The Daily Zeitgeist - Anti-Vaxxers Are Rebranding and The McDonalds Cinematic Universe 9.16.21

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

In episode 989, Jack and Miles are joined by the host of the Comedians With Ghost Stories podcast Emily Winter to discuss how the FBI completely failed US gymnasts, ​​Political Prisoner rally does...n’t want attendees MAKING IT OBVIOUS, Anti-vaxxers are now "purebloods", No One Knows What the Fuck McDonald’s Grimace Is Supposed to Be, and more!FOOTNOTES: The FBI completely failed US gymnasts “WE ARE NO LONGER UNVACCINATED...WE ARE PUREBLOODS!” No One Knows What the Fuck McDonald’s Grimace Is Supposed to Be  One Day Smarter: Hilarious, Random Information to Uplift and Inspire Book LISTEN: Yussef Dayes - For My Ladies live in Copenhagen Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer,
Starting point is 00:00:25 this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows. That we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Starting point is 00:01:10 Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere, starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.
Starting point is 00:01:48 All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller
Starting point is 00:02:05 from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season 202,
Starting point is 00:02:16 Episode 4 of Dirt Daily Zeitgeist! The production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It's Thursday, September 16th, 2021.
Starting point is 00:02:29 My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. She hates big nuts and she cannot lie. Some other brides might deny, but when her man walks in without Invermectin, puts those big balls in her face, she's just
Starting point is 00:02:43 gone. That is courtesy of Eat the Rich Jefferson and Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's fiance? Or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:58 And I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray! Well, they tried to go and clone the mammoth, but Jack said, no, no, no. Yes, it's been stink, but when it's living, you will know, know, know. Thank you so much to the Super Toe for that just wonderful Amy Winehouse rehab remix. Zuperto for that just wonderful Amy Winehouse rehab remix. Because, you know,
Starting point is 00:03:26 people are out here talking about bringing the fucking woolly mammoth back to life and climate change. That's one of the... It's very hard to understand why. But thank you for that tribute to Amy, nonetheless. And fortunately, they do have to check with me before doing it.
Starting point is 00:03:41 So I get to tell them no, no, no. So it's not happening huh yeah sorry until you explain to me how getting a animal that eats arctic grass is going to restore arctic grass to the landscape i it'll bring balance no for me scientists all right you heard it well smiles we are thrilled to be joined by a very funny stand-up comedian who writes for nickelodeon's new show that girl lele uh npr has asked me another the new york times the new yorker bravo glamour you've heard her stand up on sirius xm and seen her on stages across the u.s she hosts the podcast comedians with ghost stories and her book of uplifting and funnier trivia one day smarter
Starting point is 00:04:27 drops on october 12th please welcome the hilarious and talented emily winter thank you so much thank you for having me on your wonderful show oh who told you to say it's wonderful come on i got the memo thank you for coming on yeah yeah uh where are you coming to us from where we're on the earth are you i am in brooklyn new york uh i'm in red hook on my little hole back here yeah nice how did you fare during the the floods and things like that sure uh there was the first one. I was in the Wisconsin Dells and I was having no part of it. And apparently my place was fine.
Starting point is 00:05:09 And shockingly, the second one, I was fine too, as many of my friends got flooded. Wow. Yeah. We just got some extra mosquitoes. So that's... Oh, great.
Starting point is 00:05:19 I did very well. Wow. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. I have a backyard, which is like, you know, basically I'm at some like a mansion in New York. So I have a little tiny backyard and it's like just full of mosquitoes. Nobody's coming over ever again.
Starting point is 00:05:35 Yeah. Like a bite proof suit on or something. Exactly. I hear that. OK, so we I'm super intrigued by the podcast Comedians with Ghost Stories. Are you a believer? Do you believe in ghosts? Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:05:51 I mean, do you guys believe? Do you know? I don't know. Oh, your faces. I certainly don't know. I'm ghost adjacent. Does that mean you have someone close to you that's seen a ghost? Yes, yes.
Starting point is 00:06:05 But they also have a propensity for bending the truth a lot. So it's hard. It's a source that I have to consider. And I'm like, well, you know, you also kind of just you'd like to see things happen certain ways a lot of the time. But I don't know. I mean, I'm also being Japanese, a very ghost centric culture. So, you i mean i'm also being japanese a very ghost-centric culture so absolutely you know i'm i wouldn't say i'm out here like i wouldn't go somewhere and be like i'm not afraid of anything because on some level they freak the fuck out of me but have i
Starting point is 00:06:35 seen one no okay well there have been 107 billion people that have been alive. And there's only what, like seven and a half billion alive today. So like what happened to those 107 billion? There's got to just mathematically, there's got to be a ghost, right? Oh, so this is like, this is like how like people interested in like extraterrestrials are like for how vast the universe is. We're looking at a near impossibility that they're not out there. You're saying for the amount of dead motherfuckers that are out there, you're saying there's not one. There's not a couple ghosts. There's not somebody hanging around.
Starting point is 00:07:12 Yeah. I mean, you know, when in doubt, just throw numbers at it. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah. Yes. The mathematical proof for ghosts. Do you have or what's the freakiest story or what's the freakiest experience you've
Starting point is 00:07:25 had through your ghost encountering so i i just love listening to ghost stories i have not been you know how people say they're like old souls uh i'm a new soul i'm here for the first time for sure i am so dumb about everything and I have no instincts. And that's why I love other people's ghost stories, you know, but I did like batch record a bunch of ghost story podcasts a couple of years ago. And then weird stuff started happening in my apartment where I live with my husband. And he was like, we both at different times thought the other person got into bed and the other person was in a different room. So we both felt somebody get into bed. And then like he's got a million hats and one of his hats was just like in the middle of the room on the floor. And it had been like under a big pile. Anyway, not that exciting. But we were
Starting point is 00:08:15 terrified and saged the apartment. We got real drunk. Then we saged. We opened all the doors and all the windows, which there are not that that many of and we told the ghost we invited the ghost to please leave and then we never had a problem after that oh shit okay well then bust them up bust those ghosts that is a thick-skinned ghost i feel like being invited to leave is pretty it's pretty clear what's going on there they're like get the fuck out of here i I mean, we invite you. Honestly, the ghosts take a better hint than most people at parties, right? Seriously. We're inviting you to leave now.
