I took the courses, but I still am not confident in my ability to heim lick my own child.
You're not supposed to. I don't think you're supposed to him like a baby. Yeah, exactly.
You see how much you see how fucked up i'd be at it.
Is there a baby heimlick where you put them on their back and like put that, you put them over, But yeah, it's not.
It's not the same as.
Like, it's not the hime lick.
Yeah, crack some ribs, Jack Yeah's birthday.
I'm doing once, no, no.
I got one under each arm. I'm doing two of them. Chicken flap, doing the chicken dance. Bring me your baby.
The doctors like, luckily that sick man only bruised your child's ribs.
I don't know.
Where your child also wasn't choking. Oh yeah, Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three, fifty five, Episode two of der Day's I Guy You Say, production of iHeartRadio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive.
Into America's sheer consciousness. And it is Tuesday, September tenth, twenty twenty four.
Never forget, Never forget tomorrow. Yeah, don't stop forgetting tomorrow. It's hey, Jack, oh shit, I feel like this happens every time, and I think of you. It's National ants on a Log Day. Hey, my little boy's home and his tumb thumb's grumbling. Better make them some ants on a log fun. Also, wow, we were just talking about Swanson's Frozen Dinners.
It's National TV.
Dinner Day and also no National Swap Ideas Day. But the picture of this looks like a white guy talking to a black woman who is like, man's planning something to her, And it almost looks like when a coworker steals your idea.
Right, Hey, let's swap those Thanks so much for coming.
Is it cool if I mentioned that in All Hands Tomorrow, cool swap with you on that, I'll say it came.
From our team. It came from our team. Came from our team.
But you know it's me. It's me anyway. But national ants on a log is it? It's always celery peanut butter with raisins, that's always I think.
So we've had red ants on a log with crazy?
Is that?
Oh? Okay?
Yeah?
In my mind, I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Because for some reason, like we we just can't keep raisins in this household. We're just always running out.
Of Are your kids a little raisin freaks?
I guess the little raisin They don't do a lot of like sugar, so like that's a treat for them. Like they're sneaking raisins.
They're just spiking their blood sugar with it. Just a half pounds of raisins at a time.
All right, they still got the little down with some choco.
But are they still in the mini paper boxes, the little sun made ones? Do they still sell those?
Yeah?
Yeah, the ones for the school lunch. Yeah, but we just get the big, big honker, big giant guy. Wow.
Yo.
You know what I'm realizing. I think I hate raisins because it was always given to me as a candy substitute. Now that I just had this visceral memory of my grandmother, like she used to spoil me a lot, but whenever she would make cookies with raisins, and I was like, I would have a fucking meltdown.
Yeah, I was like, how would you do this to me, grandma?
Because it tricks you into think it it's chocolate.
Yeah, because exactly, and then you're like this shit is too what's.
Fucking furious right now.
Yeah, whereas me, I'm like, this is what you get instead of a meal, So then you know they have a more positive ye relationship to Raisins. Anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien, aka the soup Coock, famous Supercock Jack O'Brien. That one courtesy of Blake Wexler. He tacked that on our Instagram video. We're we're doing video now, folks, a little quick tease of some video you can check on our Instagram. I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co host, mister Miles Gras.
It's mister Miles Gray.
Just just hanging you.
Know, I'm just being a Star Wars outlaw, So just call me Ves Gray or Kate. I forget what the characters are. Your name called it is today, but my actual Star Wars name is grab me Knocklow. Thank you so much for having me. That is my Do you know how did you get your Star Wars name?
No, how you do that.
It's your first three of your last name. The first two of your first name creates your first part of your Star Wars name, and then your last part your last name of your Star Wars name is the three part three first letters of your middle name plus the first two letters of the city you were born in.
Okay, so first three of last, last three of first yep, okay, so oh brack, this is my first name?
Yeah, oh brack.
Then we I won't waste everybody's time by figuring out the rest of it.
But o brad furiously on paper. That's not it either, mom, Where was I born?
Red Thread?
And yeah anyway, yeah, yeah, Miles, Yeah.
We are thrilled to be joined.
Once again in air third seat by a writer, one of the best podcast hosts and EPs doing it. You know him from stuff they don't want you to know, ridiculous history. New series Missing in Arizona. Please welcome back to the show.
It's Ben Bower. Yes, yes, yes, yes, feels so good to be back. A little bit off kilter here. I was coming in at eight point three out of ten. I thought I had a good AKA. I was gonna go with soup God because I thought that was like a nice thing. Yeah, I thought it was a cool. But then I got I got soup.
Cocked, nothing cooked, and I made you watch me do it yea too, that's AKA.
It's all slowed down soup cool.
I wasn't doing a super big stickhead. Are you what's your favorite soup band?
For the record, because we are pro soup on the show. Despite what Jesse Waters has to say about eight out of ten things, he says most of the time.
But yeah, yeah, no, I've heard it. I've heard it. Uh yeah, I gotta be honest. I like a fu I'm a sucker for being a dirt bag too. I'm a sucker for uh that that canned denty Moore beef stew whoa who?
You really fun legend?
Yo.
Whenever I see that, I'm like, Yo, this is for somebody who's like a Civil War reenactor.
To you, but you're.
You?
Really?
Every time I see that label, it's like hunt because it's so it's I feel like that label has not changed in decades that whatever I see and I'm like, that has to be the same can I saw when I was like ten years old?
Yeah, that's the thing. The secret to denty Moore beef stew is it never goes bad because it never starts off good, you know what I mean.
Because it never was beef stuck.
It's not I mean, yeah, it's weird that they don't have air quotes around being yeah yeah, but uh but yeah, maybe it's nostalgia. But I'll tell you, I loving if I actually made some. I make a lot of like soup with the leftovers because I'm too cheat to you throw stuff out if it if it's all.
In salt water and make a sup baby.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but man, I was listening to the recent episode with some strong opinions about soup. That's kind of been an ongoing theme. And now in honor you guys and Blake and and your buddy from earlier, I'm not drinking with a straw. Okay, good, my buddy from earlier being Jesse Waters. Yeah, your little friend.
