The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 241 (Best of 8/29/22-9/2/22)
Episode Date: September 4, 2022The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 252 (8/29/22-9/2/22)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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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.
I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 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
Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Elf Beauty, founding
partner of iHeart Women's Sports.
Hey fam, I'm Simone
Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay.
And we're the hosts of The Bright Side,
the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day.
Check out our recent episode with Latin Grammy winner, author, and TV personality,
Chiquis, about raising her younger siblings after the death of her mother, singer Jenny Rivera.
I would do it over and over again.
All of that has molded me to become the woman that I am today. Like I wouldn't change anything. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.
What was that?
That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.
Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself?
There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.
They're just dreams.
Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.
Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one
nonstop infotainment laughstravaganza. yeah so without further ado here is the weekly zeitgeist
hey speaking of pay dirt we are thrilled to be joined by one of the very faces on mount zeitmore
she is an emmy nominated writer an artist and comedian behind acclaimed one woman shows such as boss who was girl and mrs joseph
chestnut america usa and the acclaimed podcast the bechdel cast my year immense a lolita podcast
vultures number one podcaster 2021 act cast ghost church it's jamie fucking lofty
Lofty!
Jamie Lofty!
Jamie, come back.
Jack and Miles will stop feuding.
Jamie, come back.
We can make up over Zambonis.
Guys, I'm so glad we assembled the score.
I'm so glad.
That was such a fun tweet.
Somebody was like, God, you guys are too good for jamie and lacy now
i'm always like it was funny that happens i'm like do you know that they're massively successful
and have actually gone have gone past what the show is that's kind of what's happened
me and lacy immediately had to be like what are you talking about but the person just acted as
if and in classic in classic twitter
behavior pretended we had not said anything did not respond to us and was like i don't know
something seems fishy here we responded to you i love i don't know another season of i carly i
don't know more activity for jamie's career i guess how can they fit daily zeitgeist into that?
Look, I love the conspiracy theories.
Keep them coming. We all like
each other. We're boring.
It's hard because it's so boring.
We were pissed, Jamie.
This is the time we're going to tell you and you guys
can go back and listen to the last
three episodes Jamie was on to figure out
what she said that really
teed us off.
Jack sent out an email that
was like, we're not saying
never again, but not for a while.
Okay? Not for a while.
But got my Lorne Michaels
on.
What's new, big money player?
It's great to see you.
It's great to see you too. I was saying before
we started recording i got like
that old daily zeitgeist feeling i got butterflies in my stomach i'm ready to go
i was like what is overrated what is underrated my search history is a disaster remember that
beginning of the pandemic and it was just the three of us it was just the three of us for like
trying to fucking make sense of it all
that was such a i still think back at that and i'm like god what what early doors it was for that
like global disaster and we're like i think funny but also really scared for earth it was like the
first two months where we're just like um so yeah like is this funny yet and the answer
was no but
like oh man
Rudy Giuliani told us that we were allowed to be
funny again oh my god
and I was so relieved because
he was being funny all the time
the guy can't turn it
off yeah and that's I think
the biggest problem I have with him
is too much too funny
all the time he's doing bits what is something from your search history oh yeah so so i this
was prompted recently by seeing that uh eminem and snoop dogg did a concert with their bored ape
avatars yeah and it kind of looked like it was from like a like a Super Nintendo, basically rapping on stage.
So I ended up getting into this weird Internet deep dive about all that kind of stuff.
And I ended up learning a lot about MC Scat Cat.
Yeah.
Who is one of my favorite artists.
The rapping cat who duets with Paula Abdul in the Opposites Attract video.
Yeah.
He's kind of like the original, he's the original Bored Ape, basically.
Yeah.
But the greatest thing I learned about it is that the guy had the idea,
and he wasn't an animator or anything, and he also wasn't really a rapper.
