, exactly checking out what was going on with Mercury Rising.
You feel me?
Uh it was ten minutes.
Here's a question. Do you think when Katie Perry covered One Wonderful World she did it in a Louis Armstrong impression?
Oh my god, I don't know. I feel like hopefully Gail King would have shot her dag rise if she started doing that, She'd like.
You are going to do She's stuck there and take it?
Do you think.
I mean, like, if this is true, what the fuck is the Like I feel bad for the other people on there. We're like, is she really like singing up here? Like can we just can we just all appreciate that, you know, we're killing the Earth together and we have to go back down there. But I don't know they have to.
I mean, they're all this.
I mean, this is exactly like Deep Water Horizon meets the Barbie Movie. Like it's just like, you know, fake feminism whatever connected to the most evil people on Earth. And it's fine, Like they knew what they were getting into.
Right, it's capitalism for it, it's pr for billionaires exactly. They got played and used, just like Bill mart got played by Donald Trump. Yeah. Yeah, you should just admit it. You should be like if it was me and I went, I'd be like, yo, a rich billionaire gave me a free trip into space or space ish is not space and space Beverly Hills. I was to space and I would never be able to.
Do it, and I did it, and that's then it was dope and I I didn't fully understand the safety risks and I am fine, yeah, okay, And look I pressed a lot of buttons when I was in there and nothing broke. You know, there's no way that pass those passenger seats don't have a bunch of fake buttons attached to nothing. It's like when you're like a Star Wars, like you're in the Maggie Simpson driving the car in the opening credits of Simpson's Like, it's just fake.
It's fake for imagine.
All right, all right, all right, Sergeant Katy Perry on my on my mark, please hit the oxygen button. Okay, I'm ready, I'm ready, three, and.
Could you hit the booster booster two, hit booster.
There's no way that's not right. There's just a bunch of there's an iPad that beeps when you touch it and it doesn't connect to anything.
Yeah, I I yeah. I mean like, but like it's wild too, because while there is like the like the Katy Perry's and Gales of it all, there's like Aisha bo who's like a former actual like not NASA rocket scientist, and Amanda Wind who's like a bio astronautics Like I wonder for those people. They're like bro I was going up there. She kept talking to me about fucking string theory. Yeah, what the fuck was that. I'm legit.
It must just kill them, right, Like you might kill them as they're seeing as NASA is being destroyed and actual science programs are being dismantled. That Katie Perry and Gail can get to go to space on a billionaire's rocket. It's just like the pain, the pain that they must experience.
Yeah, there's just got to be like a level of disrespect, Like it has to be existential, like especially for these actual bona fide scientists. They're on this rocket with like these very wealthy people. They go up and like, wow, this is great, and they're like, you guys aren't doing nothing while they destroy science in America.
Well, but I I do think that the evilist middle ground is. I look, I don't know these people. I don't know what they thought about this, but I feel like when I've seen other people in this position, they are always rationalizing like, yeah, they're destroying the space program, they're destroying Earth, but like this is my chance to like change their mind, right, And it's always like you know, maybe like the fucking NFLCIO speaking at the RNC guy, I'm just like, no, man, But.
If Bezos gave both of you a chance to go on the Rocket Way to do it. Yes, I wouldn't advertise it. I got to be on with a lot of billionaires and I'm gonna do you all solid up there, I know moment, Yeah, but I just be farting in there and they'll be, yeah, I'm farting the whole time.
They're not. They're gonna be like what, I don't know. I don't know, myles, what was your resistance?
I was stuck in so much, yeah, so much topps for two hours. They didn't know. They're somehow smarter. I'm sorry for that, but yeah, we will see.
It's twenty two because like, like William Shatner went on one of those celebrity space rides in twenty twenty two. His reaction, like Katy Perry said, quote, she felt super connected to love when she was up there. This is what fucking Captain Kirk said when he went up with Jeff Bezos. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled
me with overwhelming sadness. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration. Instead, it felt like a funeral.
You know, I interviewed him two years ago, what was on his birthday for south By Southwestern. I think he's in his nineties. You know, he's an interesting guy, but he's he has a lot of age, a lot of wisdom. He's a person who actually thinks deeply about life and also at this stage of his life death. So we actually gave like a profound answer. And then you have Katy Perry astrology.
