The Daily Zeitgeist - New Cult Just Dropped, Alito Blames Wife For EVERYTHING? 05.31.24
Episode Date: May 31, 2024In episode 1685, Jack and Miles are joined by actor, writer, and co-host of Go Fact Yourself, J. Keith Van Straaten, to discuss… Trump Dropped The N-Word While Making The Apprentice--Producer Claims..., Alito Won’t Recuse From Sh*t... Blames Wife For EVERYTHING, Why Are We So Obsessed With Cult Documentaries? And more! Trump Dropped The N-Word While Making The Apprentice--Producer Claims The Donald Trump I Saw on The Apprentice Former Apprentice Producer Claims Trump Said ‘Would America Buy A N***** Winning?’ — And It’s On Tape Alito Won’t Recuse From Sh*t... Blames Wife For EVERYTHING Why Are We So Obsessed With Cult Documentaries? The Insane True Story Behind Netflix’s ‘Dancing For The Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult’ Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult | Official Trailer | Netflix Why Are We Suddenly All Obsessed With Cults? Why Are Young People So Obsessed With Cults? “Why are we so obsessed with cults?” Professor Poulomi Saha’s Homecoming lecture explores a pop culture phenomenon Why we're so obsessed with cults LISTEN: 1968 by Jairus MozeeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
there's a fresh movie called fresh that came out in 2022 i know there's a recent movie like but
this one has sam jackson and john carlo esposito oh that sounds 94 yeah john carlo esposito plays
this drug drug lord yeah you know wow that's kind of a new look for him i can't really picture him
as a as a drug lord that's weird he's been a drug lord. That's weird. He's been a drug lord
even in The Gentleman.
He's been a drug lord.
And you talk to someone like that just
stutters a little bit and adds a uh
at the end of something.
He's a, okay Mario.
Giancarlo.
Oh, do you think it was just the
Italian-ness of his name
infected the rest of your...
I don't know.
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Why you no call?
Why you cry?
I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult.
And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.
Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Carrie Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.
Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese.
Every great player needs a foil.
I know I'll go down in history.
People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.
Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports.
Listen to the making of a rivalry,
Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcast.
Presented by Elf Beauty,
founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.
Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.
And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden.
We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career.
That's where we come in.
Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.
And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do,
like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour.
If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation,
then I think it sort of eases us a little bit.
Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season 340, Episode 4 of Dirt Daily's iGuys!
Hey, production of iHeartRadio, the season finale.
Yeah, yeah.
Will we get renewed?
Tune in next week to find out.
Simpsons ain't got shit on us.
We're on season 341.
Yeah, exactly.
If everything goes according to plan.
And like the Simpsons, we fell off after season 8.
Yeah, we haven't been good since 8.
But somehow we're staying on.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness.
And it is Friday, May 31st, 2024.
Get it in all guess what what it's also uh national utah day national smile day national speak in complete sentences day national macaroon day
national autonomous vehicle yeah i'm sure yeah i'll believe when i see it uh national savior
hearing day it's like reminding a when those deci go up, take care of those eardrums.
And also Necrotizing Fasciitis Day.
Awareness Day.
I don't want to hear about anything that's necrotizing.
Yeah.
Doesn't sound promising.
Well, yeah, it's about like, you know, how a bacteria can begin to get infected with bacteria.
And look, just don't worry about it.
I don't need to be talking about necrotizing flesh right now.
Not this early in the show.
Well, it's June Eve is the important thing.
We're almost through May.
And, you know, for the past 120 or so months, I've been like, guys, this next one.
The problem was the previous month.
This next one, everything's going to start coming up the world.
Okay.
And things are going to start getting better.
Anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. the Viscount Doublecheck.
In reference to how I've been mispronouncing Viscount my whole life when I read it in my head.
That one's courtesy of Scouty.
Also, in reference to Jason statham dog airline movies
also from scouty we have uh aka the trans potter aka lock stock and two missing balls
again courtesy of scouty magoo on the discord i forget why we were talking about jason statham
in the context because we're talking about bark air and how, like, transporting a dog,
how some people were dog transporters for the wealthy.
Oh, yeah, that we were going to start, like,
it isn't enough that there's this expensive airline to transport your dog.
You have to, like, go on a separate.
Hire someone.
Hire someone to be your transporter.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyways, I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my cohost,
Mr.
Miles Gray.
It's Miles Gray,
AKA.
I put my hand up on your lymph.
When I lymph,
you lymph,
we lymph.
You put your hand up on my lymph.
When I lymph,
you lymph,
we lymph.
You pop yours and I pop mine and we can feel my getting sick zeitgeist.
Okay.
Carl Lobo.
Thank you.
I'm not sure if I want to be popping my lymph nodes with extreme pressure, but they are popping out.
Sometimes you got to pop out and show them, as Kendrick says, about my lymph nodes.
So thank you, Carlobo.
Sounds like you're a car wolf, huh?
Carlobo?
Oh, yeah.
Damn.
Look at that translation.
Yeah, man, you know.
Just see the matrix.
Yeah, you know.
This is radio bilingue, obviously obviously what we're pushing here so obviously keep it consistent hey mile first of
all how are the limbs you know honestly this may be the i think they're going down yeah i think
they're going down a little bit yeah yeah yeah they're i mean bad news for me good news for you
you know yeah yeah you know well good news for me too Good news for you. You know? Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, good news for me too.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, cause now you will look at me in the eyes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now I can make eye contact instead of just like kind of staring at your lymph nodes.
I know.
I was kind of absolutely wetting my lips.
If it wasn't for the weather, I would have pulled up Steve Jobs style, full black turtleneck.
You know what I mean?
They've been like, I can't't i can't just i can't
be leading with these lymph nodes anymore yeah but then like they might be like popping out the
top a little bit i like that too just so you know anyways miles we are thrilled to be joined
in our third seat by an actor host writer who you know from best week ever and his podcast
go factor yourself on the Maximum Fun Network.
Please welcome J. Keith Van Straat.
J. Keith!
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome back, J. Keith.
J. Keith.
Thanks, y'all.
Nice to have you here.
And thank you so much for acknowledging necrotizing fascitis.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
On this day.
That is why you are here, to bring awareness to necrotizing fascitis.
Yeah.
Yes.
And by awareness, I mean I'm first becoming aware of it right now. So good job.
Good job. Awareness. Shout out to anyone who has a friend that's like a ER doctor or ER
nurse person who's like, I just saw the fucking worst shit. Yeah. That's how I always hear about
the worst things. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I don't recommend it. Oh,
don't recommend it. It is the flesh eating disease.
Okay.
That's where I've heard of it before.
Necrotizing.
Yeah.
Necrotizing.
The necronomicon.
That's the necrotizing part.
Yeah.
It's different than plantar fasciitis.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's going to be different.
Like my lymphs.
Why that neck grow?
You know what I mean?
You got fasciitis?
Because that neck grow.
I've been listening to too much rap.
Jakey, this is a weird inside joke where I was talking about how I really have a kink
where I'm into Miles' swollen lymph nodes because he's coming down with the sickness.
I fought it off.
I have a sickness for the sickness thickens.
A kink like you want to do things to these lymphs?
They just turn me on. Be careful, Jack.
Be careful.
I don't yuck on your yum. Okay, so that harassment
training just went right out the window.
That's right.
Well, they didn't say anything about
having a sickness for the sickness
thickness.