Starting point is 00:08:51 Yes. You're supposed to be nice to them. Would you RSVP yes that you are leaving? And this is where we diverge because I'm not here for hand-holding the ghosts. We've been handling them with kid gloves for too long. We need to take a hard line with these ghosts and get the fuck on out of here. I have time for me to keep
Starting point is 00:09:11 not knowing why the dishwasher just turned on suddenly. Okay, dishwasher bragging. That is kind of a flex especially talking to somebody in New York. First time having a dishwasher. So, yeah, I'm going to talk about it.
Starting point is 00:09:28 Just like, remember, Jack, when I got the refrigerator that had ice in the door? It was a moment. You know what I mean? These are the steps we take. Yeah. There's many a moment. I'm so jealous of that. Towards God's love, yes.
Starting point is 00:09:39 All right, Emily, we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, a couple of things we're talking about. we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, a couple of things we're talking about. We're going to ask the question whether Newsom's kind of landslide victory in the not getting fired election is a sign of things to come, how encouraged people should be. We're going to talk about the FBI completely failing the greatest U.S. gymnasts of all time. We're going to talk about the upcoming political prisoner rally that is for some reason trying to remain apolitical i don't quite understand that we're going to talk about the new wave for the unvaccinated aka the pure bloods. That is fucking terrifying. So cool.
Starting point is 00:10:26 Yeah. And of course, we will promise to and probably not get to a story about Grimace. All that, plenty more. But first, Emily, we like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history? Something from my search history is so embarrassing but i have been saying i've been talking about poppers on stage and i realized i didn't know what poppers were so i was like i need to like know what i'm saying you know just as like uh i don't know courtesy to the audience because i've been talking about lexapro as my poppers and now i realize that's not even they
Starting point is 00:11:03 don't even that doesn't make sense because poppers are not little tiny pills that you pop like you know oh yeah i didn't know how people because i'm a little nerd you know i'm like i don't know how people do drugs uh right so i had to look up poppers and where to get them and how to get them and um give them a try, right? And now I'm like, now I gotta give them a try. Now I know you can get them at a bodega or something. Yeah. So poppers. That's just so funny. I thought they were just pills.
Starting point is 00:11:32 You just pop them. Yeah, that's why they were called poppers. And then I had a bag full of poppers at the movies the other night. And it was great. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. To clarify, because I feel like I only just learned what poppers are.
Starting point is 00:11:46 There's something you inhale, right? Mm-hmm. And they get you high and also loosing your muscles, including your butthole muscle. Your little butthole. Yeah. Yeah. That's so nice. Wait, did you have a moment where someone was like, do you know what poppers are?
Starting point is 00:12:03 No. I always do this. Do you guys, do you have a moment where someone was like, do you know what poppers are? No, I always do this. Do you guys do this? And I start talking about something for a while and then I realize I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And then I'm like, oh, I should Google that for sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, we do.
Starting point is 00:12:15 It's called this podcast. It's called you're listening to it. Nobody stopped me. Nobody told me, Emily, what are you talking about? They were just like, let her carry on. She will figure it out eventually or did they just think wait i'm sorry how are you using it in context again i'm trying to even see if someone could see like pro is her poppers so yeah i was talking about like depression on stage but you know like i have seasonal depression four times a year uh that and then like oh i'm on you know leapro i take i do poppers i call lexapro or
Starting point is 00:12:46 something like that and right right right it just didn't it i mean i think it's one of those things that gets your head scratching though you're like yeah interesting so relationship yeah or like what it's a metaphorical relaxation of the sphincter that occurs. There are so many people who went home after one of your stand-up sets and tried anal on Lexapro and had, you know, interesting experiences. Who knows? Oh, I hope they...
Starting point is 00:13:16 I mean, that's really bad because if you start Lexapro, I don't... I mean, this is gross, but you're going to poop a lot. Oh, hey. What? I'm on. Oh, hey. Because not a Lexapro? I didn't even. What is that?
Starting point is 00:13:27 No, I'm on poppers, man. What are you talking about? Poppers are my Lexapro. Emily, what is something you think is overrated? Overrated autumn seasonal vegetables. Oh, my God. I had a deconstructed burrito with sweet potatoes in it the other day and I found it extremely offensive. Yeah, I hate that. I feel like they're more expensive. They're on menus and you're going to have to have this $25 zucchini steak and you're like, no, no, I don't want any of these vegetables and I don't want to pay higher prices for them. Yeah, tis the season of mushy-ass vegetables.
Starting point is 00:14:09 Right? Squashed and get fucked. Oh, shit. Say it loud. You know what I mean? Let them know. They can get fucked, according to Emily. Wait, I'm more worried about, you said you had a deconstructed breakfast burrito you said it was a deconstructed
Starting point is 00:14:27 burrito which means a way of being charged more for a burrito bowl that is so fucking violent to hear those words but they're like deconstructed burrito you fucking colonizer what are you talking about what is this who is this why is this it was miserable. I had no idea there was going to be sweet potato in it. I ate it. I was so sad for the rest of the day. You're saying it was a burrito bowl rather than like a high minded way. Like if you went to some fancy restaurant, they're like, and this bit of corn represents the tortilla and this and it's a deconstructed. They're just being like burrito bowl, but we call it deconstructed. Yeah, basically. Oh, lazy. Lazy. Like, literally, they deconstructed it by unwrapping a burrito and dumping it into a bowl.
Starting point is 00:15:12 Just dumped it into a bowl. There you go. It literally was a deconstructed burrito, and then they threw away the shell, the casing, the tortilla. Yeah, it's not a deconstructed burrito if there's no tortilla representation, right? No. Unless you're eating it out of a bread bowl or something. I mean, we're big on deconstructed main courses. And, you know, aside from being the arbiters of what should be de-extinct, Jack also chimes in on these kinds of modern food trends.
Starting point is 00:15:41 But it usually has everything represented. My favorite deconstructed meal was the deconstructed pizza as presented by Lunchables. That was among the best. I agree, though. A vegetable medley of autumn vegetables is usually not good. It's usually too slimy and mushy, and I am team fuck squash along with you. Thank God. I'm just thinking, okay, so it's Brussels sprouts, carrots, cabbage, pumpkin, although not technically vegetable, acorn squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams. Zucchini.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Zucchini, right. Yeah. It's more the squash family and and the pumpkin like kind of mushy like i like a good you know squash soup or like that i'm good with it when it's like blended up liquefied but just the consistency does always make me uh feel like i have to just you know battle my gag reflex when i'm when i'm consuming it i'm a fan fan. You're a squash head? Yeah, I don't mind squash at all. When it's done, roasted, even little cubes, diced up, all you need.
