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 thrilled to be joined in our third seat. I have very talented writer who's written for The La Times, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, you know, small small publications like that. Her new book is fetishized reckoning with yellow Fever, feminism and beauty out in the world. Now go buy it. It's a great read, super fascinating. Please welcome Kyler's amazing opening.
It's like I need to think of a better opening introduction for myself, like a dramatic one.
You guys have you can bring me wherever you're going, just like.
Be my hype man behind me.
Yeah exactly, I do. Try and bring a boom box wherever on your shoulder, Yeah exactly. Thank you for joining us. The book is now. Is that like huge relief? Yeah?
I mean I actually got really depressed the next day. So there's a thing called postpartum book publication because I went and looked online and there's a ton of articles about it.
A lot of build up, and then and then you're like having a kid, You're just like, oh, this is it.
Yeah, the fun My life hasn't changed overnight. That's pretty much.
I mean, it's like the same thing I think with like working on political campaigns too. That happens to people the day after election day because everything is leading up to one day and then you get on the other side of it and you're like, what wait, But.
Can you imagine you're on the losing side, because if you're on the winning side, then you could be depressed, but at least we won.
Yeah, on the winning side, you're kind of like, oh, man, I like, I like didn't talk to anyone the last two months to just get through this election or whatever. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The book is really amazing, Kyla. Jack and I are reading it over the weekend and like to one another or into each other's last taking turns, taking turns because Jack doesn't Jack doesn't know about the Inland Empire. He doesn't know about what.
Really, I'm from all over the East coast on Midwest.
People in California don't even know about the Inland Empire.
It was a fascinating learning experience. I want to learn about the Inland Empire.
I know, I had to explain him what the watching gangs? Who watching gangsters work?
You know what I mean?
These are these are all very so cal things. But that's a so.
Called Asian exclusively. Yeah, yeah, not Asian.
That's what I loved about the book. I mean, aside from like your very specific experiences, like you know, just dealing with you know, the sort of gender expectations and beauty standards that come along with being not white in America, but like the stuff about just growing up in southern California and just the little details that you put in that were I'm like, it might not be for everyone, but every single like high schools like Eduwanda go On, the Heights go On. It was like hitting my brain.
I was like watching Yes, it was a special time, right, it was all the people from that air are very nostalgic about it.
Yeah, I was waiting for one of those Hondas for one hundred thousand dollars.
Made me wish my Yeah. And then like working as an import modeling, like you've had such a just you You've touched every experience. It's a really fascinating book, and I think people should definitely check it out, especially for the obscure esoteric Asian gang references too.
You know everything about the important scene which no one's ever heard of either.
Yeah right, Yeah.
You learn a lot about parts of the world you might not be familiar with, and you also get inssive analysis of the Little Mermaid.
Yes, so very much.
I always appreciate.
Yeah. I was just in Copenhagen looking at that statue. Really underwhelming, really yeah, well yeah, so many people are like, we're gonna go see it, and they're like, it's tiny. It's not like some Disney Yeah, no, it nearly is. It's oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's no. I think American people who are like Little Mermaid statue and they go, what is this like art piece? You know what I
meant at the shore of the water. Yeah. The one thing that also really touched my brain was too is like sort of I think this happens especially with kids of color in America, especially in like the late eighties and nineties, like who do I model my life after? On TV? Like I don't have an example, and like, especially for me being black in Japanese, like there was certainly no like black and eese person for me to
look up to. So I'd be like, so you can do karate man or you can do basketball gangster, and like trying to figure out like sort of parsing through all those things and like trying to land on who you are and what you know, Like it's like am I who I am? Or am I this version of like who do I select from from the available? Like characters on TV. I was like a combination of like Will Smith. I was mostly like Will Smith. I think Will Smith was like because I was like, I wasn't
full of myself. I wasn't a tough guy, so I was never like trying to put on some like tough kid persona.
Although trying to get into watching.
No, they wouldn't have me, you know, they should be like you might you look like maybe you would be an sts the Filipino gang they were having me watching. But yeah, like I was just like just all of these things. It's it's interesting just to see how you know, universal that kind of experience it especially for like kids of immigrants or just you know, like non white kids
in the US. So yeah, just all over just really really fun and read aside from just like the very serious stuff too, which I thought was really poignant.
Yeah, just all the ways that you know, the gap between your per like your existence as a human being with an inner life, and then the way often white men will talk to you.
Oh have you heard of the Asian fetish being a white man?
Yeah, I have heard that. My wife is Korean. Actually I've been.
Oh yeah, just kidding, just kidding.
I've been there for many Where are you from from questions? Oh, witnessed it? Oh yeah, yeah, Okay.
So I have a friend who is married to a Korean woman also, and she's the first Asian he's ever dated. He definitely doesn't have an Asian fetish, and he's like he gets like little remarks here and there, like questions like, oh do you have an Asian you.
Know, like yeah, yeah, I'm sure you probably getting nudged by other pervert dudes who are like hey man, and you're like, get it. My fucking wife I'm in love with since I was like a young man. No, yeah, it is, yeah, it's I mean I think about too, like I've like, you know, my friends who are Asian women.
They talk about how like you know, how much you have to really kind of have your head on a swivelf a lot of times, because dudes will just are purely there to be like Asian, right, okay in that voice too, yeah, Or she'll be like I have one home grow like I'll go on to date this. If the guy says Asian anything, I'm off this, Like I'm not even trying to hear it.
My wife literally had a policy of like she didn't really date people who had dated Satan women before because she was just like, yeah, I don't want that to be your thing. I don't want to be like part of your thing for Asian women.
Yeah, I just feels like not special.
Yeah, And she had hurt, like she was like and then sometimes they'll be like, oh, it's just like being into blondes, and I'm like not really. But it was funny because as I was like talking to her about the book, she like, all these conversations that she had had, we're coming up. So yeah, super fascinating.
Yeah.
Some men are very weird the things they feel very comfortable saying, yes.
Right, yes, they live in a consequence free world.
That's right.