Let's just say I'm down with his sickness.
Okay.
Jay Keith, I feel like you're always fairly a pretty well
traveled person have you been you've been traveling of late yes actually my fiance and i just got back
from turkey uh first time visiting there uh because there just wasn't enough there wasn't
enough fascism scares in this country so you wanted to go you want a preview yeah yeah oh that's gonna happen oh okay
see how my boy erdogan is doing it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah are there a lot of cats there that's the
one thing i always see in images of like i think at least istanbul right yes and actually i know
you're i think you're gonna ask me later what i something i find underrated and believe it or not
that is what i was going to say is underrated are the cats of Istanbul. Because I was told that there were going to be a lot of cats.
I was not prepared for, A, how many cats there were, like at least 50 a day.
But also how incredibly well taken care of and how loved they are.
And I'm a huge cat guy.
So for me, I do judge a country based on like how many cats I encounter and how nice they are.
But it is a completely different culture there in terms of how they take care of the cats. Like you'll see cats around, but they all look super
healthy. They're all very well fed. You'll see people have built and leave these little houses
for them. Tons of food everywhere. They're super socialized. And it's really part, it's just part
of the culture to take care of these cats. And I think there's actually laws not only against
harming the cats, but also laws to proactively take care of the cats. And I think there's actually laws not only against harming the cats, but also laws to proactively
take care of the cats.
So it was really special.
They were, you know,
you go into a restaurant
and, you know,
a cat will come up to you
and expects to be fed.
And, you know,
you don't have the waiter
or the host shooing them away.
Like that's just part of the culture.
Yeah, they look at you.
They're like, excuse me.
Yeah, exactly.
Like if there's a cat on the chair, like you're not putting your bag on there. You're not moving it. That's who you're eating with now. Yeah, they look in the tube, they're like, excuse me. Yeah, exactly. If there's a cat on the chair, you're not putting your bag on there, you're not moving it.
That's who you're eating with now.
Yeah, exactly.
You bring another chair over.
Right.
We went to a lamp store.
Garfield-ass country.
Yeah, we went to a lamp store, and there was a mom with four kittens.
And they're like, oh, that's so nice.
That's your cat?
And the kitten's like, no, the cat just came in here and had the kittens, and now the cat and the kittens live here.
Yeah, right. It's just part of it so that that was awesome for me so even
though you'd already heard how uh how many cats there were still underrated how fantastic the
cats in eastern bull are man yeah see if i would go to turkey is to get my hairline completely
restored that's the one thing i see there is a lot of that's funny that you say that because i
didn't realize that was the thing there also and then yeah that's the resurrection lazarusville yeah uh you get uh when you get on when you get on or off
the planes you know going there or two you see everybody got the hat with the bandages and shit
or you see the guys who who maybe it's too soon for the bandage or it's i don't know i'm unfortunate
enough not to need that so uh but yeah you see you can definitely tell i mean you see all of the
dots and all that.
And then you also see a lot of women, especially with tape over their nose.
So I think it's also a big place for nose jobs.
But yeah, I had no idea that it was sort of the hair plug mecca that it is.
Truly.
Yeah.
Everybody knows the turkey.
Turkey.
So, I mean, maybe this fascism thing is going to work out for us.
Maybe we just like fine.
Great hair.
Everyone's cool. everyone's cool everyone's
cool to cats whereas here i mean i've i've heard rumors there are no cats in america at all
from a documentary i saw once yeah but that's wild like i don't i don't know that i've been
to a country where like there's just a cultural difference in like how animals are treated to that degree.
Yeah.
And I hope it's other animals because, you know, you did see some dogs that were, you know, unhoused, I suppose, as well.
And they seem taken care of as well, but I don't know how they are.
Just loose.
Yeah, just loose, but not in packs, which is also kind of interesting, which i think also just goes to how uh you know it's just mellow like you're smoking a cigarette
having a cup of coffee they didn't have a public bong they had a dog bong yeah right so i hope i
hope it's for other animals as well but literally like there was one there was one time where there
was a cat sitting on a table for sale like outside of a grocery grocery store. And this big burly guy came up and I thought,
okay,
here it comes.
He's going to,
you know,
kick him or,
or,
or swat him or something like that.
And he picked him up and started cuddling him.
Even the tough guys,
even the tough guys love cuddling the cats.
What a great feature to have like about your country.
That is right.
Like,
yeah,
we just like live with cats,
like on our shoulders and in our hair.
We're all cat people all the time.
Yep.
That's awesome.
I'm not particularly a cat person,
but I,
I admire that.
We know.
We know.
All right.
Jay Keith,
we're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment.
I feel like we've already started the process.
Yeah.
First,
a couple of things that we're going to be talking about.
There's a big slate.
Yes.
There's a slate article from one of the producers of The Apprentice
giving a little behind-the-scenes of what it was like to work on the first season of The Apprentice.
The big headline is that Trump...
A thing that I think we knew in our bones, but also I think there had been some reporting...
It was alleged, too.
Yeah, he used the N-word freely on set.
Oh, Donald Trump?
Yeah.
Donald Trump? Donald J. Trump trump but he's so woke can't wait to hear this smear job exactly that is indeed what they how they are swinging it
but it's just an interesting i read the article this morning it's an interesting look behind the
scenes of you know what he was like at that point.
And I'm starting to think he's not a great guy.
And I don't, I'm not going to go firm on that just yet.
Okay.
Wow.
Yeah.
He's built up a lot of charity with you, huh?
I got a little bit more in the bank before I fully cross the bridge here.
Yeah. I'm going to just, you know, I got to be patient with people.
Let's give him a chance.
Yes.
And that's also what I'm saying about Samuel Alito.
Would everybody just chill out?
What the fuck?
I mean, he's allowed to do some weird shit with flags.
And anyways, we're going to talk about that story.
The fact that he had like a insurrectionist flag
flying outside of his house the day after January 6th.
It was like a couple of weeks after January 6th.
His cover story, why that doesn't exactly line up with the facts
and why Congress isn't doing shit about it.
We're going to look at that.
There's another cult documentary.
We're just going to look at cult documentaries and cults in general what what's the obsession you guys
why is everybody so oops my god you guys are so obsessed with us so we'll talk about cults all of
that plenty more but first jakey we do like to ask our guest what is something from your search
history well uh as I mentioned, I was
recently in Turkey. And one of the things that I picked up at the Grand Bazaar were a couple of
these huge cleavers that had the symbol of Turkey, the crescent and the star in the middle. I thought
these will make fantastic gifts. And so obviously, I'm going to put them in my checked baggage
because I'm not a maniac. And it turns out, though, when you go into the Istanbul airport to come home,
you actually have to go through security
just to get into the airport.
And I didn't want these two huge cleavers
showing up from the x-ray.
They have a specific cleaver check?
Yeah.
Cleaver check?
Yeah.
And so I wanted to tell the security folks
that this was going to happen,
and so I didn't end up in the famous Turkish prison.
And so I searched on Google for the translation so I could tell them in Turkish.
And so I have a screenshot of my saying, I have two big knives.
They are for gifts, not for murder.
Oh, good to clarify.
Because I wanted to be very clear about it.
My fiance did not appreciate that.
I think she thought,
she did not have as much faith in Google Translate
that it wasn't going to actually say,
I'm here to murder people with these knives.
I'm here to murder you with my knives.