Yeah, your boy, Come get your boy, Jesse Waters.
Whose man is this? Yeah?
I do want to so.
On the last episode, we talked about how Jesse Water says it's not mainly to eat soup because you purs your lips when you blow on it, not the way and not the way that I do. Miles pointed out that I just pour it onto a plate and then slide it back and.
Burn myself with it like a real.
But I was talking about how my mother in law, who is now living with us, as well as my father in law, and it's been wonderful. But she she's always complimented me for liking soup. And then the other but the other day was like, because it's very rare for a man to like soup.
Yeah, did you get to the bottom of that?
So I mentioned it. She was like, oh yeah, I saw it on the gram. Nice and she was like, I saw you. You keep my name out of your mouth. She's very touched that we were talking about that, and she hit me over the weekend jack Korean proverb A man who likes soup will get a fortune and blessings from his wife.
So whoa, Okay that's going to be that's pretty good news.
Yeah yeah.
Oh so for her it's just like, oh, you a good man, You a good soup eating man.
Yeah, you're a good basic ass soupy. You're a family, you're a family due you know what I think the way it started is that it's like easy to make, and so like by taking the pressure off and just letting put a soup on and let it boil, and you know.
It's so gender Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The husband who cares not how much his wife hath toiled in kitchen shall receive blessings.
Really, this is why I'm a fucking hero. I've been saying it for a long time. Everybody you know, so lucky. My beautiful, brilliant wife is so lucky to have me because I like soup.
I would also not to get too too conspiratorial, but is it possible that your mother in law may have manufactured Korean proverb just to give you a win?
Oh? Oh, she just sees me sadly eating soup, and she's like, this guy needs a fucking win. The way you eat soup is really good. And then like, it's so it's so sad that like the compliment she gives me completely made up. I talk about it on my podcast. She's like, God, so sad. Yeah, that's entirely possible. Sometimes sometimes your boy needs a win. And I'm not talking about Jesse Waters all right, Ben, Yeah, we're thrilled to
have you here. Yeah, this is gonna be one of those episodes where we talk about stuff that is in your area of expertise that is colliding with the zeitgeist. So we're gonna get into that. But before we do that, we do like to get to know you a little bit. Better by asking what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are?
All right, So I've been thinking about this. Uh, there's a lot of stuff going on, as we know, and I was recently fascinated by a story that began back in twenty nineteen. Uh, beluga whale was discovered. This is true. A beluga whale was discovered in the wild, rocking a harness like a think of it, like a kid with a jan sport backpack maritime version, rocking a harness with a mount that was probably for a camera or maybe
to hole something. It was clearly acclimated to humans. And on the plastic tabs on the harness, I'm I'm mimicking.
This was all going on on the whales back like a backpack.
Yeah yeah, yeah, And uh it said there was a label on there. It was Designer. It said Saint Petersburg. And so people in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Well, we don't know a second more people got this all right, exactly this Uh, this whale got nicknamed Voldemir in the in the media at the time in Norway, I believe.
And it was just adorable, like if you've ever seen a really nice dog, like a Golden Retriever or a labrador. Just in the wild. They just run up to strangers. Yeah, shake him down for snacks and tennis balls.
Uh.
That that's what this this whale was doing. And people people immediately began speculating on whether or not this whale was a Russian spy.
Yeah yeah, yeah, I uh, you guys thought I thought spies like cut the tags off though, like, well, they just left left those tags on what it was just like, so it was off the rack. Whale sized spy equipment and the like that had same pete like had tags from where they bought it from a target.
It was off. It was off the rack. No one knew where this poor guy came from, but he was running around. He wasn't in a pod. He was clearly acclimated to humans, retrieving people's phones, getting stuff for them, playing around with people. And then, unfortunately, quite recently, he was discovered dead, which reignited right, which reignited speculation about his shadowy past. And so just to just to check in, did you guys hear about this? You guys?
I saw the headline, yeah, because I was now the name, and immediately my brain told me to move on.
I think that's this fancy way to spell spell that. Vladimir D A L D I M I R yes, yes, yeah, I think I saw the picture of it like it looked all cute, and I was like, oh man, what happened this? And then I saw I got thrown out of a window, fell out of a window, and.
Lift out of its Moscow apartment fild. Yeah it's London, it's London apartment. How it'd become a billionaire? Ali the Ark.
But after a couple of problematic tweets.
Yeah wait so what wait? Yeah, I mean, aside from literally the headline, No, I didn't. I didn't read too much into it.
Yeah, it's weird because there were a lot of or there have been. There are a lot of nonprofits that were using this guy as sort of the face of maritime conservation, save whales, et cetera. And when he when he was discovered dead on August thirty first, not too too long ago, there were all these conflicting reports and some of the some of the nonprofits were saying, get this, they were saying, someone shot this guy. They shot him
several times. Yeah, which just brings the spy conversation back again, was it shot? It does not appear to be the case. We're still it.
Could have just been an old ass whale that maybe.
Died right ice wraps on. Yeah and they they So those initial claims were maybe a little bit hyperbolic. But the fascinating thing about this is we do know that both the USSR and the United States have messed with the idea of using cetaceans as primarily like surveillance and recon No cat's mad about that one. No, no dolphin lasers so far as we know. But but because of this, people have started re evaluating, you know, the providence of this, this poor guy who was just adorable in his actions
and following the story closely. Sorry for all the late emails, folks, I got other ship to do right now.
The reason a cat might be mad about you mentioning the CIA. The US and Russia both looked into using Wales despies because they also looked into cats Operation Acoustic Kitty, and the cats totally fucked up the assignment.
Yes, yeah, it did not go well, damn.
Because cats are so orderly.
Famously easy to train and orderly.
I would I would always describe a cat is subordinate, I think, just like just to put in your parlance of military, like, yeah, oh, these are most subordinate animals, sir, these cats.
So watch this?
Ah fuck? Where'd it go?
Right exactly? It's behind you?
These like that I remember because like in World War Two, I feel like was the first time I heard about like supposed Navy deployed dolphins or things like weren't some like meant to like weren't some weaponized and others were like look like meant to put pingers down anyway, as I say this pingers like uh, like this one it says this mind clearance work while wearing a location locating PingER on the ping like to ping it.