What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
Okay, So a recent thing for my search history is did Christopher Columbus have sex with a manatee? So there's apparently like they have all of his journals from his like kind of travels around the world, and there's like a specific entry where he talks about how he thinks he saw a bunch of mermaids and then he says like they're not quite as beautiful as I thought they would be.
There, a little lumpy.
And it's like, clearly they were amanatees. So my question is, why isn't that in a prager?
You sure?
You know?
I feel like it's just right there, yeah, oh my god, wondering just and chin stroking. They aren't like from Afar then is beautiful.
It's like not horrified. It's just like, yeah, I look, I thought they'd be a ten, but they're like an eight.
So the other who's been at sea for like three months, just you know, debilitatingly horny. It's it's that if you've seen that movie The Lighthouse, where a big plot point is that Robert Pattinson like carves a naked woman out of a piece of rock and then like keeps jacking off to it's like becomes enchanted by it.
I really think that is. I think that's what we were dealing with for the majority of human history, people whose brains were broken by their unbelievable horniness.
When to answer the question, did Christopher Columbus have sex with the manager, the answer is yeah, probably, Yeah, have a lot of research. It's like, you know, chances are you know.
Just him being like they're not as pretty as I thought, has me think that there's a there's a dot dot at the end of that sentence. Yeah, but second he's like, scratched it out, nothing, nothing but leave me alone. I'm writing my journals.
Came to realize all at once that they weren't as beautiful as they seemed at first. I don't know what it was that changed, but we were in close quarters and suddenly I was understood.
Yeah, I understood the beauty. Wow that is I mean, I feel like, yeah, if we can't get enough people to cancel the idea of Christopher Columbus for the era of untold you know, colonialism that he ushered in with his his explorer, his explorations, maybe it's him fucking amanity that can get some people like, oh, he fucked humanity. He was writing that in his journal while riding on the back. No, I said, he fucked humanity, right.
I gotta say, Okay, so I'm you know, as a Native person, I'm obviously very for Indigenous People's Day. But I say, after reading this, I'm not opposed to Columbus Day being a holiday. I just think instead of it being in October, it should be January tenth, which is the date in his journal where he may be the date.
Wait and why this day young man journals? Will you see what is something you think is underrated?
Underrated? Okay, this is really dumb. But for years and years and years I have been driving around without a phone holder in my car. Uh huh, and I just got I just got one. And we're not talking about these things enough. It's amazing decades, Oh my god. Like literally, I want to say, the last time I had one was probably six ish, more more than five years ago,
maybe even significantly more so. It really is the type of thing where I'm like, wow, I literally have the The other day driver is like, my phone's right there.
Just right there, it's just look down.
Oh my god. So anyway, I think those little pieces of plastic are pretty underrated.
Prior to that, you were just driving around with it in front of your face, with holding it up in front of your face an exact same spot where the holder would be.
Yeah, and I had a couple of phones. I have the Android item all. I had like a real Goldberg machine pro, dash cam, all of it. Yeah, but now I just have the one holder. Yeah.
Yeah, always a boxing glove and a that's connected to a wheel somehow.
Yeah, like on a plunger.
Yeah, and I'm that like spins for it and kicks something.
Usually I'm usually driving down Banana Peel Lane.
And is it a phone holder that connects into the air conditioning vent.
Yes, but it is also one that has enough space so that it it's like I can still feel the air from that. Then.
Yeah, that's it. Sounds like you got a good one out.
Yeah, I gotta.
Search Reddit you search readit to figure out what's one to get? No, that one.
I just took that one. I just took a stab in the dard because I think what I think what happened was the phone foul or something. I was like, let me just get one of these fucking things right now.
I think you were doing the search on a broken phone from the falling.
Yeah exactly, exactly.
Yeah, phone holder for a car, and then you just hit the unfeeling. But that's not even a thing anymore, don't Yeah, do they even have they do they do?
Here, I'm gonna do right now, still holder for car and guess what, assholes at Google. I'm feeling fucking lucky. Oh, it just fucking fel It doesn't even give I didn't realize what it does. It just sends you to whatever you to the top results. Oh yeah, that sent me straight to Amazon.
I'm amazing.
They should I feel like they should be like, I'm feeling really lucky and like you hit that and you just like get the thing whatever they want to send you. They're just like, yeah, you just bought that shit. I'm gonna put Tame and Paula tickets refreshed. I'm feeling lucky. There you go, send me straight to fucking Ticketmaster. There you go, there are good friends at Ticketmaster. What is something, Blair that you think is overrated?
Thank you for asking, Jack, And it's gonna have to be laboo boos. I don't want a stuffed animal attach to my purse.
Stop it.
I'm not falling victim to your beanie baby ass craze reboot. Okay, I don't like reboots in general, and I don't give a shit about laboo boos and I think they're weird, even though I love stuffed animals.
So there you go.
Doesn't make sense.
Oh you love stuffed animals.
Yeah, in the privacy of my own goddamn cave, like I'm not walking around.
Wait, hold on, wait animal cave. Wait you you really focus stuffed animals like that?
I have no Okay, if I'm going to be I've already revealed so much on this show over the last decade. I have one weighted, like six pound bear that is sort of like a weighted blanket that I sleep with. And then I have one stuffed animal from my childhood named Gerilli that I have recently brought from my parents' house up to here because it was like a thing with me and my brother. So that's like a little comfort thing. So at the current moment, I have two.
In my oka. I thought you were like low key, like you really into stuff.
He's no miles.
That'd be freaky, okay, just because I researched octopuses for several hours.
I mean, I have like freaking at all.
Doesn't like I'm some freak adult stuffy house a freaky ash.
I turns around in just a roomful of stuff to animals just watching Blair.
She has them all set up like it looks like a comedy club audience. They all have to have drinks and food. Little flickering should be.
Really funny to do a special to that.
Maybe you should do that.
I'll I'll give you writing credit.
You know you have to just invite us. That's well, but we would have to like hide behind.
Is you know you have to be inside stage.
Okay, I'll wait and the wings going with my hands cushed with the splayer. You're doing it. You're doing it.
Put in the hospital if I did that?