How did it work?
Was it a successful translation?
It worked out okay.
I think you get a laugh.
You get a laugh?
No, did not get a laugh.
Very, very somber.
Which I think was also concerning to her.
Because I did mean it a little bit tongue-in-cheek, like, you know, I was being so literal.
But, like, that was the message I was trying to convey, that, like, I'm not here to do damage to anybody.
Yeah.
Personally, yeah.
Yeah, I guess it's good that they took it seriously.
I think it's a testament to your winning energy that you got away with that.
Because I feel like you have me on the wrong day being like
i'm not going to murder anyone with these and they'd be like holy shit yeah take them get them
in a holding cell as fast as possible yeah i'm glad i didn't include the word today because
see you did the good thing you did the good thing of using turkish to try and convey your
sense i probably would have spoke english i'm like i'm actually tsa cleave check so i think i don't they're like what are you fucking talking
about all right never mind they're for murder so yeah i think the tsa cleave check yeah cleave
check very nice so um yeah so we uh i think the fact also that i did it beforehand as opposed to
as opposed to after it had gone through because i was just imagining that you know they get so
freaked out if there's you know a bottle of water or something.
So I was very pleased with that.
But then, yeah, they did take a note.
You know, they had to call someone over
and there was like a notebook, I guess,
of like known weapons carriers or something.
Just, I guess, make sure that it goes through to the flight
and not-
Oh, got it, got it.
Where they keep track of the craziest shit
anyone's ever said.
Yeah, exactly.
So I am now in the book of life in the Istanbul airport.
Did you hit any Turkish?
My brain is completing.
Bathhouse?
Turkish bathhouse?
Yes, the Hamam.
Yeah, are those?
Did you hit any?
We did, yeah.
We did one.
And it was a really interesting experience.
For those who don't know, you go in and you lie naked on uh marble slab while someone scrubs and bathes you hell yeah yeah and so it was it was
kind of relaxing but also you're so vulnerable in ways that that you're not expecting
but just the idea that you don't know like when the splashes of water are coming um you don't
know how like you don't know yeah i mean it wasn't i'm not i'm not
i'm not comparing it to waterboarding but i'm not it's not a hundred percent different just you know
just that anticipation and not knowing it and really being yeah that out of control of of
someone cleaning your body like something that you know you normally most people i think do
themselves yeah and uh you know you're in this very vulnerable position. And this stranger is getting up in there
and they're very thorough. What do they got to like lift your leg and stuff to like get your
crevice? Oh, they do. They do it for you. Like they lift and position and then you, you know,
then at some point they have you sit up and then at some point you stand up and yeah, you're just
standing there naked while they, while someone, you know, you have to resist every urge to be
like, no, no no no i i got it
from here or yeah yeah i'll clean my asshole that's okay yeah i'm i'm familiar i'm familiar
with the geography here i don't wish this on anyone actually i'm a little weird i clean my
own asshole uh that's just always been a weird thing so in some ways it was very luxurious in
some ways it was it was kind of stressful because you know just the idea of you're having you know fingers and hands and sponges and places that you're kind of not used
to it's like a hand wash car wash for your body yeah a little bit yeah yeah we had planned on
like on doing it multiple times because you know we had heard about it and you know they're gonna
do it and then after the after the one time we were like i think we get it i think yeah that's
good we're good yeah wow that's i'm a level of clean I didn't need exactly.
Did you feel cleaner than you feel after you've cleaned yourself?
Except for the hair, yeah.
Because I don't think they, they put all this foam on you, but it's not like, they don't really like sort of wash your hair and condition.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, but the rest of the body, I don't know if I felt more because there,
there are certain ways,
like I guess technically they clean between your toes,
but like,
I know the exact spot where I need to get between.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Right.
I know where it builds up,
but,
but yeah,
no,
I,
it,
it definitely felt,
it's really funny.
Cause I,
you do feel a little dirty.
Cause like there's a,
there's a sense of being like,
even though there's consent,
obviously there is a sense of being violated in kind of a way also.
So it's definitely not relaxing.
Clean on the outside, dirty on the inside.
Yeah, there you go.
There you go.
Which is my usual MO.
So maybe it's just about usual.
There you go.
Yeah, Americans have a tough time getting naked.
You know what I mean?
Like in Japan, like growing up in a public bath, like you just always just got butt naked with everybody it was normal and i remember going like with
american friends for the first time like wait dude like everybody's getting like naked in here i'm
like yeah it's a fucking bath dude yeah like what are you tobias bluth here take your fucking jean
shorts off oh yeah they get pissed we did i forget what that what's the term for those japanese
baths i can't remember once yeah once we did we did one of those when what's the term for those japanese baths i can't say on say yeah
we did one of those when we were in japan a couple years ago and uh yeah they get pissed if you if
you come in with a towel on or anything like that come on now just let it all jeans energy and shirt
yeah yeah more for fashion reasons yeah they don't like the yeah the canadian tuxedo yeah i don't i
don't let anyone touch me except if they're cutting my hair.
And even then, I just put a bowl on and they cut around the bowl and that's it.
And how many kids do you have?
Yeah, no, we're not going to get into the physics of that.
Okay, fair.
Don't worry, yeah.
Anyways, all right.
So we know that you think the cat culture is underrated in Istanbul.
What is something you think is overrated?
Overrated?
I'm going to go with fancy water bottles.
Also, on this trip, I meant to bring,
my previous water bottle was silicone and kind of got too moldy.
So I was shopping for new ones and getting recommendations from friends.
And there are these like, you know, 50, 60, $80 water bottles.
$80? Oh, yeah.
Because some people want them super insulated and it's
tapered and it's got some sort of design
element to it. But even
some of the cheaper ones, they're still
$20 or $30.
And I actually ended up forgetting to bring the ones
that I had tested. And so at LAX
they don't sell plastic water bottles anymore,
which is great.
So I just got a bottle in metal
and endlessly refillable.
And it was, you know, five or six bucks.
And I made it through the whole trip
and I get to use it again.
No mold.
And if I decide I don't want it,
if I lose it, no big deal.
I lost five or six bucks.
And it's completely recyclable also.
So I think overrated.
I do not see the advantage of,
you know, even a $20 fancy water bottle
compared to just getting a disposable,
refillable, regular water bottle,
bottled water at the airport or something
in a metal container.
Like a Dasani or like a Smart Water?
What do we do?
What are we working with?
No, there's a company that has,
like that sells like those metal bottles.
I know.
Yeah, I think they did. They did have some brands that I like, that sells like those metal bottles. I know. Yeah. I think they did.
They did have some brands that I had heard before, like those, like those ones, but this
one, uh, this one looks a little more sturdy and it was great.
There you go.
Yeah.
That's a, um, I was just like just traveling.
The bringing a water bottle is so important because I only in the last maybe two years
took seriously, like how dehydrated you actually get on a plane and how much that affects your ability to like adjust with time change and things like that.
So, yeah.
And plus, so many airports now have like full on refilling style stations.
So whatever kind of cup, like if you have a Nalgene or whatever, you just pop that shit open and fill it up.
And this works great for that.
What I hate, though, is when you go through security and if you haven't consumed all your water and they don't have like a sink or a drain to put it up. And this works great for that. What I hate though, is when, when you go through security and if you haven't consumed all your water and
they don't have like a sink or a drain to put it in and that you got to
pound it or you got to pour it into this like flimsy plastic bag.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yeah,
yeah.