I thought this was a very unofficial thing. Damn I didn't realize that was.
It looked sick too.
But the most fun setting photo.
It's like this like fucking navy seal and a dinghy and a like a dolphin up in there like it like it is strapped.
The dolphin is strapped.
He looks like either as a camera or a laser gun.
And like yeah yeah, and this, uh, this is something that I think leads his other conversation. I know we've all talked about it. Before. But the Orcas just got fed up, you know, and they're actively hunting different watercraft. Team Cetacean, to be honest with.
It, Oh yeah, all day, all day.
And so I'm still wondering maybe there's someone in the zeitgeist who happens to have worked with Russian experimental maritype spying. And please use your real name, please, uh and and do the do the social engineering of the Star Wars thing we were talking about earlier. Just give us your full first, middle last name, along with like a list of your fears, maybe your.
Blood type, and tell us what you know about these Russian spy whales.
So that's a search history.
Damn, I'm just reading the headline. Whale alleged to be Russian spy died after stick became lodged in its mouth. Say police, that's suspicious to me, that's I feel like whales probably.
I feel like you're smarter than that to go out with that.
I figured that out, like if if a Russian oligarch died when stick became lodged in mouth, we would all be like, hmm, that's really suspicious. And whales are much better at like they they horked down entire like sea animals with full skeletons.
It was that or the forty five round that went through its brain, I don't know. And windows there.
Was a stick in his mouth. We're not looking too much further than that.
Yeah, there was a rat in its mouth.
There it is, I don't know. Has anyone checked for polonium?
Is the question?
What's something you think is underrated? Ben?
Yeah, I got it. This is weird and probably makes me sound old sending stuff in the mail like old school snail mail. I got a lovely letter from an older relative and she had spent time on it, you know. And it wasn't just like, you know, it's a bullshit Hallmark card. There's nothing wrong with that. It wasn't just you know, I have signed this and spend a stampard. Yeah, it's a letter and it's asking me for opinions and stuff, and I'm thinking, well, I don't like to use the phone.
Can I just email and response? Or is that inappropriate? I mean, think about it. You know, we've all just sort of accepted. I would argue that when you go and check the mail, most of what you're getting is junk mail or advertisements, or even worse, something that tells you you have to do another thing, right, yeah, right, right, when's the last time you guys got personalized male?
Uh well, I correspond with that guy, Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer.
For many years. Yeah, yeah, years. Yeah, it's just like similar thing.
It's like, ask me how I think the Warriors are going to do this season? But no man.
Killer brother? You know that to step.
Like yo, we said we're not going to talk about work.
I think the last time was probably actually, I mean I remember like when I got married, sending wild thank you notes, and that was a lot more. I did a lot more than thanks for that thing like you want to actually add some sentiment, evokes some memories or whatever. So maybe a year ago, but a full on letter. I haven't had a full on letter sent to me since fucking I was in like camp or some ship and my mom was like, please stop crying.
Baby, it'll do.
That.
Was it just one?
Yeah?
Anybody who has gotten a handwritten letter from Miles beautiful handwriting? Oh yeah yeah, really a wonderful, a true treat.
I was a recipient, and the handwriting analysts are like, this guy is putting way too much force down on the pen, like I write as if I'm like engraving steel, Like yeah, I have a very Yeah, my wife and I were like, uh, sexually frustrated much but really great command of the thing.
But yeah, ship, what is going on with this?
How much time? I don't know? You're you're also bringing up a thing too now that I think about it. Usually, if I hear about long winded letters being written, now it's junibomber stuff to law enforcement. It's become sort of intrinsically linked to crazy people do this.
Yeah, sure, sure, sure, Well I think it's all because right of how the speed at which we can communicate. It's not like you're like, well, I know this is gonna take three months to get to them, so I better get out at least three months where the thoughts out on this thing before I get my correspondence back. Whereas now it's like, because I think of even how like long my text messages used to be when I
first started text messaging, Yeah to now how like? And also because you were charged for damn near like every single text that you send right and now like I'm just like spamming threads as if I'm on like on AOL instant messenger. As a kid, I'm like, what send?
Are send? You send?
Doing send tonight, send question marks, send and Yeah. I think the communication habits are very different. I think that's my version of like the letter is like to try and talk on the phone. You know, that's the part that we're you know, it's it's it's a longer back and forth.
Yeah, a little more intimate. I don't know to that point, man, I miss wait. I was about to say, I missed the eighteen hundreds. Whatever, we'll keep it on here.
I knew it. I told you ghost.
More fucking can you couldn't think of something for our modern era?
He said he wanted to salt pork.
Under it, callow and beans, you know me beans.
If you guys heard about oil lanterns.
Yeah, so he's trying to do the hello fellow kids thing, but he's just batting a hoop.
Down the street with a Hello fellow kids, just skirting up by my penny farthy.
Yeah right, fishtailing it.
What's up y'all, boy, petty far No. I mean it reminds me though, like that point about communication nature and what what becomes normalized. If you think about it. A lot of things were horrible back in the day and still are now. But can you imagine back in the eighteen hundreds, you would just write a letter and then disappear. If you came back, you know, months and months later, nobody would question it. They wouldn't They wouldn't be mad
at you. They would be like, oh my gosh, Jonathan, you've returned.
Yeah, no Ah, I think I would. I would be doing way better back then. I would do such crazy dynamic entrances and ship just to find oh, yeah, we haven't heard from me. Ah, I missed eighteen hundreds too, man.
Once. Yeah.
There.
The equivalent of like email spam back then was that people just come into a town and pretending to be like a prince or something like.
It worked. It worked.
Hey, another prince just came to town, Yeah, easy to Or explorers, like a lot of explorers were just out there making ship up being like, yeah, I went and I saw this place in South America with three headed women.
I am actually William Randolph Hurst's nephew. Well please come in, and I demand a lot of them, A lot.
Of it, A.
Lot of them, you know what I mean, a lot of men for that one, Ben.
What is something you thinks over it?