Pro Wait, do you know do you have contemporaries that are fucking with bos? Oh?
Yeah, a lot of them and actually like a few of my favorite people. So no shade to them if they listen to this. I support you in your freaky ass like endevas, but I think they're weird and I would never participate no matter what.
And they should be ashamed of themselves. The weighted stuff to bear that kind of acts as a way to blanket. Does it lay on you face down or face up? Oh my god, Jock, I'm just trying to get that here, just like I'm trying podcast.
This kind of perverted us question.
Like a face down?
Which way my weighted up bear is face I don't know.
I'm just like picturing a bear like laying face down, life, asking is it north to south? What are we talking about? Ahead?
I mean it's on my chest usually or in my or I'm craddling it.
You know what, six pounds. I feel like that's like I get a blanket because that weight is distributed pretty eagerly. That's just like just having one of contact of.
Like chest and it's like, yeah, okay. When I'm when I'm struggling watching.
I wasn't trying to make it horney. I was just trying to like get a now where I was. That's where Jack's particular things come out to laugh with you. He's nervously texting me right now there, He's blair mad. Cut this out, Cut this out, Cut this out? Why are you texting me this?
I just think it's a funny visual image a bear lying either face down on top of you or face up on top of you, I know that's just me.
You have no idea how I'm a weird though. The face to face is like you're hugging the bear, you know what I mean, And then outwardly also feels more like a display hug, ye know what I mean, And you tell the bear I'm finna grab you by the waist. Yeah, does it say that?
Sometimes it doesn't speak if you can believe it.
Know what your money's on.
But just a nervous system tool that's kind of cozy.
Yeah, help your limbic system out.
Yeah, absolutely, calm down. That a michdala exactly.
Bra.
Why does it make me laugh so hard? Every time you bring out.
You gotta bring out terror of the god? You know what I mean?
You know what I mean.
If you're not doing rain, what's it all about? What's it all about? How are we going to navigate these emotional trials and tribulations? Jack, you know about this, recognize allow investigate nurtures like this like therapist spiritual woman who like broadcasts I think from like DC Virginia and Maryland are somewhere in the d MV. But like my dad, I remember, He's like I've been listening to this Terra
Brock Lady. Her voice is so soothing, and she just has like these like sort of long form talks about like you know, our emotions and things like that.
And she's a meditation teacher and yeah, her voice is like just very like almost hypnotizing.
Really, it's like it's like the goaded NPR voice. It's like a walk around. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If we're going goded NPR voices, it's Tara Brock Terry Gross.
When I used to lead some online breathwork classes, I'd always be like, I wonder how this.
Sounding for them?
Are you doing? Wait, how would you do it? Are you doing really soft? Are you projecting? Is it more like as.
I can't remember, No, I can't.
I don't know.
It's so long ago.
To breathe in.
Sometimes people will.
Come up to me and be at the show and be like I took one of your breathwork classes, and I'm always like, wow, that's so.
Weird, Like after you stand up, yeah, like I mean like.
Wow, you've seen so many different sides of me.
Yeah, genre, yeah, it doesn't matter. Love you hit the Blairsckey Triple Crown.
That's right.
Oh, very weird, girl. Let's Uh, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we're back, and yeah, there's a new gallop pole that says the capital is is at a they started asking about this, They didn't even think to ask about this until twenty ten.
They're like, wait, do we like capitalism?
Is this a good thing? And back then, uh, sixty one percent of people approved of capitalism. And then they were like, and fucking why not ask what do you think of socialism? And back then thirty six percent of people approved of socialism. So since then, capitalism has slid seven percentage points, socialism has gone up three percentage points. Socialism's fighting a fucking tough uphill battle in the United States, But.
Why do you way to put that tough uphill battle against those propagandized people on the PA. I do like, just think this is worth noting. Like we're we're bombarded.
With news and daily realities that make it seem like this version of capitalism is like unceasing, an unbeatable and we'll be here forever. But I do think that's at least partially it feels that way because we're inside the
propaganda machine four capitalism. You know, they will cover like the the local news covers like doorbuster sales, like their sporting events, and then they like won't cover the fact that, like a local corporation or like a local country club has been caught poisoning your water supply.
Yeah no, how long has that one lady been in line for PlayStation?
Yeah?
Yeah, you see black you see black Friday videos of like an old lady getting stabbed over a PS five as like the person of the stabbings of the hero.
Yeah.
Crazy.
These people are about Dealsers will be like, my kid's been talking about that too. I mean, I get it, I get it. You're like, what about the poisoned water? Yeah?
Well, One thing I just want to highlight that you brought up is, like it is so twenty ten, their positive ratings for capitalism is sixty one percent. Now it's fifty four percent. That means that since twenty ten, after multiple financial collapses, record highunemployment, price increases, CEOs having so much money that they're literally building multimillion dollar doomsday bunkers, only seven percent of people have been like, wait a second, capitalism has given me second thoughts.
I mean, I think that's where like the people's probably definitely they probably like that people are asking, like I don't even know the definition.
It's like we do, like what do you think of water? It's just yah, yeah I love it?
Do I love it? Or just like it?
Yeah?
I don't know, Like is it bad? They're like asking the polster is it bad? Well, no, I'm asking you that. Oh.
But even like the people who don't know to be like, I'm slightly less enthusiastic about capitalism, Like I feel like we're seeing these little things like the Zorin story, which it's you know, the not the story the actual event, which has the story of the event of his like you know, shocking political win has been like this guy might be a very talented politician. It's like treated as like a lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky. Oh,
instead of exactly what you would expect to happen. If you know, you live in a world where every fucking day there's more news about the devastating consequences of this current system that we live in. So I don't know, it's not like major progress, but I do feel like there is a thing happening that like, you know, people just like why the feeling in their bones is telling
them that like something is wrong around them. They might not know the exact wording for it, but I do feel like there is progress being made.
Yeah.
So it's like in the the anime tricks when like when the runner is just like wait a second, I can see a numbers ahead of me or something exactly.
Yeah, Yeah, it's like, what's that?