Starting point is 00:16:50 Wow. But I'm not paying over for it. I still know what a squash is worth these days. What is something you think is underrated, Emily? Okay, underrated. I don't know what's happening out there in California, but I'm going to say underrated emily okay underrated i don't know what's happening out there in california but i'm gonna say underrated lawn sports because we all had to we all got to stop right stop being outside all the time when we thought covid was over for one second and i swore that i would never sit on
Starting point is 00:17:19 a blanket and drink a white claw and talk to my friends ever again because i was so bored of that i could never do it again and now we're all back to the parks, hanging out at parks, and I can't do it. And I have discovered all these lawn sports, and they are a way of escaping myself. And I'm like, why is everyone in Central Park, in Prospect Park, in McCarran Park, not playing these games? Why are you all still sitting on blankets there's so much you could do there's you got spike ball you got classics like bocce ball there's a new one called cross net that's so fun and they are just making me i don't know be happy for like cross net cross net is like four four square volleyball so you don't have to be good at volleyball to play just mildly athletic but yeah so it's just teeny tiny and you and you actually get a good workout and then like you hit a friend in the
Starting point is 00:18:10 head and then you laugh about it and you're not just sitting on a blanket drinking white claw drinking white claw wait a cross oh okay yeah i'm seeing it now that's great yeah that's really fun spike ball i like i'll play a little Spikeball. It's awesome. My husband's in a Spikeball league and I had to play the other day because his partner couldn't play. And oh boy, I got my butt kicked. There's a lot of strategy that goes into that. But it's very fun.
Starting point is 00:18:39 If you see clips of like whenever I see competitive Spikeball, I like come on now i'm not gonna do all that but also i'm like amazed at just how the game is played at that level for sure dude spike ball has been around since i think like 1990 or something the early 90s it has some real real early 90s vibes but the guy that invented it never patented it so So a guy that's like our age was like, wait a second. I've got this when I was a kid. No one ever patented it. Now he's like a zillionaire. And yeah, very smart thing to do.
Starting point is 00:19:13 And he like in 2007, he like reignited the spike ball trend and is now CEO of Spikeball. Wow. It's pretty cool. What an American story. It's like this sucker didn't protect his ip now it's mine now you know i didn't think of it that way because he's from chicago and i'm from chicago and i'm like good job good job getting yours but you know you're not wrong is the original inventor like out here just like talking about it like destitute he's like
Starting point is 00:19:40 they took everything from me i just invented a game for all to have fun with very just things you had lying around the house and now nothing i didn't think about that either i love this emily you're like i don't know just i love that yeah happy i was just happy that a straight white man finally got his. You know what I mean? I know. It's about time. Good to see a win in that column for once. Speaking of straight white men, do you fuck with cornhole?
Starting point is 00:20:14 Is that in your... Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's a Midwestern thing too. Bags. Bags. Cornhole.
Starting point is 00:20:20 Yeah. I'll fuck with some cornhole. Love it. How about wand darts? Um, no, I haven't really. What's the one where you throw rope with little, like,
Starting point is 00:20:34 tubes hanging off it and then it has to hang on the, yeah, like, ladder. Ladder ball, I think. What are you talking about? Ladder ball. Oh, oh, right, right, right, where you just throw, like, the little bolo things and get them on the little rungs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.
Starting point is 00:20:48 For a second, I was like, what lawn game do I not know about now? Do you guys play a lot of lawn games? Is that a thing? I was just in L.A. in Griffith Park, and no one was playing lawn games. I probably play get off my lawn games. Like being very hostile to anyone who walks in from your house. No, I mean, I have in my friend group, like people will bring out the ladder ball stuff or bring out like some version, but not all the time. But I think it varies from group to group.
Starting point is 00:21:17 I'll say that like all my local like Angelino friends who we all grew up here. We don't we don't bring out the lawn games. It's the transplants who have parties who bring out the lawn games it's the transplants who have parties who bring out the lawn games yeah okay that's where i encounter them that's your nice way of saying you're you're such a nerd emily which is fine no not at all meaning like i'm just too cynical like i'm like nothing brings a fucking lawn game and then i'm like oh right cool i do like big jenga big jenga that's a fun yeah i haven't played most of these games sober and now i am i've haven't drank in six years i i think i might want to try these and see like what they're like not completely wasted i think you'd love
Starting point is 00:22:02 spike ball yeah spike ball seems like i don't think i ever played spike ball think you'd love Spikeball. Yeah, Spikeball seems like... I don't think I ever played Spikeball. Oh, you'd love it. Cannot guarantee that. You can start getting strategic on that shit with how you spike it. It's about how you spike it. You could do a little high velocity spike, a little tapper.
Starting point is 00:22:20 You know what I mean? Make them really dig it out. Who knows? I actually didn't know what Spikeball was and I saw it on the beach at the Jersey Shore, and I made a mental note. I should find out what that is. That looks super fun. So thank you. Here we are.
Starting point is 00:22:33 It's pretty easy to set up. Also, Can Jam. I know we got to move on. Yeah. Can Jam, I feel like we got to say it before we... Okay. Because that's a good one. I feel like now that is a new classic.
Starting point is 00:22:44 I don't know what can jam is. Oh, boy. I mean, other than a can of jam. I'm not good at Frisbee, like disc-based sports, so I get a little frustrated when I play, but it's fun. So you're... Oh, okay, okay.
Starting point is 00:22:59 You got to get a Frisbee into a can and you have a friend to help you. The sign of a good lawn sport is you look at a picture of it and you immediately get it and immediately understand why it would be fun. And Can Jam wins that battle for me. I'm so excited for you, Jack. It's all about alley-ooping a Frisbee, Jack. Yeah, exactly. That's fun. That's so about alley-ooping a Frisbee, Jack. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's fun.
Starting point is 00:23:26 That's so fun. All right, let's take a quick break. I'm going to go try all those sports and we'll be right back. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.
Starting point is 00:24:00 And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:24:37 Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with Grammy award-winning rapper Eve on her new memoir and the moments that made her. It became a theme in my life, the underdog syndrome of being questioned, of the, would they say this to a man? No, they would not. Like, why?
Starting point is 00:25:09 That was one of those moments where you're just like, oh, wow. It was a bit shocking, but it didn't take any steam away or anything like that. If anything, it was more of the, okay, I'll show you. No worries. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.
