The Daily Zeitgeist - The PreTrenders 5/5: Kurt Loder, Uber x Lyft, Sudafed, Kawasaki Disease
Episode Date: May 5, 2020On this edition of The PreTrenders Jack and Miles discuss Kurt Loder's 75th birthday today, a new law in the state of California forcing Uber and Lyft to recognize their workers as employees instead o...f Independent Contractors, a picture of the President's desk reveals a surplus of Sudafed, a group of 15 schoolchildren in NYC have shown symptoms of Kawasaki Disease potentially in response to COVID-19 issues. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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 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. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre.
Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English
and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre.
And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar.
Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you stream podcasts.
MTV's official Challenge podcast
is back for another season.
That's right.
The Challenge is about to embark
on its monumental 40th season, y'all,
and we are coming along for the ride.
Woohoo!
That would be me, Devin Simone.
And then there's me, Davon Rogers.
And we're here to take you
behind the scenes
of the Challenge 40,
Battle of the Eras.
Join us as we break down
each episode,
interview challengers,
and take you behind the scenes
of this iconic season.
Listen to MTV's
official challenge podcast
on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get
your podcasts. I'm Dr. Lauries, or wherever you get your 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.
Hello, the internet, and welcome to this very special episode of The Pretenders.
That is courtesy of Johnny Davis. Great band. I do truly enjoy me, the pretenders. Uh, that is courtesy of Johnny Davis.
Great band.
I do truly enjoy me.
The pretenders,
uh,
and something that I learned about them.
I don't know.
No,
I think that's the,
uh,
I,
I know what you're talking about.
Like the,
like that thing you do.
Um,
Oh,
but there is a...
Whoa, there is a...
I didn't realize there was a film,
The Pretenders, with James Franco.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Okay, James.
But the lead singer of that band
was a student at Kent State
when Kent State went down.
And there are a couple other pop culture luminaries who were students at Kent State when Kent State went down. And there are like a couple other pop culture luminaries
who were students at Kent State when Kent State went down.
I learned that on an episode of My Favorite Murder.
The Daily Psych.
Yes.
But let's tell the people what is trending on this fine Cinco de Mayo.
Kurt Loder is trending and he is not dead.
Not dead.
Thank God.
He did turn, and this blew my mind,
he turned 75 today.
That seems impossible.
No, I'd rather, this sounds really messed up,
but I would have preferred to have found out that kurt loder
was trending because he turned 65 i didn't want to push death upon kurt loder but yeah that is
that really carbon dates that's like one of those things i really felt they held my like
pop culture memory up to like you know whatever, whatever they used to carbon date to see how old it is.
And I'm like,
I am this many years old.
Like,
so when he was like doing all the MTV news stuff in the eighties and
nineties,
he was late forties,
early fifties.
Yeah.
I don't know why I'm surprised because he was always like daddy on mtv like
he was the old guy on mtv i guess he looked good though i he i this was the first time that i
looked him up and looked at a picture and was like oh yeah he's he's an aged man he he looks a little
older um it's like hearing like a pe coach that you had in junior high turned 75,
and you're like, damn, really?
Huh.
And you're like, but that tracks, actually,
but I just hadn't thought about that.
Okay.
Then you look at a picture of him,
and it looks like that person with old age makeup on because, yeah.
All right.
Uber and Lyft are trending.
Have you heard about these things?
You seen these guys?
Seen these things? I've heard of of lyft not uber though okay so uber is uh it's like this thing it's like lyft except the ceo is meaner so that that's kind of what makes it cool away
old travis yeah yeah oh now yes that rings a bell that rings a bill and a bell uh the
bill that it rings is assembly bill five uh which is basically a law that was passed in the state
of california that said you know that these companies that have gig workers need to reclassify
these people as employees rather than independent contractors. Because they're saying, look, look,
the whole thing is, if you are controlling how your independent contractor is doing a task,
or if the work that this independent contractor is routine as part of your business, then they
are an employee. And because these companies have just taken, I mean, they're just not complying. What they've done is between Uber,
Lyft, and DoorDash, they put together a $90 million slush fund, because this is how bills work,
to get another bill signed into law that would exempt them. So that's what they're trying to do.
They're going to go the old ballot initiative route, which we love to see in these some some states have them where people will be like, hey, man, do you want to, you know, sign up to help support a bill that will help keep Uber and Lyft drivers more freedom?
I don't know how they're going to spin that to somebody like to make me want to support that.
But, yeah, that's what they want.
It seems like the way they're going to spend it is like, yeah, if we paid these people like employees and gave them health benefits and all the things that were legally required to give them if they are employees, then we wouldn't be able to be in business.