Like, there's this have you seen this VH one video that is making the rounds? That's like I don't know exactly what, Like it's a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Yeah, it's the Fabulous Life of.
Fabulous Life of And it's a segment about this New York billionaire that I don't know. If Miles you can, you can play it for a second year. Yeah, but this is like where we're coming from that I just want to play for you.
Oh man, I totally remember this like intro.
Yeah, Wow, this guy seems cool.
I wonder who he could be. Yeah.
Financier Jeffrey Epstein WHOA Jeff was a high school math teacher until he traded his blackboard for the big board in nineteen seventy six, actually launching his own exclusive finance fum A billionaire clients. But he just couldn't keep out of the classroom when.
You dude, that line, that line, he just couldn't keep that classroom.
It's just so jarring to see his story over like the VH one behind the music.
Like record scratch. And then he did this other thing, Yeah, exactly.
A new house. He bought himself an entire schoolhouse and transformed it into the largest single residence in all of Manhattan. Uh shopping fifty one thousand square.
Feete, Hey, somebody should look into it. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, sample what the fuck?
But that's where we're coming from. Where like that was deemed like there Later there's like a a guy from like Paper magazine, which was like a you know, hipster magazine that is just like, man, this guy.
I mean, when you got three planes, your life's can.
Be pretty cool, I guess, like talking about his trip to Africa with Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey.
Yeah, hanging out with the big wigs like Bill Clinton and Kevin.
Spaceman and a Boeing seven twenty seven with of course an in flight trading room.
He has a Boeing seven twenty seven. I'm just wondering, now, what do you need a commercial five airliner four.
Good question, huh handy when you've got powerful friends to fly around. Oh when Bill Clinton organized a week longer.
So fucking disturbing.
His personal seven twenty seven.
Wow Wow wow, wow, Wow.
That's where we're coming from. Yeah, yeah, exactly, so we're making progress. I think everybody like from that point of view, where like that was just the steady buzz in the background was just like this guy's cool, he's a billionaire. To like, now we get to see what actually goes on behind the scenes of somebody like that.
I do gotta say, I think that this video is showing me what Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein have done together, and that's they're just trading ideas, guys idea.
It's just ideaway man on an idea. Who needs a plane? That song song deep Dig, A little fucking deep? Why why do you buy us? School? I know, it's like funny that they like kind of there are all these like heap question.
I mean, there's no way, like during the research for the segment didn't encounter, for instance, that one of those planes was nicknamed the low lead.
To Express, Right, I'm the lor Leader Express. I wonder what's going on there? Or just answering that question like why why does he need a plane that big? Anyway?
Moving on, So those just things that people can't deny that they're saying with their own eyes.
Are well, he was charged a year before this episod so their is that really hard? Criminal charges in Palm Beach in two thousand and six. This shit came out in two thousand and seven. But hey, look he's got money, I mean, and that's the same thing. Like it wouldn't have even mattered because that shows like this were just purely focused on we look at all the money, look at what money do that. Of course they're like, I
don't know, freaking ignore the charges. He's Bill Clinton's friend, he's got a jet.
Yeah, so I feel like that that's not too far from where our current even mainstream media would like to keep things like oh yeah, they're just like, yeah, you know, it's fun. They're billionaires, man, who knows what goes on there? And then when somebody like is actually like capitalism might be bad, we should like do some things to push back against it. They're like, shock election result, what the these people must be watching must be brainwashed by the new Jurassic Park movie.
As we talked about their reaction, I am brainwashed by your Jurassic Park movie.
So yeah, that is fair.
Those are explanation for the Zorammdani. When is uh all these people must be you know, it's from watching all these Hollywood movies with socialist message.
They're like, they think he's a velociraptor. I better vote for him. I don't want him to attack me. But yeah, I mean like this goes along with like you know, in the US now, our rights are just rapidly eroding, and we have an administration that is just hell bent on redefining what freedom even means in like any context
for every person. And luckily we have an ill equipped, naive and frightened opposition party in the Democrats, to essentially piss themselves as they pray for some kind of well timed blood clot to happen.
I think that's all they've got right now. Oh you currently the mainstream you.
Know who I think is going to solve all this this Cuomo?
Oh yeah, Chris Cuomo Andrew get the younger Cuomo, the
cooler one. But yeah, they're currently the Democratic Party is just ever since election day, they have just been chugging advice on being more centrist as a way to fight back and win voters, and it's essentially operating on the same like bullshit idea that like fighting for people's rights forcefully was too woke and not even forcefully, I shouldn't even say that that merely talking about the lack of rights people have in this country was too woke and
cost them the election. And they're saying that, look, we just need to go back to the status quote talking
points in language. So in Politico they got this memo that was shared that was being circulated amongst democratic circles from this you know, centrist democrat think tank, the Third Way, and they're just a terrible organization, and they their whole thing is like they put out a list of forty five work quote forty five words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using, alleging the terms a quote wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions and ethnicities.
It's a set of words that the Third Way suggests quote people simply do not say. Yet they hear them from Democrats right, these terms. It's all messaging, man, It's it's got to be messaging. It can't be the thing that they're saying. It has to be how they're saying it.
Yeah, I just think it's funny that essentially what they're saying is like, look, you can talk about whatever you want. We just think could be really make Middle America more up in your ideas if you sprinkled a few slurs and yeah like that or some f bombs.
I mean a lot of these terms just think sound like things that wealthy people who are in control if things are tired of hearing about. Is what it sounds like.
Yeah, okay, and I mean some of it, like stakeholders. I wouldn't mind if people stopped saying stakeholders all the time.
But like you know, I think the only thing my friends are talking about stakeholders stakeholder.
That's like business speak. Yeah, yeah, that's like CEO talk.
Here are some of the terms, Okay, privilege, violence as in environmental violence dialogue, just like the things that they have that they're being accused of. Yeah, yeah, triggering, othering, microaggression, holding space, body shaming, subverting norms, what subverting norms? Systems, systems of oppression? Culture? About that, dude, cultural appropriation.