Yeah, yeah, hey, yeah, look, different strokes for different folks. That's all we Hey, look if you if you want to feel connected to love or the the cold, the vicious of space.
I mean there is a little bit of billionaire space washing here too, because all this like we're going to colonize Mars like they're they are literally trying to make this seem like fun. And guess what, You're gonna die alone in the freezing cold that you've never like that is in our lifetime. Every Mars colonist is going to die alone.
Will we see them get there? I don't know, will we see that?
I mean I don't think the engineering currently supports it. But when we're old, they're gonna send some dickheads of some bitcoin dickheads out there to try it.
Oh yeah, my god.
But you know what the funny thing is. I mean it's not funny, but it's actually if you study the broligarchy and what they are afraid of. They've gone around taxes. When you when we were all grown up, we used to tell like Gen X and Millennius, the only two things guaranteed in death in taxes. Yeah, but if you say that to like Gen Z or Gen Alpha, they're like, rich people don't pay taxes. So really that's guaranteed in life is death, and they're trying their best to escape death and they can't.
Yeah they did. They ticked off the taxes box. Now it's the death box.
Mm.
They're trying to man, they're trying, really are That's why they're all into AI is of humanist because.
You imagine they're like, maybe we go to Transylvania, maybe we can meet a vampire and get turned and then we can be you know, immortal like them, And it seems like a fucking fucked up life.
But fine, dude, it's as good as any of their other schemes. Yeah, I know, right, like a vampire just as plausible as Yeah.
Thus pivots from Mars to being like, we have to make real life vampires with immortality.
And they only like they sell the vampires, like there's a tier of vampire blood. They're like, they'll find a way to capitalize the VAMPI Oh yeah, yeah.
Are popping out saying it's actually a vampire.
Yes, vampire yea. Actually we're gonna say it in the proper pronouncia pronounc.
I prefer to be identified as vampire human. Yeah.
They're like, oh, you could only afford the sixty year life extension of that vampire blood. Uh, that sucks. Couldn't be me, broke boy, I got I got three millennia on this one. I'm on that one. Uh. They're like, you're gonna see the end of Earth.
Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be about the end of Earth. Yeah.
Actually you are too.
Yeah. Uh.
And then finally, h just with the box office so mine. The Minecraft movie continues to be number one. Kids are still losing their ship in the screenings on the Chicken Jockey.
Uh, kids made me take them both. My kids made me taken, and I felt so bad. I hadn't no idea what was happening, And then I saw this happening all throughout. They just threw their popcorn and I just said that, I'm like the poor, underpaid yeah teenage usher, Yeah.
Yeah, who have to deal with this. It's like, bro, you're making more work for your friends right now, and what the fuck?
I mean?
It's wild to see how much copycat behavior like in the realm of social media, because, like you had so many clips. I've seen these kids when the Chicken Jockey part comes out. They all have their phones and they're almost like trying to look around to be like, we're doing the thing now right, Yeah, turn up even more. Very kind of surreal to watch. Anyway, Around four hundred and thirty four million has been made globally. From the number two movie was The King of Kings, which we
have mentioned before that this was coming out. Maybe it's a CGI kids movie about a time traveling Charles Dickens visiting Jesus. Wow, it's sort of like like an AI TMU Pixar Pixel Yeah, we got Pixar, we got Pixar at home kids.
It really looks bad.
Yeah, it's bad. It looks like like shit. And I hate to say that about a movie about Jesus Christ. But the story the film's called The King of Kings, a story told by Charles Dickens.
Why did they just do like the biblical version of Jesus. That would have been fine, The King of Kings, the story in Jesus. Yeah, I know it was the Charles dickenzie In take on it.
Yeah, no, either did die. But so it was released by Angel Studios, which you might remember from twenty twenty two's Sound of Freedom, and as they say, it had the quote best opening for an animated Biblical movie, which seems very specific in order to give yourself a superlative achievement. But Deadline did note that I guess Prince of Egypt that came out twenty seven years ago is the closest thing that they're saying. I guess that is the one they're referencing.