Starting point is 00:25:37 I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified.
Starting point is 00:25:53 Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?
Starting point is 00:26:08 We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation.
Starting point is 00:26:40 KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church
Starting point is 00:27:15 and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back.
Starting point is 00:27:38 And as promised, I guess, as advertised by Larry Elder, the Republican frontrunner himself. Gavin Newsom just smoked the competition when it came to the recall. The exit polling was, I don't know, there's a handful of articles now that the exit polling and all that stuff is in that suggest, well, this is what the Democrats are going to do in the midterms, and the Republicans are fucked. I don't know. I found it vaguely reassuring. So one of the big ways that they got the 1.5 million signatures to do the recall in the first place was by like getting
Starting point is 00:28:29 people who are riled up about the vaccine mandates but the vaccine mandates were actually a winner for gavin newsom yeah i don't know if that was like the a change of direction for the population of california or if it was just that like it was allowed minority of the population that was like really driving the recall, but not enough of them to actually win an election? No, I mean, people they turned out for bigger numbers to basically vote against relaxing covid restrictions than they did even vote for newsome like when he was first running as governor right and i mean yeah the we talked about how sort of the strategy with newsome was merely just gesturing to the other candidates and saying or them i don't know yeah up to you
Starting point is 00:29:20 this guy says a lot of stuff that isn't true, but what are you going to do? It's hard to say how much this will be deployed and how effective it is. Clearly, in places like California, it's very clear where most of the people who live here, how they feel about ending the pandemic and how we get there. I'm curious to see how it works in other places. I mean, granted, this is sort of part of Biden's overall scheme or plan that where he's mandated vaccines, the GOP got real mad. But when you look at the polling, a majority of people aren't,
Starting point is 00:29:55 aren't upset by it. Yeah. So it's like, I get it. Like this definitely, if as a binary in a, in a lecture, you're saying,
Starting point is 00:30:03 do you want to keep us safe? Or do you want someone who's saying we're going to take the brakes off and fucking rewind to 2019? In that in that instance, it's very clear. But I think it all depends on how important the vaccine is, depending on the voter or the pandemic is depending on the geography, too. Right. I mean, yes, Trump carried a surprising percentage and sheer volume of the votes in the 2020 election that I think horrified everybody. I also I don't know. It seems like I'm what I am wondering if the anti-vaxxer stuff and the January 6th insurrection. And the January 6th insurrection, I mean, those are not popular things. People are not on board with that. So the fact that those are kind of the biggest things that have happened and been associated with the Republican Party since that election, maybe that will hurt them. I mean, it's, I am slightly more hopeful than I was yesterday that that will hurt them and that people are like, yeah, no, that is, we saw those, you know, school committee PTA meetings and they were terrifying, you know? Yeah. I just think, you know, the strategy of saying, well, what about this guy? Doesn't make me that confident, like in the person running, you know? And I get that as a strategy that works, but
Starting point is 00:31:34 you, I'd also hope to see the kinds of candidates or a way of campaigning where you're actually trying, I don't know. I mean, I don't even know why I'm saying this because they campaign on so much shit that they don't deliver, but actually trying to create results to motivate people. Like, how about you actually deliver safe abortion access or safeguards against voter suppression? like do that and gesture to that because if you just it allows them to be even fucking lazier right and not have to move anything forward and just say well you can okay what so you want this guy right okay and then there's no there's no action yeah but you know people it's it's everyone is already writing their articles this is 2022 2024 this is where it's gonna go do you think it got to this point with newsome because just because it didn't like because the pandemic didn't end i mean it's just so weird to me i mean
Starting point is 00:32:33 obviously i know there's a lot of republicans in california but it's just so weird to me as a new yorker for us to like have gone through all this with cuomo and for it to mostly work like new york city is a very safe place to be considering everything right now. And now we all hate Cuomo, but like for different reasons. But like if I mean, I don't know if his strict stricter ideas and like mandates had worked, this wouldn't have happened. Right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:03 I'm what the difference is is like to get a recall in california is really what it boils down to you just need a million and a half signatures or i think it's like roughly eight percent of the electorate and then you can trigger a recall in which case if the if the incumbent doesn't reach 50 any fucking sloppy candidate who just has a plurality after that can instantly be the governor so it's a very like indirect or direct way to sort of like short circuit the system in california to try and yeah exactly to try and fuck around and change something by just playing very small margins to try and get what they want and i think a lot of it is also this is a way for many Republicans who,
Starting point is 00:33:46 you know, especially after Biden was elected, who were like, I can't believe I live in California. Look at what they're doing. Like this gave them something to really get behind and be motivated against. But even then, it wasn't reaching outside of, you know, that typical group of people to, you know, deliver over 50 percent to you know deliver over 50 percent you know of the vote but it did sort of bond like far right and then like that sort of i don't know i just like to eat grass and i'm not gonna you know like it's weird how it becomes circular and like yeah yeah like it's it's not a line it's not not a straight political line. It like turns into a circle. And like these like hippies are like hanging out with these like hard like proud boys. And I'm like, wait, wait, where? How did you guys become friends?
Starting point is 00:34:34 All of those like anti lockdown, anti vaccine rallies I've seen in California or like New York. I'm always like pausing the frame and I'm going like, wow, how are all of these people standing shoulder to shoulder right now i'm like wow i guess one thing's more important than everything else they talk about all right let's talk about the fbi continuing to just fuck everything up and be terrible at their job simone biles mckayla maroney maggie nich and Allie Reisman testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to give their account of how just awful the FBI's investigation into Larry Nassar was. And it's really, I mean, there was a report over the summer that kind of highlighted a bunch of this stuff, but it was really necessary and brave of them to actually put themselves out there
Starting point is 00:35:26 because i think it highlighted it for a lot of people who probably didn't read the whole report just how completely the fbi had fucking bungled this thing yeah i mean at first it was just sort of like they did a terrible job and i saw some of the headlines but again their testimony today was so, even if you didn't read it, just to hear people who are describing their pain and trauma in just trying to pursue like some kind of legal, just like justice for what had occurred to them. And then the lack of action from the FBI was like, really, everybody like it seemed that was in the Senate chamber for that was just like just kind of felt sick you know mckayla maroney has talked about how she spoke with an fbi agent about her experience and was like just so distraught through the whole thing and then like at the end of the conversation the agent was like so that's it and she was like i just described really vivid abuse to you and i'm like very emotional about it.