We gotta shot the overtin window, existential threads to the climate, democracy, economy, radical transparency, stakeholders, the unhoused, food insecurity, housing insecurity people, person who immigrated, birthing person cisgender dead naming, heteronormative patriarchy.
Lgbt Q i A plus, bipoc ally ship, incarcerated people, involuntary confinement. That's just a that's just a little sample of what they're they're talking about. Like it sounds like also a lot of these things are tied to, you know, societal ills that we're trying to wrect.
I think that that's like part of my issue is like is it is it that they don't like the word useag or they just like stop talking about LGBTQ issues in bipoc people, you know, Right.
It depends on your flavor, you know what I mean. Like, this is one of the third way executives said, quote, we are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they're leading a seminar at Antioch. Right. We think language is one of the more of the central problems we face with normy voters signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think and talk. Okay, First of all, they offer no alternate options for how to speaking, so what
are you fucking saying? Also, let's be more direct and actually address the problems that are.
Facing these things. Maybe I could get behind that and like just use normal words to do it, because I do think like in some way, in the same way we talk about like obscure language being used to like make it so that economic shit is like confusing and you can't understand what's going on, I do feel like sometimes people use like obscure language to academics, Yeah yeah, academic things, academic language to address these things that are actually like problems that they don't plan on addressing.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
It seems like basically what they're asking for is instead of saying the unhoused have food insecurity, you should say bums be hungy.
Yeah exactly. It's truly like they like they're basically freaked out by people saying trans people deserve rights and like that we stopped again calling unhoused people bums and hobos or some shit, right, And I look, I agree there is something cringe about hearing certain democrats evoke kind of like this language, But it's not because like I don't
think this is a uh, this isn't a vernacular issue. Okay, this is like a fucking authenticity issue because when the people bring stuff up like food insecurity or inequality, housing inequality, I think the fact that they like they're not even putting forward policies that even remotely address these things, Yeah, it just sounds hollow. So more than that, people are like,
they say stuff like Dud's bullshit. People are just tired of hearing them say shit they don't actually follow through on because plenty of people if you said we need you know, you need to make houses cheaper or address housing insecurity or food, people are like, yeah, that's right, that's intersecting with my life. And again, I think the times we're in right now, it calls for like a radical departure from the status quo, which again is something this party is fatally committed to.
Yeah, I mean, it does feel like there is something to the idea of like being like, you know, being a little bit more relatable and how that you talk. You know, like that's why like one of the reasons people have Tim Walls so much is that like he seems like a dude. But it's like it doesn't feel like the purpose of this is that. It feels like the purpose of this is just like stop stop talking about trans rites.
You know, like, yeah, well, what they're doing is because you hear all the time the talk about quote the groups is how the establishment Democratic Party talks about They talk about activism, and they say the groups they're getting up our ass about fucking not defending the environment or climate degradation or you know, addressing unhoused people. It's like, oh my gosh, they're so noisy. So this is basically saying get rid of And these are all the groups.
The people who are talking about radical transparency in our government, that's an activist group. There's an activist block talking about systems of oppression. That's group talk. Cultural appropriate that I'm tired of hearing from people of color about this. Let's we don't like, let's exclude them. And that's how this reads.
It's not about actually addressing any of this shit. Yeah, and like with policy, because yeah, you can I can totally see how you can say, let's stop saying housing insecurity, let's say affordable housing, or like, hey, let's make shit cheaper to talk about the right, and you know, like There's a tweet where some centrist dem was like crying over the fact that progressives had like a charismatic candidate in Zorn Mumdani, and like they're like, We're like, why
can't we have someone that captures the public's imagination like Zorin does but for centrism they said that shit like they do.
And whenever I think of his ideas, I'm like, wow, thanks for painting the picture, dude.
Yeah wow, so fucking sucks and good yeah, like, hey, fuck with read the fucking room. People aren't following Mamdani because he's like Riz Khalifa out here just activating people's Like, it's because he's passionate about talking about fucking inequality and some of the policy prescriptions people can actually connect in their brains to how it will affect their own lives, rather than be.
Like, can we find somebody with the suave charisma of Bernie Sanders?
What are you talking about? It's just he just says the thing that people want to be said.
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter how he fucking says it.
He's just saying the thing. Yeah. There's just like there's even like another quote from one of these think tank people where they're just like, you know, like the so much of it. Essentially, like the way to push back against Republicans is to first agree with their flawed premise that they're putting out to debate over, agree with that, and then debate within that flawed premise or that context that actually speaking truth to power, like that's their whole thing.
So like, for example, that the federal siege of DC, they're like, well, we don't want people are gonna get the idea that Democrats don't care about crime if they're against what Trump is saying. Because Trump is saying they're going in because of the crime. It's like, but that's bullshit, that's not why you're there. Be very easy to point that out exactly. I would say that they're shifting the Overton window, but I don't want the Democratic police to
arrest me. It's just so wild too. It's like, yeah, we're gonna police speech as a way to yeah, right, recapture our voice. That's more realistic in line, It's like, do they really think too that people who don't live in like metropolitan areas or like larger cities aren't being affected by things like housing, insecurity, or food insecurity.
Like that's just city talk or some shit. Joey, could you translate that for me?
Yeah, hobos be hungy.
Yeah, the boat sorry, bo's be hung. That was a Republican thing. Now actually I think that way. Are you running for Senate because I could, You've got my boat. This guy tells it like it is like so fucking wild.
And again, like we talk all the time about crime, it's like like conceding this idea or seeing this idea like crime is just a thing like people of color do in cities, rather than being like, you know, this is like the result of having no financial recourse or stability in your communities, like you have to resort to like extra legal options to do things like that. That that's one thing, but again that's a headier idea of to wrap your head around, and I think that's what
they're also trying to like avoid generally. It's like we can't we can't just stop, we can't keep explaining these kinds of things. Fine, but you can still you can still espouse these same values in a way that maybe doesn't sound as academic to just say, like stop talking about this at all. I think just really sort of reveals that their whole thing is like we're trying to haul all progress here. We're trying to literally need to go back to like nineteen eighty eight.