Because I saw them in the theater that was by dream Works. Yeah, yeah, I was like nineteen ninety eight. I randomly remember I got a re screening in college. So yeah, it took them twenty twenty seven to twenty years and not counting inflation to beat Prince of Egypt exactly.
And again, you know, like the reviews are all over the place. One critic pointed out that the movie's message that quote it's wrong to profit from religion is somewhat undercut by the fact that it's a movie that's literally profiting from whatever Jesus to say.
I know, I know, I keep punching. I mean punching right for me, but punching left from what people consider the center. Like every time fucking you know, a democratic democrat ish type person points out the hypocrisy of these people, it's like dog, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, this is they don't care. They don't care, that's not the point they get to say it, and then most uncritical viewers of it will be like, yeah, yeah, self awareness not really for me.
Well, like the look you all full that's sound of freedom scandal. The dude who was inspired on apparently is like a total frauds are doing the things allegedly.
That ye are, yeah, like doing these weird romance scams, like we got to go undercover and maybe we should be intimate to make it believable that we're like whoa, no, no, no, this is all bad.
But you know what I've been I've been keeping an eye on Angel Studios for a while, because I've been noticing they've been releasing these movies for a couple of years, and the first week in the second week are really good.
Their low budget, they always make a big profit, right, So they have these niche movies, and I'm like, hey, this is like, if you want to actually make money in movies, you do these niche movies that appeal to either the Christian faith based audience, Latino audiences, and Indian South Asian audiences via Bollywood or horror movies. And now it's been fused with maga right wing politics, which is something we should keep an eye on. Like it's not separated.
And if you think it's whack, I give you Sound of Freedom.
Yeah right, yeah, I mean similarly to Sound of Freedom. A lot of people are like wow, Like a lot of people seem to have been going to see it,
obviously because it coincides with Easter. But again, like Sound of Freedom, they pulled a pay it forward ticketing gimmick where allowed people whoever who knows, maybe their own like their own benefactor whatever, people are buying just large sums of tickets and people can go like go to a pay it forward sort of ticket site, get a code and then buy their actual ticket without actually paying for it.
Yeah. Yeah, so the box.
Office can be inflated by a yeah don't.
It's like the same way like that people do that with like New York Times bestseller things like yeah, I bought sixteen I bought sixteen thousand copies of.
It Junior's best selling book.
That is the thing that is sort of heartening about this stuff is like because this is all they do, this thing, because this is what they believe all marketing is is simply using.
Getting a headline the number.
Yeah.
But the reality is it's like that just makes this movie less profitable because like it's all this all this like pay it forward, all these like unused payd forward tickets. I would bet money they are being funded by the producers of this film.
Oh right, I don't. Yeah, or they or they have other people. There's like a network where some people, yeah, people that like yeah, dude, you can count me in for like a million dollars worth of tickets.
Sure, but like the ecosystem is not earning money because they none have eyeballs and interested humans, which is like again cold comfort, But but.
You know what they do, right, They then get to Trojan Horse in quote unquote mainstream media that we are much stronger than we appear, and the center right is forgotten by Liverpool media. And then you know, look, everyone talks about how they work the culture very well in twenty twenty four through podcasts and UFC and barstool. Sure, but it took them all that and this is the one positive Donald still barely won by one point four. Yeah, so they're always trying to inflate. I think their their
numbers and their reafs more than they are. And then you see people like Bill Maher and New York Times always bend the knee, yeah because it's fond.
Yeah, like those people are cowards. But the reality is they do not have the humans that they know. The numbers are not there. The numbers are not there, so.
Again cold comfort. But like when it's time to measure numbers of humans against another numbers of humans in opposition, I don't know what that is called.
Yeah, yeah, I mean the other thing they were doing, too, is they were doing a kid's go free promotion, so like an adult could be like, oh yeah, it's cheaper than taking my kids to Minecraft and getting popcorn in my really stylish haircut.
And that's awesome too, because that just helps remind your kids that they hate you and you didn't bring them to me like bro I had.
All my friends are talking about whether they're all showing their Chicken Jockey video clips turned up in the theater and they asked where mine was, and I had to show them a scene from the Resurrection and Ship and everybody with tears in their eyes.