Starting point is 00:36:25 And then on top of that, the agent didn't follow up properly, follow up based on that interview and then drafted like a summary of the interview that had just things she didn't say in it at all. Like falsified this report. Well, he didn't even draft it until basically years later, at least until they got caught. Right. They got caught right they got caught ignoring the shit out of this and then he was like oh okay so here's my report on that interview and he was doing doing it after the fact basically making shit up yeah and throughout this you know the oig the office of inspector general report talks about many other things, too, just how even despite that,
Starting point is 00:37:05 Larry Nassar was free and was able to continue his just abusive behavior, even though they were they spoke to many people who are just ringing this alarm. And yet they did nothing. They even said that there were like there was an agent who led the Indianapolis field office, lied to the Justice Department inspector general, a a quote in an effort to minimize or excuse his errors so you know this is just like a very very sad you know sadly very normal case where people are trying to seek justice in when as it relates to like allegations of sexual abuse and law enforcement is just like unable to do it. Or in this instance, just completely does nothing at all to remedy the situation. And, you know, all the athletes that were there, they said, look like the FBI failed.
Starting point is 00:37:53 Also, safe sport is a total failure. Like this organization that is supposed to investigate these kinds of allegations couldn't protect us either. And when I, you know, raised an issue, a lawyer for the U.S. Gymnastics Association, like followed up with me. That was the first call I got was from a lawyer. And they're just saying the way everything is set up is completely antithetical to any idea that it's going to protect people who have allegations or need to be protected from abusive coaches and, you know, organizations in general. It's a very, yeah, very FBI kind of moment, especially when you see like how the DOJ is not going to prosecute the agents when we've seen time and again that people go to prison for lying to
Starting point is 00:38:41 the FBI or lying to law enforcement or making false statements. These people did that. And the Department of Justice's stance is like, we're not going to be pursuing that. Right. It's not it doesn't count if the FBI is lying to themselves. It's come on. Right. But so what's different here?
Starting point is 00:38:57 You know, and like that's where, again, if we just look at this fucking very inconsistent application of the law yeah and in this case this is this is it seems like such an egregious transgression and error not even error but just action from these agents that to do nothing about it is i think shows again how we will continue to fail people like this if we're not going to take things seriously enough to reprimand people who are involved with obscuring the facts. Yeah, it's super frustrating. Basically, everything you read
Starting point is 00:39:32 about the FBI is a complete nightmare. It's a complete farce and has been since they were surveilling Martin Luther King Jr. and telling him to kill himself. It's a shitty organization that probably shouldn't exist.
Starting point is 00:39:51 Yeah. I'm curious to see what comes of this. You know, a lot of the senators said good things after they made their statements saying, you know, like, we get that you're not here for I'm sorry's. You're here for action. You're here for justice. And we will hopefully get answers from, you know know chris ray and other people at the fbi but i i you'd hope that there is some on some level you know when you're looking at especially when other athletes are raising the question at what other level is this happening not just at the most elite level like you can't this this we can't just treat this thing as something in a vacuum but then you wouldn't it was just sort of disheartening too and you have like chuck grassley and like dick
Starting point is 00:40:28 durbin who are just like these older guys like kind of listening to things like oh yeah you could just tell that they weren't really equipped to respond to those statements a lot of like a few of the other senators were but on some level, there's this old guy kind of dealing with toxic elements of patriarchy. He just sort of didn't know what to say. That's too bad. Oh, that doesn't sense. That's too bad for those poor girls. Okay.
Starting point is 00:40:57 Well, what are we having for lunch? It felt like that. I'm just sort of like, thank you so much. Oh, that's awful. I have a question did they would it have been better if a female fbi agent asked you that and people like oh jesus christ i just think it's it's it's insane that we're also like asking some of these women like simone to keep competing uh while they have to consistently relive this trauma um and then we're like as an american
Starting point is 00:41:26 public furious at her for not going finishing the olympics like she's got enough on her plate right now you know what i mean like she's doing more important work arguably yeah i think absolutely yeah and i think and she even said too you, when she was giving her statement, she's like, you couldn't even believe what it's like for her. We told the FBI things for years ago. It continues. We hear other other teammates say that now they've been abused, even though we tried to speak up to end it. Go back into the context of like competing for the U.S. and going to the Olympics. And like Simone Biles saying like, I'm not it's difficult for me, like what I've been through and to not have the support of my family as I normally would going to an Olympics. Just I just couldn't do it. Yeah. And, you know, she was saying like we the people up there need to ask themselves, like, what is a little girl worth? You know, because if the abuse stands like we're sending a message that it's not much at all yeah i think everyone that's uh yelling at simone biles on twitter should have to record themselves trying to do a cartwheel and uh
Starting point is 00:42:36 that's what i want to see break their wrists i mean i would too so yeah i'm curious to see because like i felt like with some of the republic, I know a lot of people, especially Republican politicians, were had some real fucking lame attacks on Simone Biles for not competing in the Olympics. And I was like part of me when I was watching, like, how many of these senators were like made any comments? But I was like, hard to know at this point. Right. All right. Let's talk about an event that I'm sure all three of us will be attending uh the upcoming september 18th rally uh that's scheduled to happen in dc where people
Starting point is 00:43:12 will come together to you know rally around what they're calling the political prisoners the people who attacked the capital on january 6th and were, you know, chanting to kill the vice president, hang the vice president. They have been given light slaps on the wrist. And that is a position that they, you know, the people who are rallying think is on par with Nelson Mandela and the apartheid state. They're all Nelson Mandela's free. The Nelson Mandela's of January six, I think, is the merch that they've made because there's there's just such political prisoners. They're not people who broke the law. We're just facing, you know, what happens when you do that.