On the plane,
like,
and now also,
I don't know if they're all cutting expenses or just,
we were in on the,
in the cheapskate section,
but you don't even get like a full bottle or can of water when you,
when you ask for one anymore.
You got a tiny, tiny little cup yeah i i do the thing i'm like
hey man can you top off my bottle and they're like yeah yeah here right here and they just
dump like the two liter into my shit and i'm like whoa appreciate that yes that's again a testament
to your energy when i ask from that it doesn't go well you're like and it's not to murder someone. Hey, could you dump that whole thing into my shit, man?
What?
Keep your voice down, sir.
Why are you screaming?
Sweating so much. Hey, fill
this shit up, yeah?
I'm not saying I've got
cleavers in my carry-on, but... Yeah.
And if they were, they're not for murder.
What them lips do.
Yeah. Sir? Yeah, now once I give them as gifts, all bets are off. I don't know what my friends are gonna do with them. word they're not for murder what they're just fucking relaxed do yeah sir yeah now what no
once i give them as gifts all bets are off i don't know what my friends are gonna do with them
right yeah yeah exactly that's right all right uh let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
i'm jess casaveto executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult.
And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.
Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades.
Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high-control groups and interview dancers,
church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine.
Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts,
the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.
Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration.
It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again.
Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.
And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden.
We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline,
a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
When you're just starting out in your career,
you have a lot of questions,
like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?
Or can I negotiate a higher salary
if this is my first real job?
Girl, yes.
Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions.
Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.
And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,
like resume specialist Morgan Saner.
The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job
and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.
Yeah, I think a lot about that quote.
What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take?
Yeah, rejection is scary,
but it's better than you rejecting yourself.
Together, we'll share what it really takes
to thrive in the early years of your career
without sacrificing your sanity or sleep.
Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here
and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues.
The best way to crush your opponents this season
is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast.
Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, and my pal Michael F. Florio
as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league
and bring home a championship.
You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat
and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup.
That's our job.
We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week.
All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast
when it drops five times a week.
If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path
to dominating your fantasy leagues,
then look no further than the show Straight From the Source at NFL Media.
Do it before it's too late.
Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app,
on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back and yeah so slate published this article that's like like it doesn't really it
really uh takes itself seriously so bill pruitt is the producer from the apprentice and he has
like a long thing about like a magician friend of mine told me the secret to illusion is this
and in many ways we were constructing an
illusion around Trump. And it's like, all right, man, like, you know, that's not what people came
came for. But you're you're getting your shots in while you can. And some people seem shocked by
this. Like, I was definitely not shocked by the parts where Trump is a shitty person. There's
like good information on i guess
the original plan for the apprentice was to have a new and different billionaire every season
like because he he was from new york and the executive producer was from new york and like
at the interview for the show there he was like hey like really excited to work on this but like
why did you choose trump like that guy's like a con man and he was like he was he's the only one who said yes like we asked we asked jeffrey katzenberg we
asked david geffen they all said no he had nothing but you have to be a billionaire oh i can't do it
i mean yes yes yes yes yes thank you so he trump harassed female crew members and casually made misogynistic comments
compared the woman he thought was pretty to his daughter like not nothing new here
that's the highest compliment i think yeah the highest there's a beautiful woman behind that
camera kind of looks like my daughter that's all i want to look at is that what he said he yeah yeah oh boy not so he said uh the n word
at a meeting where it was they were determining who would win between kwame i remember the first
season of the apprentice and it was between kwame and like the guy who ended up winning like bill
i think was his name and his name the guy who
wrote the article yeah yeah there's some fucking guy named bill some fucking some bill right or
something and like trump literally he said like but i mean would america buy a n-word winning
and like in a meeting on tape because they have to tape his deliberation of who wins a game show
because of like the shit from like quiz show oh and like brought to you by geritol yeah exactly
so like you can't be putting undue pressure based on like who you think is going to
like be more popular like you have to get a record of everything so that it seems like this was based
on merit and of course trump is like violating that on tape but also like and then like visibly
throughout the process was just like against kwame using the logic that we saw from the sony email hack from like producers yeah like does that make
i love i love denzel love denzel people other people not me are racist and therefore but he
yeah like it was he said that and then just really pushed against kwame winning even though
like the people who were advising him were like, no, he definitely deserves to win.
He's clearly the winner.
And just to be clear for the game show element of it,
that was what was supposed to happen.
They were supposed to decide who wins.
They were fixing it for who was going to win.
It wasn't like someone earned more points,
but they are trying to conspire against him or anything.
No, it's just like Trump was supposed to determine based on what he thought right yeah but the thing that i'm saying is like counter to the fcc thing is that it seems like he was saying doing it based on how much america
would appreciate right who won which is not actually who he wanted to the exact thing that yeah quiz show yeah exactly the
quiz show did right they were like we like this uh handsome like professor more than we like
john tuturo's character so we're gonna like go with him and like feed him the answers
that's a great movie it is yeah yeah there, yeah. There was the, I mean... The last great Rob Morrow picture.
I was thinking of just, like, other...
I mean, this happens, though.
Like, I've worked on reality shows
where they kind of tip the scales
to make sure someone...
I guess it's different
when it's supposed to be something like,
who has more knowledge
in this very, like,
straightforward question and answer thing
than, like, who's, you know,
who can handle working in a kitchen or some shit like that?
Yeah.
So it's blatantly corrupt,
but I guess nobody is trying to push that angle very much.
And the producer still is like,
yeah, they were both really deserving.
Right.
Yeah.
Now, I remember during the campaign,
there were all these rumors.
Was it, I think Tom Arnold was threatening to release it.
He was trying to find him.
Yeah.
He was trying to find him.
Yeah.
So this is news now because he said,
because we've got a producer corroborating it.
We have the producer corroborating it.
His NDA lapsed.
Yeah, he signed an NDA at the production of this,
and it was a 20-year NDA. And so it just lapsed. Brave, brave, brave signed an NDA at the production of this and it was a 20 year NDA.
And so it just left.
Brave, brave, brave.
Yeah.
So brave to come out with such groundbreaking information, which it's like sucks though
to hear that like, this guy is a misogynistic, racist fucking monster.
And it's just like, yeah, I, I know.
Right.
I know, but I don't need more anecdotal evidence about it.
Like there's plenty just on the face of this person that indicates all of this.
Do you think the tape would make a difference, though, if people actually heard him saying the N-word?
No.
It feels like, yeah, it feels like we already assume that he does in daily life anyway.
I mean, we saw what the Hollywood, the Access Hollywood tape did.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
It just helped him.
He, again, could truly shoot someone in broad daylight.
And it, I mean, aside from maybe like the legal fallout, like there's nothing at this point that is going to like reveal something about his character that people are going to be like, well, now that's a bridge too far for me as a MAGA person.
Like, you know, even with the conviction, like the people who are, you know, saying I'm going to vote for Trump.
They said if he gets convicted, I'll vote fucking harder for him.
Yeah.
Basically.
So it's nothing.
Nothing fucking matters.
Oh, man.
I vote so hard when I do.
Dude, I'm voting so fucking hard.
Dude.
Put a headband on.
What do you do?
Just take a bunch of uppers
and start sweating and screaming
at the polling place?
Yeah, exactly.
This vote is super fucking hard.
I don't even know what that looks like.