You've had the charismatic people for centrism. You had you know, Barack Obama. He was so charismatic. He used the language of the left with like hope and change, and you know, just had the energy of somebody that was actually going to change things. And then he laundered that energy into fucking you know, centrism that didn't go anywhere. So now like it's it's like, you know, people who have had we've had that before, and now we're inoculated against it
and it doesn't fucking work anymore. Yeah, So like that's why there's no more like everybody lived through that. There's like a major financial crisis. He swept to power with like language of like hope and change, and like you know, then proceeded to bail out big banks, and now people are like kind of inoculated against that. So that there's your fucking problem, and now you actually have to do the fucking change, uh, and less less on the hope.
Yeah.
I think I've got an answer to all of this, and that's getting the endorsement of Megan McCain.
Triangulation if Megan McCain likes it, right, Megan McCain, Oh, how hard do you think.
They're lobbying Barack Obama to run again in the next election.
I feel like just to be like, fucking all bets are off, you know, yeah, yeah, you can do it. Why don't you do it? Yeah?
I feel like that's probably where we're headed. Like, if they have their way, obviously, I couldn't imagine.
How do you think they're lobbying for Joe Biden to run again? You only got one term, you can get another one.
Saying I'm just saying, with Obama as vice president, we're look into the future and Obama's your main Surian candidate. If Biden goes down that you get Obama again. Biden goes oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Obama might have had two terms as president. He said zero terms this vice president.
Thank you.
Yeah, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back, and we're back.
I mean, there's so many reasons this might be one of our last gentlemen, It's been a privilege and an honor podcasting with you this evening. Yeah, now get out our violins.
Yeah, can just play like shit because I don't know how to play the violin.
That would be amazing if like one of the people was just like, sorry, I'm freaking out a little bit.
Sorry.
Also I'm not very good.
Do you know this? The fucking ship is really listing? Oh man, are we still gonna play? My hands are so fucking sweaty right now. How are you guys playing?
Does they won't have an scored?
Yeah, it'd be much easier if I can just play something, some kind some chamber of music. But yeah, I only say that and maybe flippantly, maybe sincerely because AI. I mean, it sounds like they're gearing up to take over the podcasting world because the Hollywood Reporter recently had a piece where they spoke with the people behind Inception AI, and they make just a fuck ton of AI podcasts. I'll
get to the numbers in a second. And they try to frame this article like in the beginning, like, god, are people aren't like networks tired of paying like humans to talk, or like paying celebrities like these crazy deals? I do get what's the.
Most appointing, what's the most annoying part of podcasts having.
That's the worst fucking part, am I right, ladies, this year is so random. But anyway, the CEO of this AI company is a former exec from Wondery, another podcast network, and the Jack alluded to her like Facebook post that she put it out to like announce this thing. Hey, this is the full part. I'm thrilled to emerge from stealth and share the public debut of Inception Point AI, the company I joined as co founder and CEO this summer.
Yeah, just to what an.
Opening sorry emerge from still, to emerge from stealth and share this like is such a great way to open any work of social media.
Yeah, I can join as a co founder.
I think it's it's because someone with a fuck ton of money goes, Hey, we'd love for you to be the face of this thing, to give us some credibility. You want to be co founder, we'll make ceo. Yeah, because also, like I guess, I guess I haven't heard that phrase emerge from stealth before, but goddamn little little wonky use of that word. Thrilled to take off my ghost protocol hood and reveal that I'm that I've joined
an AI podcast company goes on. As Jack said, we believe that in the near future, half of the people on the planet will be AI. That's when my eyes rolled into the back of my head and I go, we're cooked that You if their people sip in the AI kool aid? This hard? I mean, fucking yikes. She goes on to say, we're bringing these people to life, and we're bringing the next generation content business model, all
powered by AI. In the process, we built what we believe could be the first AI talent management agency with an extensive roster of fake ass people we created with algorithms.
And that's that's been a thing already too.
Yeah. Yeah, we've had these voices, these voice models being created and things like that, but now they're really trying to like brand each one and be like and they do all kinds of stuff. So their whole model is essentially to flood the zone with shit podcasts, but because their overhead is so low, they can make a profit on a laughably small number of listens. This is from the higher report quote. The company is able to produce each episode for one dollar or less, depending on length
and complexity, and attached programmatic advertising to it. This generally means that if about twenty people listen to that episode. The company made a profit on that episode without factoring in overhead inception. Point Air has already made more than five thousand shows across its network and produces more than three thousand episodes a week. Wow, and yeah been up for like a couple of years, which does again beg the question of joining as a co founder two years in.
It's good negotiating tactic. Really, I'm going to see.
This being just like like a nonstarter because I do think that the thing people look for from podcasts is humanity. It's like a thing that like they're not just necessarily looking for like some quick way to get a voice facts shoveled into their brain. I think a lot of the time you could read an article if you wanted that, or like have an article.
Read to you.
But I could also see that is kind of ruining things because they're going to be flooding the zone with so much shit.
That's the that's the part right there, that's the Amazon thing.
Yeah, there's going to be so many bad podcasts indistinguishable from our bad podcast but completely you know, flooding everything.
There will be like five different podcasts.
The good news is like, this is not how people like people don't find podcasts by being like, all right, I'm going to go to uh ai and search for a topic that I think I want to know about, and then you know, people find out about podcasts and then become followers.
Some do, apparent according to them, apparently because their whole thing set up is cool. Podcast topics are selected with the help of a based on Google and social media trends, and then the team may launch five different versions of the show with different titles to see what performs the best. The podcasts are often titled after simple seos search terms, such as Wales, Wales, Yeah, it's I was. I went to One of our most popular episode is Whales is Whales?
They got whales?
Yeah, dude, I went to there. I went to their website to just look at what their shows are called, and it's shipped like this diddy verdict the British monarchy, Like this one's crazy AI and the climate crisis. Are you fucking serious You're.
Doing it with AI and thus contributing to the climate crisis?
Yeah?
Like what is that one talking about the assassins?