New cars?
New cars? Car? This is one that we've recently heard. I think, yeah, use certified, Yeah, Matt, Matt leave oh that too.
I was, yeah, yeah, what do you mean a new car? What specific aspect of it?
Because I think of like how shitty they break, like how they're susceptible to breakdowns, unlike you know, like the cars of the nineties that are like, yeah, this show you can fucking drive into a volcano and it will run. But what's what are we talking here with Newton?
Yeah, I forget about the costs and the depreciation, all that, all that adult stuff. Uh, the age of auto surveillance is fucking Koby. It is bad, bad stuff, right. It always starts as an opt in thing, right, knock a few bucks off insurance, or how convenient is it that we will you know, we'll play the music for you. You can call uh a car service on your phone. But then it becomes mandatory, right, it becomes opt out.
Then it becomes mandatory. And I was looking at you know, not the high road anybody, but I might buy a car pretty soon, so.
I know, right, like a horseless Yeah gold, yes, blooms.
You found an old chest.
I found several to balloons. That's true, that's true.
Uh, not a Studia baker on my flex.
On them with a packerd. Yeah, I'm not above it. Uh just because Zeppelin prices are.
Crazy, right, I hear that.
I hear that, bro.
Yeah, But like, do you guys ever think about that, uh, the idea that it's normalized to new your location at all times?
I think when we talked about it, it was always like in the context when they're saying stuff like it knew about like people's sexual habits, yes, and you're like, yeah, how I still don't know the mechanics of how. I mean, I guess like it could maybe you know, infer from certain data.
Points what was going on.
But yeah, I mean I more so, I think I've just grown a thick skin when it comes to surveillance capitalism. Like I fully just resigned to the fact. I'm like, yeah, dude, I don't fucking they got me. They fucking got it. I don't know what the fuck I can do to get out of it.
Yeah, they cared too, They've got me. Yeah, Yeah, I hope they don't.
Hope no one gives.
There's some narcissism's paranoia right inherent. I like that idea too, of of guy, it's so difficult to get to a human voice on a lot of company lines when you call it, you know, your one eight hundred or whatever. Maybe surveillance is like that. Maybe you have to trip through several levels of weird before you get like the human intern and it's his or her job to check on Jack. Yeah, you know.
This guy just because we find it entertaining quite frankly, look at his soup cock.
This guy's he's being pre sliced peeled apples.
I don't like the I don't.
Like the peela.
I don't like this feel like he'll get down on some raisins though, Oh yeah, brother, I.
Mean what he started?
What else am I missing? In terms of like I get that all of these have most modern cars have GPS because they'll offer like a map navigation thing, but they'll be like if you pay, but even if you that hardware is in there. I know there's ship like a lot of remote capabilities, like in terms of starting your air conditioner or like a c or locking or unlocking and stuff. But what what other things should keep me up at night? And why should I throw my car away?
Oh?
Great questions. So in case you were sleeping too well at night, please remember that we're not too far away from a future where, you know, like a wet Tesla dream where in cars are Yeah, that's.
What I wasn't reacting to the phrase.
I was reacting warning you got your pupils to tighten up like that.
You were looking into the bright light of heavan like iron Giant.
So as you're edging into the future, miles. Uh, please remember when semi autonomous vehicles become normal, when that infrastructure exists, there is a possibility I'm not saying a specific country, but there is a possibility that that could be used to shut down individual transport. Like imagine if oh, right, there's a protest or something and.
Oh cars don't work today.
Huh yeah, interesting, I'm gonna.
Get to downtown. Yeah, this is La. We know people don't walk, So test your gangster for the proletarian revolution real quick.
I just I know. I sound like the guy with the sandwich board walking up and down Hollywood or whatever with some weird alarm.
To announce some great deals on some gold and jewelry. Yeah, that's the guy from the sandwich board, Bring back sandwich boards.
I missed those.
Yeah, no, but I get that. No, I mean that.
No, I I get what you're saying when you game it out to that where we've fully just been like, yeah, dude, not even have to drive anymore. It's like, well, then what happens if you ever want to go somewhere it's.
That's not your anymore.
Yeah, all right, so anyway only by you know, Hondas and toyotas from from the nineties.
Basically, if you don't stop jagging off of your car because it's watching, it.
Knows and it's judge, which I don't really appreciate. Yeah, in the garage, no one can see. Okay, what a fucking miscreant.
This isn't for you, Honda.
Excuse you, excuse you, excuse you. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back and we're back.
My voice just want a little Chewbacca there, like, yeah, little little which is kind of interesting because it is a little wooky, a little wacky, a little Chewbacca, a little squatch. All right, So I just want to get this out of the way, Okay, me outside the I have generally, so you cover conspiracy theories on your podcast
stuff they don't want you to know. A type of conspiracy theory that has generally turned my brain into the off position, into the not listening mute position, has been anything involving cryptozoology, the study of like mythical animals that people wish existed or like are really convinced exists, such as sasquatch. I still remember there was a live episode
of the Cracked podcast around Halloween. We were doing like tell us your spookiest story, and friend of the show, Ryan Singer, who is a very funny comedian and also like into all manners of like trippy shit, came on and he like had my ass. He was telling me this story about like people disappearing in state parks, and he was like plotting it out on maps, and he was like, you know, telling the story. And then he got to the like what was clearly the climax, and I was.
Like, where is this going to go?
How do I not know about this?
And he was like, and before the people disappeared, everyone in the area reported smelling ammonia, which is often associated with bigfoots, And I was immediately like a fucking balloon deflating.
I was just like, ugh, come on.
But then he like talked about it. I kind of was on board, but it takes a lot for me to like get the whole Sasquatch thing. But it's definitely
like it's not going anywhere. There's a new indie film, Sasquatch Sunset that's getting a lot of attention with Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keo, who are like indie darlings, you know, like it's it's entered the culture from like reality TV and you know, mainstream silliness like Harry and the But like now it's like getting into like the like this is hip and cool and interesting, like you know, I'm like, let's give it another look.