The Resurrection with Charles Dickenson.
If I took my kids to King of Kings instead of Minecraft, I think my son would like there would be like permanent damage done to Oh yeah, he would.
He would do The thing is like, Dad, I'm gonna call the city on you.
Yeah, yeah, away at anything. But this would be like somebody's like, does Dad hate me? Why?
Yeah?
Why would you do that to me?
He's like, well, Christian, why would he even do this to us? This is fucking what is this?
It's mixed signals? Dad, Dad, we were fasting for Ramadan and now you're telling me that Jesus is God, he's the truthful And then Dickens is a time to have traveling prophet? What did you just take me the Minecraft?
That's how he knew is the best of times and the worst of times. You know what I mean?
Why?
What is the theology of Charles Dickens? Is doctor who at the Crucifixion of Christ?
Is that really?
Are you just making it up? Because the first time I've actually heard is that Charles Dickens is in this movie.
Oh yeah, apparently that is literally what is to happen?
I thought maybe he wrote a story, But is Charles Dickens here? I will read you Dickens.
This is the plot. While while Charles Dickens is performing a stage reading of his novel A Christmas Carol, his unruleased son Walter, Oh well maybe one of your your pseudonyms, uh, disrupts the performance while playing King Arthur backstage and gets scolded by his father on the evening. When Dickens returns home, he decides, on the advice of his wife Catherine, to use Walter's passion for kings to tell him about the
life of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Total youth pastor was like, you know who the King of Kings was?
Son?
I mean, it has to be that they count on their audience to be literally so illiterate that Charles Dickens is the only author connected to a Christian thing in Christmas.
You know, I haven't even I haven't even ruined it by telling you who lended their voices to this film. Do you know who played Charles Dickens? Who voiced Charles Dickens, Kenneth Brana, you know who voiced you know who voiced Catherine Dickens, his wife Uma Thurman. You know who played King herod Mark Hamill. You know who played Conscious Pilot Pierce Brosnan. You know who played Peter Forrest Whittaker, Caiaphas Ben Kingsley.
This is good because all this fake money that's being used to inflate the ticket sales does have to be paid as a percentage to things like residuals. So like as they scam the fucking audience, they do have to pay these people. Also, there's no sure sign that we are in a recession then a listers doing this stuff.
Oh yeah, that means they have like a few money that they give, right, that's that's yeah. You'll get good actors and they'll throw money at them. And these actors have no idea what's going to happen in the future. Because Netflix is just like dummy down all the content. So like, hey, go for two days for Angel Studios and get paid to play Charles Dickens.
It is yeah, it is also true that like the fucking yeah, like it's it's just worth it for them to do this, like they have to do it and something's keeping Hollywood afloat.
I love it if they paid you both, would you do this and you do?
I would have to be I would have to be Jesus, desh. That would be my heart, that would be my bargaining chips, and then I would crash out before the movie came out to completely fuck it up. But how much Hey, if I can get on, you know, in one of these freedom cities and be protected one of them freedom cities, I think yeah, I mean as long as not if it's a U seven part hell no, you know what I mean.
I'm about number two rules, Charles Dickens. You don't get Jesus, but they'll give you Dickens.
Oh, I imagine how much is Jesus actually in this? Do you think?
I mean he's in it? I mean, it ain't just all Charles Dickons just reading a bedtime story and Jesus.
I'm saying. I'm saying, but he's like a like a side character.
I feel like, Oh I forgot to tell you know who Jesus Christ was voiced by Oscar.
I read that?
What yeah?
Oh man.
Anyway, anyway, he and look just like Oscar Isaac bro he is risen. He is risen. Me up, dude, I can't handle this. I can't handle this Savior.
I would actually, I would only do it if they made me be Jesus just so when like people saw who actually voiced the characters, they saw brown Muslim voicing Jesus and would just mess with them for a long time, right right, And then they find out Muslim is believing Jesus and it would just double mess with them, and then p Texas would need to get another copper tattoo on the other.
All right, that's gonna do it for this weeks weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like. The show means the world of Miles. He needs your validation.
Folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday.
Bye.
Have that to th