Let's go after every ballot cast.
Oh, yeah.
Prop three,
let's fucking go!
Let's go on that one.
Let's go!
Democracy in action!
The producer also says the tapes will never be found not as
not as in a villain as in like right he just doesn't he thinks they probably buried them in
a capsule or which is stupid of nbc this is not a company that is doing that well you have the
president like a great piece of compromise on who might probably will be the next president.
Like,
I would have
hung on to
that shit
and been
like,
we're the
official
network
for
communication
and enabling
racists
on television.
That's us.
Kind of our
thing.
But it sounds
mysterious.
He doesn't say
they've been
deleted.
Like,
he implies
that they
still exist.
They'll just
never be found.
Yeah. I think they might someday. i mean there's again for what i mean
i i know people that work in post i've seen like when this weird shit happens people take fucking
cheeky videos off their monitors and they're like yo look at this audition of this celebrity or like
yo look at this fool pulled up so drunk to this shoot today. Like these are, I have to work with this shit to try and make this person seem like they
haven't completely, you know, lost their shit.
Yeah.
But yeah, I don't know.
I mean, it's again, like it just doesn't, that's, that's what's just so frustrating.
We're like, in terms of how it will influence the election, it's meaningless.
You know, it's, it's absolutely meaningless.
And then someone being like, well, now the NDA is lapped.
It's like, I don't know, that maybe would have helped in 2015, 2016.
Right.
Right.
I mean, what was the penalty for the NDA that it was so worth keeping quiet to, you know, risk democracy?
It's probably so fucked up that it's like, I don't even want to fucking test this thing.
But, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, just like not having money for the rest of your life.
Yeah.
But we needed some billionaire to be like, I will protect you from your NDAs. Like, go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just like not having money for the rest of your life. Yeah. But we needed some billionaire to be like, I will protect you from your NDAs. Like, go, the past well i don't want to do any work on my side what if we looked for a
tape that would make him look bad oh we're good work hard work hard work there is a allegation
in this article that's pretty fucked up that he worked with an architect and didn't pay him as much oh no
he said he was going to okay now donald j trump why isn't that the fucking headline
trump uh skips out on paying people now that's really sad though like the guy there's just so
many people who he's like fucked over just like this
guy's like yeah i did like some of my best work in the history of my career on this building yeah
and then he like wouldn't pay me so it's like hurts my heart every time i look at this great
thing that i've created because and then now the guy's the fucking first American dictator. I mean, why isn't there like a Danny McGrath to his Billy Madison?
You know what I mean?
The Steve Buscemi character who's like, fucking Trump fucked me over.
Yeah.
And now I'm listening to Electric Light Orchestra every night in my basement.
Like putting on lipstick when the drop, when the drop hits.
Yeah, it is weird how many of them just accept it.
I mean, I understand if you're just a carpenter or something but like if you're an architect like you got some you should
be able to get a lawyer have some juice or try to enforce that contract he's exhausting i think is
the answer like i was at abc news at a time when they were trying to do a story on him and just be
making the point back in like 2004 i guess it was like thereabouts that he's not that rich
like he's not a billionaire like he claims it was i think around when the apprentice was hitting
and he was he himself was personally calling abc's legal department like 20 times a day just
like non-stop like just he'll ruin your life like that is the implicit threat in any and of course that's what we've seen
even if you get a judgment against them good luck collecting right and it's just one of those things
like the wealthy do like when they know they're like i'll just outlast you in court like go ahead
and assume i'll delay do you have enough time to keep lawyers on i do and i don't give a fuck go
ahead and then people just lose the will to do it. All right. Another bastion of the conservative world, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Sammy.
I would say he's in like some hot water.
Not really.
He's just like getting some attention and being like, what the fuck are you going to do?
I mean, no Supreme Court justice is truly ever in hot water unless they're in a hot tub with Harlan Crowe looking at Nazi knickknacks and
saying, oh, when'd you get that?
But yeah, I mean, you know.
Look at this one.
It's a slap bracelet that the Fuhrer had.
Wait, what?
I don't know if you know this, dude.
The Fuhrer, dude, he invented fidget spinners because, you know, he was tweaking.
My man was tweaking.
So he needed something to keep his hands busy.
That's true.
He couldn't keep taking apart transistor radios all night.
But after many congressional leaders
were calling for Alito
to recuse himself from cases
dealing with, you know,
stop the steal, January 6th,
Trump coup attempts, etc.
He basically responded with fuck off
because I don't know
if we ever talked about it
because the Supreme Court
is just such a fucking circus.
It just hurts my brain.
Yeah, we've mentioned it.
But yeah, like reference.
He was flying fucking insurrectionist flags at his homes like the upside down american flag upside down american
flag and then there's another one that's called appeal to heaven and i don't i'll spare everybody
from the semiotics lecture here but the appeal to heaven one is another one that christian
nationalists use to basically say like when your back's to the wall and the laws of man are no longer applied to
you you can take any means to you know be righteous even if that means violence so you can only now
just appeal to heaven to do whatever the fuck you're going to do and that's like a big fucking
mantra for for these fucking goons so it's a banana peel by the way the appeal to heaven
flag is the banana peel it's actually like a shitty christmas
it's just a christmas tree and the words unappeal to heaven above it yeah yeah yeah so cool but
anyway the essentially these are the kinds of things that you would see at someone's house
that has completely lost their damn mind thinking that the election was stolen and that people need
to take it back and fox news is too liberal and woke. Yeah, exactly.
They're because they're too fucking chicken shit
to fucking, you know,
to really get people all in on it.
So he's basically saying that
he can't be held responsible
for the fact that his wife
is such a flag-loving goofball.
He wrote this letter to his critics.
She just loves flags.
She's a flag-loving goofball.
What are we going to do, man? It's mainly how she communicates to me is via flags. She'm a flag-living goofball. What am I going to do, man?
Mainly how she communicates to me is via flags.
She puts them right side up.
She puts them upside down.
She's goofy with it.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes she puts a KKK one.
I don't know what that means.
But he said, I quote, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag.
I was not even aware of the upside down flag until it was called to
my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down. But for several days,
she refused. See, it's that woman. He goes on quote. That's how she communicated that to me.
My wife and I own our Virginia home jointly. She therefore has the legal right to use the property
as she sees fit. And there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down
more promptly.
Did you hear that, assholes?
This is somebody who, because he's Supreme Court Justice, is just used to being able
to be like, I legally have the right.
And everyone's like, well, he must know what he's talking about.
And just backing down.
He's like, she owns the house.
Therefore, she legally has the rights. What am I supposed to do subvert the law i mean she has legal rights
like the ones i fucking erase at my job every day come on right isn't anything fucking sacred
imagine someone coming before him in a case and giving this argument yeah of being accused of a
crime and saying oh no my it was my wife did it, even though we jointly own the home. It's my wife's legal right to be serving cocaine out of the house.
My wife buried the body in the backyard.
She owns that half of the backyard.
What am I supposed to do?
She refused.
She fucking refused.
She fucking refused.
You know, and she's like, what do you want me to do?
Interfere with a woman's right to choose how she supports the subversion of democracy?
Like, what the fuck is this?
Then he goes on, quote, my wife's reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present
purposes, but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time due to, in large part,
to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement.
A house on the street displayed a sign attacking her personally, and the man who was living in the house at the time
trailed her all the way down the street
and berated her in my presence using foul language,
including what I regard as the vilest epithet
that can be addressed to a woman.