Starting point is 00:44:03 We're just facing, you know, what happens when you do that. But Matt Branyard is this former Trump campaign operative and is like currently the one sort of trying to organize this September 18th rally. And it's just weird. He tweeted this weird thing out where like a lot of people were like, what is he? What does he mean by this? this uh so matt brain you're yeah he tweeted quote we request we request that anybody attending our events not wear any clothing or have signs supportive of either president trump or biden anyone not honoring this request will be assumed to be an infiltrator and we will take your picture find out who you are and make you famous this event is 100 about hashtag justice for j6 and not the election or any candidate now i mean i i get it in a very broad sense which is remember they tried to say that these people were antifa and blm infiltrators that's who was doing the violence and because everyone was emblazoned with trump
Starting point is 00:45:04 shit it was just so hard for that to people like what are you talking like and all of these people's all of their communications any research you do into these people you're like it's clear to anyone they're not actors they're they're trump supporters who showed up to do this yeah unfortunately for y'all they have social media accounts that are like they beat-by-beat accounting of how they were radicalized, when they were radicalized. So, yeah, it's complete and utter bullshit. It almost seems like they're trying to claim that as their own, that they will track people down. as their own like that they will track people down and i don't know it's a it's a very like we'll we'll do the thing that you did to us to ourselves if you i don't like i'm very confused
Starting point is 00:45:56 by this unless he is doing this on behalf of the trump camp because the trump camp doesn't want to be associated with this because he is planning a run. But just like zoom out, right? If it's like if they're saying this is just about justice for the J6 or for January 6th, what was January 6th about? The fact that you didn't accept the election results and you went to overturn them. So how could this not be about that? It's yeah, it's utterly confusing it doesn't make any sense i'm just trying to even figure out what they think they're doing i think it's just
Starting point is 00:46:33 they feel that it'll be optically better for them if when this rally happens they don't have pictures of people wearing all of their political allegiances on them. So then they can misrepresent what was happening there. Got it. It's hilarious that he said Biden shirts. Come on. Hey, letting them. Hey, come on. Hey, you know, funny as shit.
Starting point is 00:46:56 Justice appeals to all, you know, not left or right. But yeah, that's what I'm also curious about. Like, I mean, maybe there'll be counter protesters probably, but I don't understand. Sure. Don't wear the shirts and then you can lie more about what happened. But I also have a very hard time thinking that someone who's motivated enough to go to D.C. again to like protest this has any other clothes to wear at this point except for trump clothing right yeah camo yeah right exactly so i'm well we'll see but i mean as of now i think the homeland security they suspect about 700 people will be there that's their estimate it could be more but they're like but a lot of the same right wing uh actors will be there and not actors and that they're faking, but participants. Yeah. Crisis actors. We get it, Miles. We know what you're saying.
Starting point is 00:47:47 Hired by Soros. Yep. We know. We got it. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two
Starting point is 00:48:13 attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. These are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground.
Starting point is 00:48:41 Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations
Starting point is 00:49:11 with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with Grammy award-winning rapper Eve on her new memoir and the moments that made her. It became a theme in my life, the underdog syndrome of being questioned, of the, would they say this to a man? No, they would not.
Starting point is 00:49:29 Like, why? That was one of those moments where you're just like, oh, wow, it was a bit shocking, but it didn't take any steam away or anything like that. If anything, it was more of the, okay, I'll show you, no worries. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app,
Starting point is 00:49:45 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session.
Starting point is 00:50:07 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out?
Starting point is 00:50:20 I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy sex talk.
Starting point is 00:50:55 This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're covering everything from body image to representation in film and television. We even interview iconic Latinas like Puerto Rican actress Ana Ortiz. I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control. I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is,
Starting point is 00:51:33 then this is the show for you. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio. We're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast senora sex ed listen to senora sex ed on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and we're back and the anti-vax team anti-vax is having a identity crisis slash PR shift, you know, a pivot. They're pivoting. Well, yeah, I think there's too many headlines or it's like anti-vax personality passes away.
Starting point is 00:52:15 Like this. Right. There's like recently a prominent guy in Colorado just passed away who like called himself like Dr. Anti-vax or something. He recently passed away who like called himself like dr anti-vax or something he recently passed away from covid and yeah they're just in a constant identity crisis because they're they're not sheep okay they're free people we're not we're unafraid we're people that do our own research but they definitely don't seem to like the label anti-vax or in some way you're starting to see more content where people are trying to like reclaim it to be something more than an accurate description of their beliefs and which leads a lot of people to be angry because of the preventable death that is occurring as a result of
Starting point is 00:52:57 people refusing to get vaccinated but yeah they've got a new angle they've got a new attitude i guess is what you'd say and i just want to share that with everyone here. This is kind of the new way that they're doing, and they're doing it very dramatically. So I'm just sitting here and I'm thinking. From now on, I refuse to be referred to as unvaccinated. I want everyone to now call me a pureblood. A pureblood. Call me a pureblood a pureblood call me a pureblood um
Starting point is 00:53:29 okay holy cow I'm sorry like feels very millennial if you've eaten fast food one time in your life you're not a pureblood like there is no like if you've had mayonnaise you're not a pureblood I can't don't tell them that I will, you're not a pureblood. Right. I can't.
Starting point is 00:53:45 Don't tell them that. I will now be known as a mayonnaise blood. Ooh, mayo blood. Mayo blood. Against the world. But yeah, this, I mean, that's just not weird at all to identify as a pureblood. And look, whether you're more Hogwarts or Himmler, I guess it all depends on how you want to use that terminology to describe yourself. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Associating with pure blood. And then there's like one anti-vaxxer who said in like five, 10 years, maybe less, all the people who are unvaccinated, we're going to be hunted.
Starting point is 00:54:25 be hunted it's gonna be like resident evil we're gonna be the antidote because everyone else is fucked and we're gonna be the only ones with pure blood uh which really is you know when you're combining like this is an existential threat based on the purity of our blood that's genocide shit that's like how genocides start but well i mean i don't think they're seeing the nuance and i think i honestly i wonder how many of these people like love harry potter right you know because they have no con i don't know how much context they have as i've seen with a lot of like anti-vax rhetoric there's a lot of like they'll say things that drift into like problematic historical context and then they don't understand why they just know like buzzwords and things like that and this one feels just so millennial to me like this is harry potter yeah
Starting point is 00:55:10 this doesn't happen like we're not saying this unless harry potter fucked up millions of people's minds i don't know where i was like it just feels it feels like an easy step for people but again a little bit grim you're describing yourself like that isn't pure blood like what draco malfoy and like the bad guys isn't that even like the bad guys point of view and i'm not familiar with all the lore but i did see a lot of jokes about being like oh this is gonna get confused with a lot of draco memes yeah so i i yeah but oh so you're saying in there that just means bad people listen to back well no it's a it's a value like for for the same reasons that it was associated with or like so popular with nazis like the there's a lot of like nazi ideology like tied up in the bad guys in harry potter so like oh got it right like the protagonist
Starting point is 00:56:08 is i think they call her a half blood where she's like has a non-wizard parent or something like that so and like yeah there there is stuff like mud blood and stuff like that that they call people who have human blood or human parentage. But like, that's not good. That's not like. So if these are Harry Potter fans, like they're they're missing the context or they're just like, yeah, we're team the bad guy. We're team Voldemort. What about you? You team Voldemort?