Well there's even today right, like there's like news because some janky coin like making company has just launched the Bigfoot discovery coin, Like that's still a thing today. They're like, yeah, launch it now on Monday. So on Monday, September ninth, twenty twenty four, on over the weekend there was Louisiana
had their very first Louisiana Bigfoot Festival. Because now it seems like rather than it being mostly like a Northwestern phenomenon, like it's we're seeing it in the Bayou and in the south bast there's a swampy oh yeah, and that is James Commo out there when he forgot laundry. That's that's a real that's a real Bigfoot. And you know, like Expedition Bigfoot had a new season just dropped like this, like in this last month. It does not go go away.
And I too, like Jack, because I see it a lot on like the internet, even like on Reddit, there's always like some new Bigfoot thing. I'm like, come on, y'all, like really, come on, what is it? What? What the why? Why?
Where is the poop? Just critically, where is like, for an animal of that size or primate of that size, where where is the poop? The uh? We know for a fact, just to back this up, we know for a fact cryptozoology often considered a pseudoscience. But part of the reason things considered cryptids do later enter into the scientific record is because Western scientists got stuff wrong and they rocked up. You know, just hey, stranger in town, like we said, and they said, oh, the CIA can
long thought to be extinct for millions of years. Look at you tear in the heart.
Of the jungle, and then I do appreciate you now speaking in your regular voice and stopping the shark of from our modern era and from America.
Yeah, I'm merely a British observer of your American Civil War, Mike the Chaotic. Oh you're a British civil Okay, got it?
You didn't Yeah, yeah, yeah, small demographic.
The steal Secrets came from England to be like, oh, I'm watching this.
This is you know they did used to watch it as a spectator sport, the civil nicks and like, just watch the battlefield.
So maybe mass media has saved us from society ship but uh but yes, like the like the ceiling cant is a great example thought extinct by Western science, and then when it was quote unquote rediscovered, everybody living in that fucking area of the world was like, yeah, this is the ugly fish. It's been there forever. It's just we don't eat it. It doesn't taste good either. I don't know why you guys are making a big deal.
How what do you call it?
The ceiling, the ceiling can ceiling fan ceil. I did write ceiling fan in and I was like, what's he talking about? Ceiling? Fan fish.
It's a code phrase.
C E L C O E L A C A N t H.
And you know, no, judgment's just not the prettiest fish.
Yeah, it looks like it looks like like like an old dog that's got like you know, skin tags and stuff.
You know.
Yeah, but that's like the fish, like.
This is this thing exactly, And so that kind of stuff informs what people think about with crypto zoolog Like everybody, everybody wants to have some sort of encounter with the wild, right, everybody wants to be Promethean, Like I found the thing. It was rumor. Uh. And I think to the question about why Bigfoot is so fascinating to people, it's really we're talking about this ancient preoccupation that a lot of civilizations had with the idea of something that is almost
but not quite us. We don't know if human beings ever met at actual Gigantapithecus was the largest primate. It's ten feet tall, weighed over five hundred pounds projected, So it's maybe I don't know, it's very controversial, but it's like maybe possible that some version of humans ran into that and that made the game of telephone. But I would suggest to you guys that the reason people are so invested in this bigfoot thing is because it's one
a way to explain things right. Two it is tantalizing because the way that the argument is constructed, just like UFO arguments, never really delivers, right Or like what's that show? The Oak Island money Pit, the brand like five thousand seasons and they always found something that could be something.
So I think the longer it doesn't deliver, the more strength and the more intrigue it gets because you never get a satisfying resolution, and so it just builds and builds. It's like a JJ Abrams show, you know, right, So.
Like I talked to extensively talk to people who are in that community, and they're very for the most part, very kind, you know, and they're not they're not getting mad at me if I ask, what I feel are logical questions like, Okay, if there's a primate this size, and assuming it's a primate, right, then where if it is if a good comp is like a gorilla, then where's the bigfoot nest? Where do they sleep? What's their territory,
what's their range? Subscriber, yeah, what are their subscriptions? What are their Star Wars names?
Right, Well, I like the Sasquatch Sunset I read like a brief plot synopsis, and it feels like the Sasquatch in that film, or like fairly like they don't seem very advanced in their like reasoning, which I feel like any version of Bigfoot would have to be for it to have like stayed off grid this lines would have to have at least invented poop bags, real sleepy poof Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's I.
Mean, that's a great point because also, all right, so I did ask people about the poop, right, and admittedly I was a little overly diplomatic about it. I was saying, well, you know, a lot of our listeners in the crowd tonight are probably gonna wonder. And every time I asked this, I would get really good energy back that people would say, like one guy who started a museum here in l a j, Georgia, well it doesn't matter, just believe me. It's a real place. And uh yeah, I asked him
about the poop and he said, yeah, that's a great question. Ben. Here's what I think. What if they're extra dimensional?
Oh wow, yeah, immediately that's where it goes, they change the goalposts.
Yeah. Yeah, they don't poop, bro, they poop in another dimension. They do that poop in their dimension.
In a pocket poop dimension.
Yeah, I love that, just so quickly, just reflexively. They might be interdimensional. I always thought the reason why Americans had an obsession with Bigfoot was the decline of the white working class. Now is there is there anything to that?
Uh?
No, that was like I was reading this article about this guy who wrote a book, and like, apparently it comes up a lot, but in a way where people are like, what the fuck is this guy talking about it?
Like it's it.
They're saying, it's a lot of dudes who like just sort of like yearn for the past and being out and like camping and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, like it sounds like people who have enough money to go camping for long periods with infrared gear probably aren't the kind of working class people that they might be yearning for.
But that is interesting. It started in like the Pacific Northwest around the same time that like grunge was being created because of the like collapse of the middle class there, and now it's like moving down to the rust belt. There's that's an interesting theory. I don't know exactly how.
This author was not articulating it in that kind of way. It felt very like maga adjacent, like coment, like yeah, because like white working men are just like the villain.
Now that's why we whoa okay, okay.
I feel like it could have been maybe a little bit more nuanced, but the take felt a little bit all over it.