Yes, I love the precedent of the people versus he started it.
Yeah, yeah.
100%.
And this is kind of where we need to kind of catch ourselves up on this flag
scandal because alito claims that the reason this flag went up in the first place is because one of
their neighbors called his wife a cunt which is what he alleges this is what happened a lot of
reporting has been done on this bit and pretty much everything alito is claiming here is a lie
like the flag went up after january 6th the neighbor didn't call his wife seaworthy until
february 15th uh 2021 so the idea that this was a response to that is absolute bullshit wow he also
in the thing said the the someone had like a thing that said bye bye don on their on their front lawn
you know to be like you know sorry for trump you lost the election the thing that actually happened was alito and his wife they pulled up on this woman and started for having that yes and then the woman clapped
back and said all right cunt and then he was like she like i think his wife hit the floor it's like
you hit me or some anyway you hit me with a bad word yeah so that's like what was happening and
then he even said earlier he was like you know i think it was offensive because there's there's
some other you know anti-trump sign that i think had like foul language on he's
like there's kids at the bus stop that can see that stuff it was january of 2021 there there
were still covid lockdowns and apparently in that area there were there were no one was getting on
a fucking school bus anyway so miss us with that shit too and also how do we even know that it was
truly all his wife's fault like he's trying to say right now.
You know what I mean?
Like that's it's just all fucking wacky right now.
It's so wild to claim like he was living there at the time.
Like his claim is not like I didn't even know any of this stuff was going on.
I was like at my.
No, he was living there seeing the flag.
And what?
Just like didn't ask about it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Unbelievable. Yeah. I think we know who wears the flag in that
relationship absolutely I know like he
also implies that like the person
used that word against
his wife and he just like didn't do
shit well and it's classic bullshit
though too to be like to be
this is like you know this is like
privileged white people shit is like they pull up on
people get in their face someone claps back and they're like oh i'm dead i died from that you know it's
like get the fuck out of here with this so now we're at a point we're like okay so what the
fuck are we doing we have supreme court justices who are absolute political fucking creatures
they're goons and they're just using their position on the highest court
to bring about the absolute fucking like reversal
of all progress in this country.
So Senator Dick Durbin,
who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee,
he asked Chief Justice John Roberts,
like, is there like anything you guys can do
to like enforce rules like for yourselves?
Like, can you be your own warden maybe basically
like when the colombian government asked pablo escobar to like make his jail like his own house
and like does that work does that work for you i guess is that okay and so you know dick durbin
is so fucking brave for not doing anything and And, you know, it reminds you, like when we had Rhiannon Hamam on from the five to four podcast, she said one of the biggest obstacles to getting anything done in terms of reeling in these justices is the fact that Congress wants no smoke ever.
Now, we just don't have the will to come at the courts.
So in this example, it seems like the Democrats are also a threat to our democracy because of their unwillingness to make shit bags like Alito and Thomas uncomfortable, because that's really the story.
Like, I know we're talking about, like, the flag and like what that makes Alito look like.
But the bigger issue that we've always been talking about the Supreme Court is that there are no fucking checks and balances on that at all.
fucking checks and balances on them right at all and they are free to do whatever they want flaunt ethics in our faces and play dumb when they're like i don't know this wealthy guy like
paid for my mom's house like and actually i don't i don't know man like what do you want me to do
my wife was involved in january 6th i don't i don't think i should recuse and what are you
gonna fucking do if i don't yeah and so you want me to do make it illegal for my friends to do cool
shit for me come on right exactly exactly so yeah this i mean i think this is just we have to really
the pressure should be coming from these uh like the senate judiciary committee and democrats to
be like i don't know fucking investigation how about that oh you don't want to do like again
there's just so much fear of like oh we're not trying to be partisan or whatever. That that's how this is exactly how you slip into this kind of fascistic bullshit, because the people who are supposed to do something like I don't want to like look like like I'm against them.
And I'll just let the whole fucking thing collapse.
Yeah.
Is that because they think they're going to have business before the court or they don't want them to rule against anything of their interest or they're just pussies in general?
Just it's all of that.
You know, like they understand the power that the Supreme Court has.
There's clearly times when you need a ruling just for the fate of the nation.
And I think they just don't want to also be looked at as people who are because there's like this, know supposed veneer of impartiality to just
the supreme court that they don't want to pierce that veil but like it's we're fucking the masks
are veiled down yeah they're fucking on the ground they're and they're laughing at you so i don't
understand at this point like it's absolutely it's absolutely uh the duty of these elected
officials to do something about this because this is again
it's only going to get worse you already have all these like weird conflicts of interest that have
not been fully you know sought out like how did like where did brett kavanaugh's debt like where
did who paid his debts there's just so many weird things that again just don't get looked at don't
get talked about and of course if it were reversed if you, you know, Sonia Sotomayor or something had it, not that I'm comparing Black Lives Matter to, you know, up to heaven.
But, you know, if she had something even as innocuous as a Black Lives Matter flag, imagine the uproar.
Yeah, 100%.
And that's where that's why we're like, you know, like, well, we go high bullshit just ends up there.
Like, I don't know.
I think you're getting high on your own bullshit at this point.
Yeah.
Because it's not fucking helping anybody.
Like when there's real things like filibuster reform, there's other things they can fucking do to like begin this process.
But there's they're too busy pretending like, you know, but Donald Trump said the N word.
Right.
Like the approval, the public approval of the supreme court is at its i think all-time
lowest so like that i i know that traditionally people like the supreme court has a fairly high
approval rating compared to the other branches and basically every number is high compared to
congress's approval rating so i'm sure there's like something baked into the DNA of like Congress where they're just like, we don't fuck with the Supreme Court.
Like that's a fight we don't want to pick or whatever.
But they could, right?
I mean, they could pass laws that give some sort of regulation or would that get struck down?
And people want that.
Yeah.
I mean, we fucking need it right now.
Yeah.
that yeah yeah i mean we fucking need it right now yeah but i i feel like maybe they're just like coasting off the inertia of like well we don't want to i don't fuck with them now do we where
would they get the idea that laws don't apply to them or just like get testimony from them like put
them on fucking wax you know what i mean they have the power to do that they just fucking won't
they just won't exactly all right let's uh Let's take a quick break and we'll be
right back to talk about cults. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary
series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M
Films and Shekinah Church.
And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.
Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades.
Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful,
in-depth interviews with former members and new chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed
will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again.
Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.
And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline,
a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?
Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week,
we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for
advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,
like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get
the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote,
what is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's
better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career
without sacrificing your sanity or sleep.
Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate
your leagues.
The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL
fantasy football podcast.
Come hang out with me,
Marcus Grant and my pal,
Michael F Florio,
as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy
league and bring home a championship.
You don't need to spend hours each day,
breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning
lineup.
That's our job.
We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week.
All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast
when it drops five times a week.
If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path
to dominating your fantasy leagues,
then look no further than the show straight from the source at NFL Media.
Do it before it's too late.
Subscribe now and listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast on the I heart
radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back.
Playoffs.
Playoffs.
Talking about the Colts.
The Colts.
Yeah.
The Colts.
Indianapolis Colts.
Cool, man. What happened to
Edger and James, man? They just got
a pretty solid squad. I think they're
going to be in the mix for maybe
a low playoff spot this year.