Bourbon Betty Betty, Benny Boop, Chaos, Chuck MANGIONI Forever China, Communism creating, there's Creatine. Are these all podcasts? Are these episodes of the podcast? These are series? Tell me a one, I'll click on it and we can here, we can listen to one.
I mean, I don't want to hear socialism.
Oh this socialism where they take it down. Okay, let's see. This is uh, this is this is here what they got. Oh, I'm not signing up you fucking oh yeah, you need to pay for it.
Let's see, which simply means I never forget a vote, a quote, or a constitutional clause. This is no ego, no pack money, just pure relentless recall. Tonight, we're tackling one of the most misunderstood, maligned, and frankly butchered concepts in American political discourse, socialism.
But you here's my question. Though you can like and maybe it will get better to where you really can't, but you can tell that that is AI.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well they're also they're trying to they're sort of like trying to be quote unquote ethical where they have the hosts up top say their AI yeah, and one of the founders is like, look, dude, I'm not trying to have like create like these models that people are gonna have like deep relationships with because like this they see it as a completely different lane than
human hosted podcast. But like when you look at it, you're like, you're doing you're you're talking about subjects that humans currently make podcasts about. I don't know how you You're like, well, no, it's not meant to replace that at all. Like it's just we're just doing the same thing. They are out of insane scale and maybe people will listen to it, like you know, they're they have the hosts. The names are really fucking dumb, Like for the food podcast,
I don't know what you're talking about. I think these names are totally normal. Okay, what name the host of the food podcast Jack? All right?
The food podcast is named uh oh. I actually love her. I actually follow her on lots of different Claire Delish and then of course my favorite source for gardening info.
My health mm hmm, Nigel this, yes, and the fucking like the AI models are like it sounds like the same ones you hear on TikTok basically when people use AI to caption shit. But again, I believe it's the nominative determinism Noma. Yeah, oh yeah, like one of the finance one was like penny power or something like that, quite dumb, goofy shit. But again, I mean I don't know,
like they will it replace it. I don't know, but I think like to your point, Alan, like it's bad when you have someone putting out three thousand episodes a week of indistinguishable bullshit, because that just makes it harder for anyone who actually wants to podcast to be to have to like there's now it's just all noise and now, yeah, that's finally good ones.
That's like a big part of the Amazon's thing. It's like it's not that they just are undercutting and they sell the product cheaper, it's that they've also like they've taken away a viable way for people to make money, Like opening a small business to like sell goods is a bad business idea now because of Amazon. And so that yeah, that definitely And I mean I will say this, podcasters are truly some of the sickest people, and they in the sphere of the Internet or whatever.
Like it would be better if they went away.
What I So, they're still.
Going They're still gonna like go after it. But I and it is the type of thing where you do just think like, well, wait, but what if there are people that aren't just that discerning and they're like, oh, I'm listening to this, you know, AI podcast and they don't really they don't care one way or the other.
Right, they were about to on the socialism one. I could hear the hosts leading into so pour yourself a glass of your favorite bourbon or something like that, and I was just like, oh, that is like that. There's a certain type of like medium tier podcast that like I've accidentally listened to where that's like the human element is like, so, pour yourself a favorite glass of bourbon. I've got mine right here, right and we're gonna dig in, you know. So maybe, yeah, maybe this is gonna hit hit with.
The people who like listen to whatever those shows are. We gotta hit, we gotta hit. I mean, it's fun.
The co founder of it, who I imagine is the actual founder of it or the person who started, he got into this because during the pandemic, he just started like reading like weather reports and shit or no, he was reading daily CDC reports and then and then a bunch of people started reloading it yeah, just because he was just just reading off a cdcreport and he's like, oh, okay now, and then he did like weather robots did this, yeah, and he's like, whoa weather report? And then he was like,
there's a quote from me. He's like, you know, talking about how people who are really like if you have crazy allergies, you look at like the Pollen Report and stuff. He said, quote, we might make a pollen podcast and maybe only fifty people listen to, but I'm already at unit profitability on that, so then maybe I can make five hundred pollen Report podcasts like these people don't. This is what happens when people had never made a fucking thing in their life.
Why have we never once on this on the many many hours of the show used the phrase unit profit about.
The cool and soulful term.
Yeah, that that founder and you know he is the actual founder because his name is Pod Founderman.
So yeah, oh the Cincinnati Founderman's Yeah.
The Cincinnati founder formerly formerly of Louisville, Kentucky.
All right, Uh so that sucks, but we there is some light at the end of the tunnel because Kamala Harris has announced her.
Memoir.
Yeah, it's coming it's uh, I guess she hasn't announced it. She announced it a long time ago. It's coming. It's called one hundred and seven days. So it's like about the one hundred and seven days that she ran for president.
Do you guys remember that?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We all realized like Biden was bad and then he we finally like everybody just pressured him enough into leaving the race. And then she had one hundred and seven days run for president and like started with a spark and had like a couple of good ideas and then those were immediately like like replaced by terrible shit by
the Democratic Party and had a chance their advisors. Yeah, she like had ideas about like greed flation and calling the Democratic or the Republican Party weird, and they're like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, shut the why don't you shut the fuck up?
Yeah, I wonder here, kiss uh kiss Dick Cheney's daughter right now, kiss her on stage. That's gonna work.
So yeah, she's she's doing some book tours, not at bookstores, but on a live speaking to our major venues. Some tickets going for more than four hundred dollars, not from like a reseller. That's the official price for a platinum to it.
What a fucking cariff. Man, that's amazing, Just like man, that was a that was a shitty presidential campaign.
Huh.
You want to hear me talk about it for four hundred bucks? Yeah? Yeah, I do, I do, I do, I do.
The excerpts are pretty telling, I'd say, presumably like people are looking for some t spillage and like she did, she just really published an excerpt in the Atlantic that defends Biden to some extent, claiming that there was no cover up concerning his mental decline.
Okay, that's that's where you lost me comin, come on now.
Yeah, I mean you saw some ship also would kind of implicate her or something, right, Yeah.
In a way, there wasn't really a cover up because literally the entire country was like, oh, that's all sides of every like. There were like a few people that tried to deny it, but like, yeah.