Do you want Uber and Lyft or do you not want Uber and Lyft and trying to get people to vote out of their own self-interest well i mean here's the thing and
and i'll take this up with gavner newsom myself man if i have to treat these people these
independent contractors like employees that means i legally have to make less money and that's the
problem here uh and the whole thing is their other argument is that uh our core business is technology not rides yeah yeah
totally very fucking clever very cool guys very cool pseudofed is trending so this is this is
interesting there's a there's a photograph of the president who apparently is donald trump
uh there's a photograph of his desk it's never gonna get shows i can't fucking believe
this guy uh every time there's uh so this is something we had heard tell of that he was really
into popping pseudofed back in the day um because it was like a stimulant and he's good old blue collar.
He's not getting the Ritalin or the Adderall. He's getting the Sudafed and just popping the
over-the-counter stuff. And apparently that's true because there's a photograph that shows
that not only is his desk just full of Sudafed, but it's full of Sudafed from the UK.
He has the imported Sudafed
because that is the Sudafed that hits harder.
It hasn't, because they don't have
as big a meth problem over there,
they have not had to downgrade their fed
to have less ephedrine in it.
So I'm just looking on Snopes because it's one of the few places I can still trust at times like this.
But what they're talking about, a lot of the things that people point out about this photo, like, oh, that's UK pseudophed.
Therefore, it's like hitting different things like that.
It's not necessarily true.
There are different ingredients.
But to say that it's somehow like combining
differently that you're gonna be like way higher is just false uh so i think a lot of people because
everyone it's very clear when trump is how do you say on one uh when he's up there just doing an old
nasal solo while talking at the same time uh i think it all these are all kind of like like everything there's just enough pieces around to keep that uh that idea yeah you know going but
i think yeah but his behavior alone is enough to for me to you know this pick or not behavior
his sniffing the fact that there are stories of him having a Adderall prescription,
the fact that he's a celebrity,
so could easily get an Adderall prescription and abuse it.
The behind the scenes shit,
the behind the scenes stories of him abusing Adderall.
That doesn't,
this does nothing to put me on.
And plus his behavior.
Also Hitler.
But I think this is what, Hitler was real into math.
So, I don't know.
Yes, famously.
Famously.
But I think, you know, the reason it came up is because Cinco de Mayo, and it was that famous Trump Tower tweet where he had the taco bowl, and he's like, I love my Hispanics.
Yeah.
I like that we had to I think it's just like now people
increasingly have had more and more time
over the years to just
microanalyze every single thing
so now we're like oh what's in the drawer
what's in the drawer Trump
what's in the drawer man
and then finally
Kawasaki disease is trending
this is a story where
15 children in New York City
have developed a series of symptoms
that may or may not be related to COVID-19.
They are similar to something called Kawasaki disease
or Kawasaki syndrome,
where the symptoms include inflammation, rash,
inflamed eyes, which really doesn't sound very comfortable,
fever, abdominal pain, rash, swollen lymph nodes, inflammation in the eyes.
And I wanted to bring this up just because it does feel like...
I mean, on tomorrow's episode, we talk with our guest about this rumor that and I think it's
actually being reported that there's like a new strain of COVID-19 that's out there and it just
seems like it's we're still in this information dark age when it comes to uh you know the
scientific facts it just seems like because of social media and because,
uh,
of the administration that we're existing under right now,
you know,
media and we have to kind of pay attention to stuff like this and just not
really know what is going on.
Yeah.
I think the sooner,
you know,
I think most people who listen to this show probably on some level uh accept science and the opinions of people who probably know more than they do
on a given subject but i think with this you know at the very least someone we have to be able to
accept that we still know we don't know enough even about the disease to really feel safe again
and like that's really
where we're at i mean for all this talk of reopening like we're still we're fighting
blind here and like yeah there's mutations happening other researchers like please look
into this i'm this could be going on and it just it it only confuses us and i think for us as the
people who are living through this we just have to know that a the people with the know-how are furiously looking into how to make this right but also that we have to just accept that this is the
reality we have to live in until that technology can catch up with it otherwise just this is yeah
yeah that's why i kind of i feel like it's it's valuable to just be constantly honing your
what your resources are the the different places that you can trust for information,
because more and more frequently during this crisis,
we're coming up against information that you have to verify whether it's true or not,
and it can be a life or death situation.
The one thing that's certain is that we just don't know so do the safe thing and don't
put yourself at risk that's just the the most fundamental thing i think people just
don't risk your safety that your own safety or that of your family yeah uh all right miles that's
gonna do it another day in the books uh we hope everybody's having a good, safe Cinco de Mayo.
We will be back tomorrow with a whole new episode of this podcast.
Be safe, wash your hands, be good to each other,
and we will talk to you then.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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, 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 iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts.
There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre.
Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre.
And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, Emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar.
Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream 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.
MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season.
That's right.
The Challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all,
and we are coming along for the ride.
Woo-hoo!
That would be me, Devin Simone.
And then there's me, Davon Rogers.
And we're here to take you behind the scenes of the Challenge 40,
Battle of the Eras.
Join us as we break down each episode, interview challengers, and take you behind the scenes of this iconic season.
Listen to MTV's official Challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.