I'm looking forward to that, man.
Jonathan Taylor's looking great, man.
Yeah. Is he still there? I don't know.
I'm just saying things I think are cults.
C-U-L-T-S.
Ah, well, that's interesting now.
But I guess I can come around to this.
So there's a new cult documentary, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult, which is
about a talent management company called 7M Films that was run by a pastor.
Oh, boy.
Oh, a talent agency run by a pastor? A talent agency run by a pastor. Oh, boy. Oh, a talent agency run by a pastor?
A talent agency run by a pastor.
And TikTok famous for adults over 40
getting into the dance trends, too.
Right, exactly.
This all seems above board.
What's the problem here?
And so people would sign with his agency
and start severing ties with their families.
Classic cult shit, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, just classic cult shit.
So it's very standard cult tropes
where you have families being like,
we just want our daughter back,
but she won't respond to us.
And then, of course, there's really good video
because the whole thing is taking place on TikTok.
Right.
But I have not watched it,
but it seems like it's going to be the next big cult documentary hit,
like Wild Wild Country, the NXIVM documentaries.
There's a couple QAnon ones.
There's a couple NXIVM ones, I think.
Yeah, there's so many NXIVM ones.
It just raises the question of, like,
why are people
obsessed with cult documentaries right now you know obviously they're just like juicy stories
with like sex murder drama a lot of the questionable fashion choices are kind of fun
okay to look at just because i'm wearing all red you know i'm not a rajneeshi yeah and there's also
like scam stuff so it like brings together a lot of the things that we're obsessed with i also think
it ties to something we've talked about about like the way that groups of like fans kind of
organize themselves into like swifties and star Wars fans and all these fan groups,
like create these devotional, like identities for themselves, like in a way that feels like
it almost feels like Trump's followers, like have this characteristic about them.
It feels like America can't stop watching things about cults like
turning themselves into cults you know like joining things that resemble cults like it just
it feels like it's cults all the way down because of you know that i we've speculated in the past, like, the Taylor Swift fandom is next level, is rising to this level at a time when America is losing its like deep, huge, like big picture values that you can share and communicate around. So I feel like that's probably mixed in there as well.
more than ever. And the idea to belong to something and to see that someone has something in common with you, I think is very appealing. I think watching, as far as watching the cult
documentaries, I think what's interesting to me is just how fragile the human mind is,
that, you know, how little coercion it takes or how, you know, or how these people are gradually
groomed and, you know, can be controlled in a way that you can't help but wonder, you know,
sort of like playing along with a game show. Like, could I
have resisted that?
And then it's also fascinating because
there's so many of these documentaries
that talk about how this cult leader
is so charismatic and so sexually appealing
to these people. And if you're not in the cult,
you do not see it at all.
You're like, wait, who?
Keith?
Exactly.
I just feel like when you look at this period in history, You're like, wait, who? Yeah. Keith? Yeah, exactly. Are you talking about Keith? Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just feel like when you look at this period in history, like, at a distance, it'll feel a little bit like when you look at the Great Awakening, and you're like, wait, another group of, like, offshoots of Christianity that, like, had the same idea that, like, Jesus was coming back within the next 15 years and that like everybody needed to renounce all their worldly belonging.
Like the same shit just like kept happening over and over again.
They don't say that at the first meeting.
You know, the first meeting is all about, you know, love and community and, you know, being your true self.
And, you know, oh, by the way, now once you've cut off your family, now we're going to tell you the real thing.
You don't find out about Xeno in Scientology until like, you know, oh, by the way, now once you've cut off your family, now we're going to tell you the real thing. You don't find out about Xeno in Scientology until, like, you know,
dozens of levels in.
Yeah. I mean, the word cult is actually fairly recent.
Like, it didn't come into popular use until the 60s,
and it didn't, like, really even get a negative connotation
until, like, the 60s and 70s with, like, Manson and Jonestown.
Before that, it was just more like,
yeah, that band has a cult following of a meaning.
I think another part of the appeal though
is the us versus them aspect
because a lot of what these cults do also is saying like,
you know, we know the real truth and everyone else doesn't.
And I think there's an appeal to that, to people's ego
that, you know, I'm smarter than everybody else
or, you know, I'm going to show them.
And almost all the cults from the documentaries that I've seen have that element of, you know,
like these other people are asleep and we're awake or we know the real truth, which is
super dangerous.
And, you know, a lot of religions are also kind of founded on that same thing of the
one true way, the one true God.
And there's something, you know, there's something in people that want to be on the
right side
and that gets those people in.
And I think that's also interesting to watch
because it makes you question, you know,
what sides have I taken that maybe I haven't realized?
Yeah, yeah.
And I also think it's a mentally,
psychologically difficult time
to be like coming online, you know, for young people in particular like one of the
points in one of these articles that someone makes is like the idea of a cult can actually
be seen as stabilizing for young people in a world that feels like it presents like so many
options for like who to be oh my god Totally. Almost always feel like you're choosing wrong or like.
Well, how nice.
And also how nice is it to, to relinquish control of having to decide all of these things.
Yeah.
To know that, you know, to be given this structure.
Yeah.
Here's, here's, here's when you, here's when you go to sleep.
Here's when you, here's when you wake up.
Here's what you eat.
Here's who your friends are.
Here's, you know, here's who you have to have sex with.
Easy.
You know, there, there, there's a part of it that I can understand as being, you know, very appealing.
Yeah.
And then you have those big questions of like meaning and spirituality that just aren't coming up in the rest of our lives as much as it used to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They offer people.
It's like, no one's talking about this, man.
Everyone's so into their bullshit that we're not talking about love, man,
and the power of that. Did you see Mother Love?
Did you see that documentary on HBO?
No. Oh my God, that's another
fucking wild one about this woman who
was, or Mother God, that's what it's called,
that she believed she was God,
and everyone was like, yes, and then she was
doing so much colloidal silver
for her health. She's kind of slow
losing herself. Oh yeah, that she ended up
actually silver. Blue. Yeah, yeah it's and but then there's all these layers of like
scams though in between where like people were obviously able to take advantage of like this
perception of her and like there's like you know x cons there's all kinds of stuff wrapped up in it
but like you but all the initial appeal is for these people who had a deep sense of being like, there's not an, like, like love was missing from their life.
So this woman who's like one message is like, we just need to get as much love out there as possible.
Like starts off being like, yes, great.
I believe this.
And it's easier for me to put all of my eggs in this basket, belief, seed them all to whatever you're saying.
Because at least the overarching message from you is love is the main thing.
And then it turns out to be like, I'm wheeling around a woman who's turned blue through an
Econo Lodge lobby, acting like everything's all good while people stare.
And didn't she like die and her followers like kept her body like mummified or something
like that for a while?
Yeah, I know that from last podcast on the left oh yeah yeah
yeah but i think this is a crossover with with conspiracy theorists as well though because you
know it's hard to accept it that a lot of life is random and confusing and you know it doesn't make
sense and people don't do things for the right reasons all the time and so there's something
very comforting about this idea that like oh oh, no, there's an explanation for everything. Yeah. And it's like, it's a lot, it's a lot more comforting
to believe that people consciously made these choices together, they conspired to have this
thing happen, because that that's more comforting than the idea that that there's that there's chaos
out there. And I think that a lot of these cults kind of appeal to that kind of thinking as well.