There is a sociological aspect, right, because we're talking about communities of people who believe in or are somehow taken with a certain idea. And it's interesting too, you see it sometimes in recent UFO discourse, right, there is an underlying sociological factor, Like a lot of this stuff kind of trends to the right wing of the political spectrum.
And so I think there's a validity to the idea that people are looking back with the rose colored glasses on maybe in America that didn't exist, you know, just sort of this rock wallized version of days past, and they're thinking, yeah, back then, you could just go out in the wild, you know, just right, can of soup in a dream, see some wild animals.
That like a John Muorish version of conservation where it's like, don't let native people sully the view. This is just for our white gaze to cast them on untouched beauty. And that's the old times we yearned for. I'm you know, I would love to see a bigfoot. But they're the least of all the cryptids. I think they're the least. That's the least interesting.
Yeah, they kind of like the vanilla ice cream, I guess, yeah, sure. But the the interesting thing here for anybody who is hoping, you know, like I would assume, like all of us hoping to one day see something cool. How awesome would it be for a large animal to be discovered in our lifetime? This is one of the moments in history where it's more likely than it has been at most times in the past, just because human beings are encroaching so much in the places that human beings didn't used to go.
So even you sound like a guy who's like starting off to like sell me on a big foot tours, Like, but here's the thing, if we were ever gonna see one, the time is now because weird. Now, look how much money you got, like three hundred dollars, Well, that's exactly what my tour costs. Man, you're in, let's load up.
Yeah, I mean I think so. In doing additional research to the like state parks mystery, the answer seems to be that state parks and just generally the world is much larger than people can possibly like realize, and so people just wander off a trail and get way more loss than they thought possible in a really short amount of time because the state parks are just like endless and very untamed, and we as modern people, are not used to that sort of thing, and so they just
wander off and never find their way back.
There's no federal Uh, there's no single federal compilation, a federal level agency counting disappearances, which which means, yeah, it can be quite a few people year over year, but it also means since that kind of agency doesn't exist, there's no one counting the reappearances. Sure, the guys like, oh shit, I got kind of stoned. It was my first time camping. Yeah I'm two days late, but I'm back, you know now, it's just a disappearance.
I had a one hundred milligram edible like at the trailhead, and I was just actually asleep about four hundred yards in.
But I do think that's the That is one of the good arguments for how something like this could happen is how little of like how massive the world is, yes, and also how little of that we've actually official documented and explored.
Right.
There's obviously the ocean. There's like famous quotes about how little of the ocean is known. And but I mean it's true of a lot of wilderness, like it weren't wasn't the platypus thought to be a crypto a cryptid for a long time.
All right, said with great affection you guys, I love animals. The platypus looks so fuck not to be rude, but I see it, and I'm like, you still don't believe it? How the fuck did you get here, buddy? You know what I mean? Like I haacked this thing together exactly. I mean, I think that's another part of it too. A lot of times now that people live in increasingly in conurbations, we're not around the natural world. A lot of times, we're less familiar with the other things living
out there. So you're already in an unfamiliar situation. You hear a in the trees, and then you hear some noise you've never heard before, and it's like, what you're not going to know, You're not going to be like, ah, yes, that's clearly.
That was me actually my beat. I mean, and also that is like when you think about the things that nature has invented that seemed completely made up, I guess that's the thing that fails to grab me about the sasquatches, like, oh we have those, right, Like we have big giant apes who can like speak in sign language, Like we have things that seem like they were made up.
By a child.
We have giant squid. Yes, for a long time people were fascinated by that as like one of the main you know, cryptids, and then once we discovered it was real, we were like, all right, fuck off, moving on.
I mean, think about how how weird. I mean, you're right, the natural world is full of all these crazy evolutionary mixtapes that attempt to solve problems in the past that may not be as applicable today. Like a giraffe that's a very specific thing. You know, a lot of insects in the relationship with plants. I feel like if you are looking at crypto cryptid type biology, if you are frightened for some reason the idea of a large undiscovered animal.
You should be much more frightened of fungus because that stuff is. That stuff's amazing and scary. That's the HBO Lovecraft stuff.
Bro.
You don't got to tell me, Bro, I saw Last of Us.
Right right, cortisps. I apologize if this feels like it's old hat, but every time, so like, uh, what do you guys think about zoos? Do you think they're important for conversation conservation? Do you think it's more like an animal jail? What's where on the spectrum you guys?
I think they're fun, and I won't admit that because I don't want people to.
Yell at me. I think they're animal jails, and I think animal jails are cool. How about that? So I I'll stand on that. I mean, I think, as I got old, I think the thing is like there's some like you know, like in San Diego there's like way more space and like there's sort of safari area. But like when I've been to like urban zoos, like there's a zoo in Tokyo where like these fuckers look so sad.
I'm like, this is not a zoo. This motherfucker is rotting in a concrete cell for for babies to just smear their hands all over the plexiglass and then move on like that. I definitely like so in a way, I like that there is a place to observe animals, but the way that it's done, it's like, uh yeah, that is there is there a more humane way, like a way that doesn't bum me the fuck out, like just so on its face. Like when I go there,
I think you know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the one in uh Wino Park.
Don't love it. I was excited to go, and then I walked out thinking and yeah, so yeah, yeah, it's it's rough. But I bring up the zoo question because you know, one of the great conspiracies about cryptis you run into, especially with the bigfoot stuff, is people saying insert cabal here is covering up the knowledge. You know,
what's the Smithsonian doing with all the bones? I assure you, folks, if the Smithsonian had a ghost of a chance having any real thing like proof of a contemporaneous Bigfoot, it would be fucking all over the place with it. You couldn't get away from it. It would be like the it would tour the nation in the world. They would sequence the DNA and try to make a big foot you her community, and we would be some of the first people there.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, have you met someone who has like a specialized interest like that, like an archaeology or zoology or something. Those people love to share, Like their whole thing is wanting more people to be interested in what they do.
They're not going to keep secrets.
Yeah, just the thing that could really bring.
A lot of it up with you.
They're not doing that.