Starting point is 00:56:43 Voldemort. I'm Hufflepuff blood, whatever that is. I don't know. Voldemort. What about you? You team Voldemort? Voldemort? Is it Voldemort? Voldemort. Voldemort? I'm Hufflepuff blood, whatever that is. I don't know. I'm dirty blood over here. Listen, I got the dirtiest blood. I got the J&J vaccine before we knew that one was going to clot me up.
Starting point is 00:57:00 I'm just a giant walking clot around here. You see me in Brooklyn. You're like, what is that, lady? That's a giant clot, lady. That's it. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know any more harry potter words i used to work for a teen blog and i was not on the harry potter beat so hufflepuff is the only word i know and quidditch there you go another lawn sport yeah ucla had a great quidditch team i remember that's the one weird thing i was like let's not talk about this in public, everyone.
Starting point is 00:57:25 But yeah. You played, right? I've seen your varsity jacket for that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look. Okay, look, full disclosure. Yeah, I was fucking it up. You know what I mean? I was pretty good.
Starting point is 00:57:36 But I did it under a pseudonym, Cho Chang. All right. So that's terrifying. The fake vaccine car business is booming. But we can talk about that on a later episode. What we need to talk about is how no one knows what the fuck McDonald's Grimace is supposed to be. you know a walking clot and i think people people might think that that's as good a guess as anybody seems to have but so it all started with a bath mat he's kind of hairy right i gotta pull him up here for a second he doesn't i feel he looks like purple goo with the face yeah so there was a cbc interview with a mcdonald's manager in windsor ontario who had been named outstanding manager of the year and that's he therefore became the subject of an interview with a major canadian
Starting point is 00:58:33 outlet because canada is fucking adorable and anyway at the end of the interview the manager was asked what the deal was with grimace yo what's it doing the other final question yeah because like the other mcdonald land characters are pretty straightforward ronald is a clown mayor mccheese is a sentient burger guy the hamburglar is a thief who loves eating burgers despite the fact that they clearly have the capacity for intelligence and interest in regional politics. But they were like, but Grimace, we've just never really been able to figure it out. And according to the manager, he is an enormous taste bud.
Starting point is 00:59:18 Ew. Which is fucking gross. Wait, how do we know that's the gospel truth so we're so people started looking into it it is something that has been claimed quite a bit for a long time in 2012 the mcdonald's twitter account specifically stated that grimace is not a taste bud okay but the quote embodiment of a milkshake i was gonna say he kind of reminds me of like the last little, like the little bit of soda that doesn't make it into the cup, you know, and it's just like, bloop. Right. Oh, right.
Starting point is 00:59:53 A syrupy soda drop. Yeah, syrupy soda drop. And that's why he's upset because he didn't get, he didn't get in. But there's no purple milkshake at McDonald'sdonald's and there's no purple soda available at mcdonald's right well if he was brown he would look like poop right right that's true and if he was white he would get dirty really fast yeah he would look like they'd sue for like he's a ripoff michelin man yeah or stay puff marshmallow guy oh believe me that so it gets this is follow me down the rabbit hole the grimace rabbit hole so our writer jm looked back into the history of grimace he
Starting point is 01:00:34 actually began as a villain introduced in 1972 as the evil grimace a purple monster with four arms he was basically the hamburg, but he loved stealing beverages, including Coke and milkshakes. And in commercials, we'd see him hoarding hundreds of cups of milkshakes and soda, and Ronald and his friends would have to use their wits to steal it back, which, why an adult clown and two small children need 10 times their weight and Coke was never addressed. Why are they on trial, man? I have a theory now that I just made up that there was a time that McDonald's thought that they could basically be like the next comic book superheroes.
Starting point is 01:01:20 So they were like making narratives so that they could have cartoons and books and oh so you're saying the original mcu the mcdonald's cinematic universe yes exactly is what they were trying to establish oh okay interesting it just sounds like they really were going for it with like stories of you know now we've got two villains like oh my god what is that thing is that from a book jack this like evil, like, evil Grimace thing? Like, this is when they were like, hey, parents, indoctrinate your kids with tales of Ronald and friends. It appears to be a print ad, would be my guess. Ah.
Starting point is 01:01:57 In which it is, like, designed to look like a storybook, but Grimace has forearms and weird like legs so it's basically like a six-armed insect that is also blob shaped and it's it's ronald mcdonald looking up in arms about having his milkshake stolen so grimace made the switch from good to evil uh and they cut off two of his arms in the process because he was and you're not gonna believe this when when i tell you because he was inadvertently scaring their child customers because how a giant like fat spider that steals your food uh how is that going you don't like mr blood clot what if we do it with a jamaican accent do you like him better now oh they really hate this freaky four-limbed creature six-limbed
Starting point is 01:02:53 creature huh and then there's the other reason for the redesign which was that mcdonald's was sued over their mcdonald land gang which resembled characters from the tv show hr puff and stuff and i think mcdonald's actually reached out to them and was like hey could we like license those characters and they were like no and then mcdonald's was like oh okay we'll just copy it and we're we have more lawyers than you yeah according to the lawsuit mcdonald's not only approached creators sid and marty croft about collaborating on a campaign that immediately scrapped it they also recruited former hr puff and stuff employees to help design mcdonald land so they lost that and had to pay them a bunch of money but so evil grimace was based on a character called Seymour Spider, and they, I think, just removed the two extra arms to make him seem less like a ripoff of the horrifying spider.
Starting point is 01:03:55 I just love that little tweak that they're like, we're good, dude. We're good. He has six arms. What are they going to say? That ain't no spider, your honor. A spider has eight limbs. We call our expert witness. How many limbs does a spider have?
Starting point is 01:04:10 Eight. It's a little baby. A little spider. The defense rests, Your Honor. But wow, I love the energy that they go for. It reminds me of Tiny Fuppets. That's a Gairdner cartoon. That's clearly a Muppet baby's but they do the lame
Starting point is 01:04:27 it's like it's not kermit it's kremit don't say it has anything to do with their original ip yeah grimace so is he so what so he's retired permanently permanently he's retired he's retired currently but not permanently because characters have been retired and then come back in sexy new iterations, like the handsome Hamburglar that they released a design of that kind of weirded everybody out a few years ago. Hopefully they're not planning a sexy Grimace, but, you know. I mean, I'd rather just have some closure around what he is once and for all yeah you know it's also like if that is a taste bud it is a swollen infected taste
Starting point is 01:05:16 bud that which is kind of what it tastes like after you've eaten mcdonald's and your your taste buds like are like kind of have pins and needles because you've eaten McDonald's and your taste buds are like kind of have pins and needles because you've eaten so much sodium and sugar at the same time. It feels like there's a layer of grease on your tongue that you can't get off. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then you grimace.