We just chose answer your question. She also said, and this is the refrain from the Biden side his debate, clusterfuck wasn't incapacity. It was just tiredness owing to recent trips. And I think and then add in from Hunter Biden a little bit of ambient sprinkled in, so he was it wasn't incapacity. He's just at an age where he was incapacitated by being a little bit tired.
He was taking a trip down memory Lane's.
Trips to take that that thing from Hunter Biden, He's like, I was on ambient and then like they looked at the schedules, like bro he was he was traveled like like a week solidly before that. But again, like you're saying, like that's not good if just if traveling makes you all tired like that and you want to be talked out from a trip like a week later, like that's that's not a good sign that It's like me, I'm tuckered out from a trip a week later, But like you, I don't want to be present.
I would be so bad at being present. I'd be so fucking sleepy. What would you do if my comes up to you and says head er gut jack, and I cry my superpower crying the way out of things, Well into.
My f would be interesting that like the American president, with a completely different strategy from past American leaders, openly sobbing pathetically as a way to get just like stop, like just stop like invading them, Like, what the hell? All right, Jesus stopped fucking crying.
Man, my god, you're gonna get snot on my suit promise taft present, taft big crier.
Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, there are other things too where she was like where she is sort of like, look, there are a lot of times the right wing media was attacked me and they just didn't say shit, the White House didn't have my back at fucking all, and they're like, oh, absolutely accurate.
Like the the energy coming out of the Biden camp during her run for president was like, I don't know, ha haha. Not so easy to have a candidate who doesn't suck shit, huh, Like you know what I mean. Like they were just like praying she would. You got a sense that at least a large part of them maybe there were two wolves inside of them, and one was rooting for her, but another was definitely hoping to see her fail and be vindicated for thinking that they had a better shot than her.
Yeah. Yeah, there was another thing that she said to quote, it's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have should have been left to an individual's ego and individual's ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision. Yeah, okay, I don't know. I guess like there's really nothing in
here that isn't that's like shocking to me. I'm like, yeah, of course they hung you out to dry like that. I mean, we saw that this part, which I think we knew already worse. I often learned that the president's staff was adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up around me. One narrative that took a stubborn hold was that I had a chaotic office an unusually high staff
turnover during my first year as vice president. I do remember that coming at a pretty critical point in the and like that wasn't coming Like they wouldn't have posted that if that was coming from like JD Vance, you know what I mean, Like that was coming from someone in Biden administration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fucked up a.
Lot of the two. It's like the Biden cognitive whatever cover up this about how his team was mean to her. All of it just reads is like the Democratic Party has no idea what the fuck it's doing, And like if if this is what like and I don't know, I I to me, she feels done, Like I feel like I feel like guys, like a populace, we're done
with her. She also, I think, feels done, like I don't know if she would run again, but if she, if she does, you know maybe, But like I'm just like, if this is what we're still talking about, it's like we're fucked ligating.
Yeah, the obvious, Like why did we lose? Like, guys, is it really that much of a mystery to you? Right?
I think that's the only reason this story is of value, is just to further drive nails into the coffin of the Democratic Party. Just like, guys, look how bad it was behind the scenes, Like we all thought that they had a chance, because we were hoping they had a chance. Behind the scenes, they were blowing it.
You know, it's a capitalist clown show and they don't know, they don't realize how their devotion to capitalism and the status quo was really its whole undoing. And now it's now that I now seeing the quotes from the Biden administration, people that are like giving quotes after In the aftermath of this excerpt, I'm like, now I believe everything she says. Like one person said, quote, Vice President Harris was simply
not good at the job. She had basically zero substantive role in any of the administration's key work streams, and instead would just dive bomb in for stilted photo ops that expressed how out of depth she. Wow, holy shit, dude, that's what they're saying now. The day after this yeah came out, President Biden.
Was not there were mean, Actually you're fucking stupid. Yeah, you're actually fucking dumb what we're saying at all. Yeah, it's it's mean. Nobody likes you. But no one's going to tell you that to your face. But nobody actually likes you.
They going to say, quote, President Biden was not the reason she struggled in officer tanked her twenty nineteen presidential campaign or lost the twenty twenty four campaign for that matter. The independent variable there is the Vice president, not Biden or his aides. Damn.
So you're like, that's like the best I've seen them at being like critical and clapping the backbone.
They can't they couldn't do that against Trump they couldn't. Yeah, it's just but there's other quotes too that back what she says. Another aide or staffer who spoke in this one article I think, let me just make before it was it in the New Republic said that quote. We all know that the Biden folks treated her and her team like shit. We never thought she would actually say anything. Staffers across a range of ages and positions that I'm
talking to are proud of her. Yeah, so there's clearly, like I mean again, it just shows a very divided administration. And I think that was really probably became clear as Biden just sat on his hands after October seventh, too, right, So yeah, we will see where if this, if this harms her career because you have other people being like, well, she just nuked her career.
Really, Yeah, I mean I don't know.
I mean, like I feel like the type of people who say that, who are like play it safe politically always have have proven that they have some of the worst instincts in modern politics. I mean, like think about like Anthony Wiener, you know what I mean, who went to prison like he's even trying to get back in. Yeah, you know, it takes a lot to get it through to these people that it's like, hey, maybe you cooked. Yeah, I don't think.
Yeah, I don't know.
If only they had like some blueprint of a path forward that had a lot of public support, like just like York mayoral candidate who was dominant and extremely popular that they've chosen to completely ignore and try and fuck over. Well, it's like the thing where it's like it's like you say, like the like the Democrats are like like big pepsi people, and they're like, no, it's pepsi for everyone, like everyone
likes coked. No, no, it's pepsi. It's like I look at the fucking numbers, man, everyone nobody's drinking pep numbers. It tainted and like they can't even fucking admit it. They're just like like no, none of them are backing zor like like what the fuck is going on that?
I mean again, it's just like I've just never felt more done with the Democratic Party as a whole. I'm just like I don't know what you want from me. I want nothing from you, guys. I guess like this is just crazy.
Yeah, it seems bad.
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 demiles he He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to him Monday. By