Yeah. Also, too, is that it for you know some
people we obviously desire like a certain amount of control over our lives so like to your point
like conspiracy theories offer that because i'm not out of control if i understand what the forces
are that are working that were confounding me before or in a cult you have the ability to
control your destiny based on this belief system if If I adhere to these, then this is the outcome.
And now I can engage with something that makes it easier for me to,
to exercise some kind of control.
So yeah,
it's,
uh,
they got a lot to offer people.
They got a lot.
They will,
they'll,
they'll keep coming.
And that's what this segment was about.
We just wanted to let people know there are these cults out there.
They will make you happier.
So just check them out.
Check them out.
Check a local cult out.
Yeah.
Just come to our first meeting. It's free. It'll be fun. Check a local cult out. Yeah. Just come to our first meeting.
It's free.
It'll be fun.
Yeah.
It's free,
man.
Yeah.
You get to hold these electric cans and we tell you that you'll be an actor.
It is wild that we say like,
you know,
fandoms that are small and loyal are cult followings,
but then like Taylor Swift's followers are not called a cult following or,
you know,
like not anymore.
They're like,
yeah,
it is now for sure. But everything is like, everything has that, you know, like... Not anymore. Yeah, it is now, for sure.
But everything is, like, everything has that,
you know, like, it's sports, it's music,
it's fucking move, it's
whatever. I mean, there's... Yeah, people want to be
in tribes. I think there's something that
is natural about that. Just gotta find one
that doesn't make your tribe give you all
your money. Right. Yeah, yeah.
I don't know. There's some
cool stuff that you can actually learn from these
people who they haven't asked me for that much money yet at the scientology center so
i think it'll like i'm just waiting to see like they because i haven't read everything yet i get
to like once i save up enough to buy uh the next book then i think i'll find out i hate to you know
pull the curtain back on this show but y'all every sunday night i have to convince jack that the show is worth doing rather than going off to
fuck off to scientology world it's really it's kind of exhausting i need some interesting answers
out there folks i'm just saying this is i can i can if i am driving down the highway and I see someone broken down on the side of the highway and they're hurt, I know I have to stop because I can save them.
Oh, is that because of your medical training?
Because of the energy, the positive energy that I have zeroed in on by not having to do any of the tasks.
Exactly. Stop jumping up and down on that couch.
You're going to hurt yourself.
You love this woman.
I'm just saying, there's an amazing amount of energy
you save when there is a literal army of slaves
at your disposal.
Yeah, we like to call them volunteers.
Yeah, yeah.
We call them volunteers.
They're called the Sea Org.
Okay.
They are an org.
Uh-huh.
They're fun.
How long is that contract, by the way? They sign that contract willingly. Okay. They are an org. Uh-huh. They're fun. How long is that contract, by the way?
They signed that contract willingly.
Okay.
It's for...
How many lifetimes is it?
A billion years.
Yeah.
A billion year contract.
Yeah.
Whatever.
A millennia time.
That's how long those NDAs on The Apprentice should have been.
Yeah, exactly.
They fucked up.
Till the sun blows up.
That's how I like to do it.
Can we do till the
sun blows up on this uh jake keith what a pleasure having you thank you so much people find you
follow you all that good stuff uh check out my podcast it is called go fact yourself you can uh
get information on it at go fact your pod.com or wherever you get podcasts if you're going to be
in the la area we have a whole bunch of shows coming up with our friends at laist at the
crawford family forum including on saturday june coming up with our friends at L.A. at the Crawford Family Forum, including on Saturday, June 8th,
with our guests Lisa Ann Walter and Travelle Anderson
and a whole bunch of other great celebrities coming up throughout the summer.
Amazing.
And is there a work of media that you've been enjoying?
I, for some reason, have been presented by the YouTube algorithm
the SNL sketch from, I think, about 10 years ago called Danielle, a free European woman.
It is a parody of the Cinemax late night kind of Emmanuel type movies.
Oh, wow.
It scratches an itch in my brain that I did not know I had since I was a teenage boy.
So check that out on YouTube.
Danielle, a free European woman.
I watched it about 25 times in the last
three weeks. Oh my gosh.
Miles, where can people find you? Is there
work in media? You've been enjoying. Yeah,
find me on Twitter, Instagram
and the like at
Miles of Grey.
If you like basketball, check
Jack and I out on Miles and Jack got Mad Boosties,
the NBA podcast where we
I mean, collectively sigh at the Celtics potential 18th championship.
But we try and make it work.
We try and make it work.
And then also find me talking 90 day fiance on 420 day fiance.
And also the latest episode of my mama told me with Langston Kerman and David Borey talking about what was it?
Yes.
Rainbow parties.
Yes.
A tweet that I like is from at nude Obama.
This was like blown up last week.
This is so funny.
It said, having a nine to five and being nearly 30 means the only things I do for fun on the weekend are give myself diarrhea or get so high I pass out for 14 hours um which is amazing and
someone put replied or you could or you know have kids and then they replied i don't have
any room in my schedule for kids because i have to get high or get diarrhea all the time
sorry did you not read the first one yeah i did yeah Yeah, that's all I have fucking time for.
You can find me on Twitter, Jack underscore O'Brien.
Tweet, I've been enjoying Tyler at Balloon Flavor.
Tweeted a screen cap of the CNN homepage or a page on CNN that has status of Trump's first criminal trial.
Jury deliberation is number 10.
And it says,
we are here.
11 verdicts,
12 sentencing,
if guilty verdict.
And then underneath jury has been deliberating for two hours,
41 minutes. And Tyler tweeted,
love that CNN has adopted the dominoes pizza tracker format for trial
updates.
And then
at Fart tweeted,
white people love to watch Prestige TV
then post,
I am shooketh.
It's true. We doeth. We totally doeth.
We doeth. We are shooketh.
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.
We have a Facebook fan page and a website,
DailyZeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes
and our footnotes. We link off to the
information we talked about in today's
episode, as well as a song that we think you might
enjoy. Miles, what song do you
think people might enjoy? This song,
I think you'll enjoy. Look,
it's just, we're getting into the weekend uh it's aptly titled 1968 no parallels uh for here but uh and it's by this artist uh
who's i believe la based name uh gyrus mosey j-a-i-r-u-s-m-o-z-e-e and it's like the this guy
is just a multi-instrumentalist and he's playing like really kind of solid R&B kind of instrumental here.
It's just some nice bass, nice guitar, little bit of vocal here and there,
but not like a full-blown song, just a nice track to open your weekend with.
So this is 1968 by J-Ris, maybe, or J-Ris Mosey.
Take it in.
All right.
We will link off to that in the footnotes.
The Daily Zeitgeist is a production
of iheart radio for more podcasts from iheart radio visit the iheart radio app apple podcast
or wherever you get your podcast that is gonna do it for us for this week we are back this weekend
with a greatest hits the weekly zeitgeist some moments that you might have missed if you missed
any of our episodes and then you don't
want to miss these moans and then uh back on monday morning to tell you what is trending
on monday morning what trended over the weekend and we will talk to y'all then bye peace
i'm jess casaveto executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult.
And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed.
Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just
starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to
for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do,
like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour.
If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation,
then I think it sort of eases us a little bit.
Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.
Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry.
Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.
Every great player needs a foil.
I know I'll go down in history.
People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.
Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports.
Listen to the making of a rivalry.
Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.