Ship all right, Let's take a quick break and then I do want to check in with you real quick about the aliens. We'll be right back and we're back, and Ben, I have been alternately fascinated obsessed by wondering why we ever talk about anything else with the prospect of first contact and some of the military encounters with
UAPs otherwise known as UFOs. But I don't want to sound silly, so I call them UAPs right right, And you know, in reference to what we were talking about with animals being fascinating when they're cryptids and then if they're actually verified as real, people kind of lose interest.
Yeah, Yeah, I feel like not.
The alien and aliens and alien technology were discovered, but there there was this congressional testimony that people all kind of paid attention to, was big front page news person said wild shit. Congress was like, damn, that is wild. And then it just people. I feel like there's just been a hush. People have been like, all right, well, yeah, we're kind of well, that guy's like credibility. Pretty yeah, that guy's credibility. Yeah, so it's not exactly the same thing.
But I do just kind of as somebody who you know, this is an area of focus, I'm curious to hear your summary of what has been going on in that community over the past months.
Yeah, one hundred percent. So the idea is roughly or for shorthand, you would call it disclosure. And disclosure is the concept that, as we all know, the concept that one, some sort of non human intelligent thing is out there in two that it interacted with the humans, or it somehow left artifacts or other tangible material evidence, and that three, for some reason, a bunch of people just do not
want you to know about it. It's super secret, and that for generations and generations, the human beings a species notoriously bad at keeping its mouth shut, managed to not let anyone know until now right, that's the idea of this guy, until this guy who also has a book you can buy, you know what I mean? And that's I think that that's part of it. To level said, with the congressional stuff, the big, big announcements that were always always brought to bear or always advertised or signaled
as such. What we see often and is if you look at what a lot of these guys, these veterans formed pilots and so on, you look what they're saying, and they're usually saying something much more nuanced than what
is being reported in a headline. They're saying, hey, I read a thing that was about a thing that I have not myself seen, and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, it's kind of it's a paperwork argument, really, And from that we see these somewhat hyperbolic headlines about, oh, you know, billions of dollars are being put into this research and this study, or millions of dollars I don't forgive the beefit are being put into this and that
sounds like a lot of money until you forget that millions of dollars is a minuscule drop in a billion dollar bucket of global superpowers, and they're putting, you know, millions of dollars into all kinds of research that might seem crazy. Does you know this is we can't forget In the case of the US, this is a government where one day, four point thirty on a Friday, some guy was coming up with ideas. He looked at his cat and he was like, what if what if this
was also a bomb? You know, And they got pretty far with that. So I guess the thing is it was tntilizing people have I think I don't know if I would say they've moved on. We see less general public interest, but the people who are already into it are are further and further into it, even though it's kind of a jam tomorrow, jam yesterday but never ever jammed today situation.
Right, m hmm, okay, yeah, jam the Michael Jacksons.
Michael Jackson song, yeah, yeah for me to jam yeah.
I uh yeah.
I've noticed myself become less interested in it. And because because it's they gave us so much homework. It was like a class where they gave us, they went and talked to Congress, and then just so much homework, and there were people being like, I can't believe you believe in this. That is, you are a very stupid man. Here, read this really long article about why you're stupid.
And then you know, just.
An endless number of articles where it's like, actually this is kind of intriguing, but like never actually focusing and like on the thing. You know, again, it does feel like there, like you said, there's an amazing amount of work being done to just keep the truth just off the edge, just out of focus, just out of reach in a way that seems a little almost too perfect. I can believe that that could be done by a military with tons of funding, more more than I can
believe that it's being done by a sasquatch. But I do still find it a little bit hard hard to believe.
Well back back in the day. One of the things that the US government loved during the fifties and you know, the forties, the Project Blue Book era. I love the idea of aliens because that's a great act that's way more palatable than saying, oh yeah, we're also building our own crazy ships, but we can't let people know about this aircraft and then to that point, man, at some like, I'm not saying these folks are bad faith actors at all. You know, in some cases, you know.
The US military, Yeah, we wouldn't allow you to say that on.
Our no No idea. Specifically, the people say that they saw something weird, they can't explain it. If you go to most of those folks who are saying that firsthand, the phenomenon, the witness, they're not making these crazy, wacky do claims. They're not saying I saw an alien. It told me straws are weird or anything like that, and.
It was facing Superintendent Chalmers and then it looked at me.
Except yeah, they're saying I saw something I can't explain it, and I tried to report it, and I hope that someone does something from that. You know, it gets to the tease, like imagine, imagine all of us were hanging out and for some reason we went to like a stage magic show. I don't know why we decided to go to a magic show. Yeah you're a.
Close up magic yeah, yeah, is that why you're differentiating the stage magic magic.
Yes, all my magic heads out there, thank you. I do prefer intimate, close up magic. But yes, stage magic.
Yeah, but so we see some guys. Yeah, you know he's doing like a magician trick. He's got like a box step in the box. Or you know, if we do close up magic, like.
Pick I'm sing what's in the box like Brad Pitt at the end of seven.
Yes, as I do.
Yeah, yeah, always ruining a magic show.
That guys here again the box.
Guy, box guy.
I didn't catch him at the door.
So he's so quick, this guy so so. But they the idea here like that. I think the comparison is, let's go close up magic. Since we got boxed guy in the crowd and uh, he keeps They keep saying, all right, pick a card, and then they just you pick a card. They just keep shuffling. There's never a reveeal. So I think people get tired or get become somewhat
wearied by seeing the constant shuffling without the delivery. And maybe, you know, if when this episode comes out, if the next day we do get some provable revelation, like physical evidence, then I will come back on the show and make a Maya kulpa. But I just don't see it happening right now.
Okay, my interests have the same thing too, or like it was. I was like, oh shit, they fucking have vehicles that they had hide they pay other fucking consultants to fucking steel. I was like, yes, more because for me, my confirmation bias is set to let me see them, let me see the aliens.
Like now, yeah, now now.
They have biologic Yeah, we have biologics and they only say non human origin. Yeah is that a particularly.