Starting point is 01:05:38 Yeah, and then you grimace and that grimace is just the impressionist kind of version of what that feeling is after you eat McDonald's. Maybe that's what it is. Oh, well. That's beautiful. Go out to Grimace.
Starting point is 01:05:52 We hope to know the real you one day. Big G. Big G. Well, Emily, it has been such a pleasure having you. Where can people find you and follow you and read you and all that good stuff? Thank you so much for having me. This has been awesome. I'm very excited about my trivia book that is coming out next month. I love trivia and I got to write this over the pandemic. So it's mostly uplifting trivia, things that make us not as sad because of the year and a half that we've
Starting point is 01:06:22 had. And it's called One Day Smarter. And you can get it anywhere that you get your books. Pre-orders always help. I didn't know this, but it's like why people put, like why bookstores put books on tables rather than on bottom shelves because those books got a lot of pre-orders. So I appreciate pre-orders.
Starting point is 01:06:38 I'm on the internet at emilywintercomedy.com and emilymcwinter on instagram and twitter because my middle name is mckenna and i made a decision a long time ago and it was the wrong decision um and that is and you can follow comedians with ghost stories wherever you find podcasts and thank you and is there is there a place that you would prefer they go to purchase the book honestly like if you have a bookstore that is uh your local bookstore that you know you might end up paying 75 cents more for the book but you can ask them if they carry it and you can a lot of my friends have pre-ordered from their local store so hopefully your local store will have it is there a favorite uh uplifting
Starting point is 01:07:21 trivia fact that you can use as a teaser okay so, so this one makes me so happy. This is one study is just one study. But one study found that the happiest age is 82. And the reason for that is that if you're still with it by 82, you don't care anymore. If you're like hot or rich, or like, you didn't get that job, like you don't care you're just chilling you're just having fun and so it just makes me excited about aging because we're all supposed to be like oh no i wish i was 25 forever and no we let's all get to 82 and keep our wits about us and have a great year yeah no i think that's one of the big underrated kind of myths of american culture is that like you life gets worse as you age.
Starting point is 01:08:06 And apparently that's not true. According to happiness studies, just kind of figure it out as you go. You learn tricks. Is there a tweet or some of the work of social media you've been enjoying? Oh, you know, I didn't I found one today. I was on Twitter today. And you know, Norm Macdonald just died so i feel like that is taking over my twitter and i was getting kind of annoyed with some of the norm mcdonald tweets and uh this wonderful comedian in chicago jeffrey asmus it's jeffrey with a g e o f f e r y atm is his twitter handle he said before you publicly mourn a celebrity's death make sure the post doesn't mention you more than them and it's not a funny super funny tweet just super super real because
Starting point is 01:08:51 i'm so sick of seeing morning tweets that are like me me me i i i i'm like okay great somebody's dead you know what i mean just show a little respect so uh jeffrey nailed that i thought and it was cool yeah yeah uh, where can people find you? What's a tweet you've been enjoying? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Grey. And also the other show, 420 Day Fiance with Sophia Alexandra. If you like 90 Day Fiance, stop by for that because it's a raucous good time. Stop by for that because it's a raucous good time.
Starting point is 01:09:31 And I just want to shout out the Nicki Minaj to Trinidad and Tobago cousins. Balls tweet will never end, it seems like. Past guest Danielle Radford at Danielle Radford tweeted, There is no big balls, man, is a thing professional health care experts were forced to say. And this is because the health minister had to come out and just say there has been no such case as the big balls, man. And I just let me find the audio. One of the reasons we could not respond yesterday in real time to Miss Minaj is that we had to check and make sure that what she was claiming was either true or false. We did, and unfortunately, we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim. It is, as far as we know, at this point in time, there has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event and
Starting point is 01:10:28 what was sad about this is that it wasted our time yesterday trying to track down because we take all these claims seriously whether it's on social media or mainstream media. As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported such side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad or I dare say, Dr. Hines, anywhere else. None that we know of anywhere else in the world. So just, again, the most professional response to a bad, fake science tweet and just this guy even feeling
Starting point is 01:11:14 so sad. Right. Gosh, this is what happens when we get these platforms. They're too big. We forced someone in Trinidad to fucking do all this work because Nicki Minaj had a really cool anecdote. Yeah. Let's see.
Starting point is 01:11:29 A tweet I've been enjoying is from a current guest, Emily McKenna Winter, who tweeted a while back. How to make friends as an adult. One, say we should hang. Two, do not hang. Three, say we should hang. Six months later. Four, cancel. Five, reschedule. Six, respect their cancellation. Seven, reschedule. Eight, actually hang.
Starting point is 01:11:56 Nine, say we should do this more often. Ten, die. Which I thought was brilliant. Well done. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.
Starting point is 01:12:13 We have a Facebook fan page and a website, DailyZeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes, where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as the song that we think you should go check out. Miles, what song are we saying people should go check out today? This is a track, a live track that was recorded live in Copenhagen, Denmark by a great band. This is a band that includes Yusuf Days, one of my favorite drummers, Charlie Stacy and Rocco Palladino, the son of Pino Palladino, one of my favorite drummers charlie stacy uh and rocco paladino the son of pino paladino one of my favorite bassists that's how you know you're getting old when you're like that's pino's son
Starting point is 01:12:51 there you go uh and this track is called for my ladies when they get together they're just such fantastic musicians they're kind of playing that new jazz type vibe and this is a bit of a longer track it's a little over eight, but it is a tour de force of instrumental mastery. So check this out. It's For My Ladies, live in Copenhagen. Yusuf Dez, Charlie Stacey, Rocco Palladino. Awesome. Well, The Daily
Starting point is 01:13:15 Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this morning, but we're back this afternoon to tell you what's trending, and we will talk to y' the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky.
Starting point is 01:13:53 The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast.
Starting point is 01:14:16 As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better.
Starting point is 01:14:37 Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app,
Starting point is 01:15:08 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself?
Starting point is 01:15:34 There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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