Clever they found in a whale's mouth. But like in that sense, I have such a For me, my appetite is like, bro, just give me anything, Just give me anything, because I so badly want to I so badly want to be like I want to see this ship. So I'm sort of like a bigfoot person, but like with aliens or not necessarily like I'm gonna believe everything what these people say, but if someone says something about it,
that's like getting a lot of pickup. I'm like, oh, I'll entertain this, yeah, obviously, knowing I need empirical evidence to fully go there. But like, I think that part is more. I think it just excites the part of my brain, which I think is the same same thing with cryptids. It's like I want to feel like there's still another big scientific, existential reveal in the bag for me to witness firsthand. While it's like while I am
on this earth and that's all it is. It's purely like it's chasing the sensation of like the unknown becoming known, and I've just sort of put all of my alien eggs into this basket hoping that something will happen. But at the same time, I'm also just as skeptical because I'm I'm also I famously I think I became an atheist when I prayed for Nintendo and I never got it.
So it's well, not yet maybe, but did you get one?
I'm like, yeah, but my grandma, but oh but you got one. But you got it? Yeah, don't try to use me. Don't try We're done.
We're cooked, bro, my parents and getting back together either pastor Rob So?
Now what shout out pastor Rob? So? I mean, that's that's beautiful. I think that's a beautiful and kind of universal thing, this idea of being here to witness some great discovery, you know, the the concept though also just for the more skept to go love us in the crowd. You know, you could make a case that a lot of the coverage and the and the ink spent on this in the press was to sort of move other stories out of mainstream conversation, you know, just like, oh,
we don't have spyplanes, they must be aliens. But don't worry about what's going down in this other country that, if you're most Americans can't find on a map instead, bro, aliens, remember eating.
Yeah, not on our government printed world map. So we get like that country doesn't even exist, So I guess I don't have to worry about it. Nah, move along, all right?
Well, Ben Bollin, what a pleasure having you on the Daylians like geist. Where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
Uh yeah, you can find me on places with social media handles going by at Ben Bullen in a burst of creativity Benbullan dot com. Check out stuff they don't want you to know for critical thinking applied to conspiracy theories, check out Ridiculous History, where you can find other than the myths and the legends themselves. Some of my favorite cryptids of podcasting our own Miles and Jack, which we're we're just a scheduling thing away from from figuring out we finally get you guys back on.
Nobody believes we exist over there. It's a weird tweet, they say, I'm crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
As a biracial person living in America in twenty twenty four, I feel like we're also cryptids when I write when I watched right wing media, Oh what are you though? Exactly?
I'm a focusmon, give me a box I can put you in, please, right? Yeah, Ben, is there work a media that you've been enjoying? A tweet or a show or a podcast or whatever.
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. We recently began the third season of a show called Missing. The Missing series this time around is Missing in Arizona. It is examining a still unsolved disappearance of a guy named Robert Fisher who is suspected of doing some very heinous things, murdering his family and ghosting. This is an active investigation. Our host John WALLSAC has uncovered things that it appears law enforcement missed. So please do tune into that, especially if you can help us
figure out the case. It would mean quite a bit.
This is so wild to me though, that like we're in a place where obviously we know the shortcomings of like law enforcement, that now we like as pod in podcasting, there are things being uncovered that fucking this is so wild to me that, yeah, that's where we're at. We may have uncovered things that the fucking cops couldn't or couldn't be bothered. I mean, I will. I will let people listen, get involved, get into it, get sucked in.
And help you can.
This might be one of the few podcasts where you might actually be able to help solve like what the fuck happened?
Although you can tell us if you've seen an alien, you can also solve that one for us.
Yeah, just while you're up, you know, yeah, I also have you seen an alien?
Just so yeah, amazing.
Miles.
Where can people find you as their working media you've been enjoying?
Yeah, find me on Twitter, Instagram at Miles of Gray. Find Jack and I on the basketball podcast Miles and jackot mat Boosties. Find me talking ninety day Fiance on four to twenty Day Fiance. Some tweets I like so obviously on people probably know, maybe you don't because you're not a hip hop fan, but Kendrick Lamar is going to be performing the Super Bowl halftime show, which is such a wild So just the tweets around it have.
I've just been getting a chuckle out. The first one is from at Dante V eight said performing at the super Bowl in response to a song where the guy you were beefing with said he was big as the super Bowl is the craziest rebuttling hip on history. And I'm like, yep, yep, yep. And then another one is from at d dot omen and it's just a fantastic meme.
Everyone will be able.
To picture this. It's the Bush doing at the children's reading circle on nine to eleven, except it's Drake and someone is whispering.
Is here clearly.
Kendrick Lamar is doing the super Bowl shower. Uh yeah, It's just it's that's that's that's the moment we're in. So yeah, Shout out to the West Coast.
Shout out to the West coast. Let's see tweet. I've been enjoying Isabella at leb understore Globe. Glebovich tweeted, we were all incredibly touched by your DJ sets. I like to always open my handwritten letter as well. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien you have You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist We're at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.
We have a Facebook fan.
Page and a website, Daily zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our notes. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Myles, what song do you think people might enjoy?
Well, it's a specific song, but I think people should check. So there's this group called the Philharmonic. But if the main dude is this guy from Sacramento, and he's like such a fantastic songwriter, musician like his his he's nailed down his like genre, aesthetic, everything is so fantastic. I will say that the song I'm gonna recommend is Drugs, but really you should watch the Tiny Desk concert of the Philharmonic that came out a few months ago. It's
really fucking good. And this guy is so charismatic in this song. Drugs feels like something like what's what's the old boy's name?
Who did Hamilton?
Oh?
Yeah, Lynn Manuel, Miranda.
Lind Manuel Miranda, like lind Manuel. I'm see I've already I've already brought him out of my mind because I'm like this guy. This guy has such a like this is a song lin Manuel Moranda like wished he could have written because it's just really good. Anyway, it's called Drugs. It's about the first time you contemplate selling drugs because economy is so bad.
But it's done in such an amazing.
Soulful way. Again, I say, really, just check out the Tiny Desk concert of the Philharmonic and that's with a k at the end. But this track, if you're looking for this single track, it's drugged. But I again I implore.
You, what's a tiny desk version? All right?
We will link off to that in the footnote for the Daily Zeitkeist of the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we will talk to you all then Bye bye,