So he had to hire professional animators
and people to do the rapping
but while he was trying to get the idea off
the ground he would perform
at shows in LA
in just a full cat costume
so he was like a real life
and I was just thinking
I would pay like hundreds
of dollars to see him
do like some demos you know one side of opposites attract just did a stag like hot cat costume and
and clearly doing this in successful pitch meetings with executives who were like yeah
we just got to animate this and this is gonna be huge i mean, and it was. It wasn't my wedding song,
but I made a strong pitch for it to be my wedding song
and to rap the MC Scat Cat parts.
My wife wasn't feeling it,
but my wife wasn't feeling it.
But it is a seminal moment.
I did not realize that MC Scat Cat
was like an artist in his own right.
I thought it was just like something that was invented for the Paul Abdul video.
Yeah, I think she might have come to Scat Cat, actually.
I mean, that sounds like a record company kind of thing where they maybe someone did too much cocaine and accidentally signed this guy.
And they were like, we have to do something with we've spent so much money on this animation what are we gonna do it still seems like it's a
better idea than most nfts though like oh yeah at least the at least mc scat cat does something
tangible you know right and yeah the his album the adventures of mc scat cat and the stray mob
from 1991 at least that's a tangible item you could purchase.
Yeah, you could hold that in your hand and it wouldn't disappear
because someone changed the line of code.
I feel like this one,
I feel like an actual sealed copy
of the Adventures of MC Scat Cat and the Stray Mob
are probably worth more than the fucking NFTs
that Snoop and Eminem embarrassed themselves with
up there on stage.
I think you're probably right.
I also learned that he was in one of the...
I mean, I think I'm a little bit older than you guys,
and there's a lot of early 90s all-star rap compilations,
I remember.
And he's in a very, very weird one about recycling.
Yes.
And it's called Yakety yak take it back and i remember
having to watch that in a school class once and they were like this is it's gonna make everybody
recycle mc scat cat doing a version of yakety yak that's what the kids like that's so like
specific to a very to to a time period,
like plan.
Yeah.
Apparently he tried to get in the,
um,
anti-gang violence one,
which is called,
we're all in the same gang,
uh,
that has a lot of West coast rappers.
And I remember thinking like,
I really liked that song.
And I was like,
I'm,
I'm going to help this problem.
These,
I'm going to help these Crips and Bloods.
Right.
Start to get along.
Yeah. yeah the magic
and the young mc is rapping yeah by buying a single a single yeah oh my can you imagine it's
like if mc scat cat really was being like i really i'm trying to bring the fucking gangs together
to stop the violence and he's like i never wear red or blue. I'm not taking a side. I'm not doing that.
MC Skatcat just wants peace in these streets.
I'm tying the flags together in unity.
And they're like, what the fuck is this animated cat doing here?
Feels like something from a French satire about American culture.
Like a cartoon cat rapper comes through and is like a sensation and everybody loves it.
You know, like Europeans being like, Americans are so fucking dumb. Fucking idiots over there. comes through and is like a sensation and everybody loves it you know like europeans
being like americans are so fucking dumb idiots over there who's he performing with well an old
nba cheerleader she's she's the biggest pop act in america right now i mean great great artist if
you if you ask me i did love paul abdul seminal to my development as a man and a great, you know, dance designer is not the word.
But you know what I mean?
The person who designs the dances, choreographer.
Really, really.
I didn't realize the whole that there were a couple of characters like you saw the stray cat gang or whatever the fucking crew was in the Paul Abdul video.
But I didn't.
They're like Wu Tang.
There's a lot of members.
the fucking crew was in the Paula Abdul video, but I didn't know. They're like Wu-Tang. There's a
lot of members.
There's MC Scat Cat, Fats, Taboo,
Maestro, Leo, Cat
Lean, and Silk.
And Diamond.
Diamond and Silk. Diamond and Silk.
They became right-wing pundits
later.
People don't realize they started off.
They're mostly rapping about Hunter Biden.
They were part of the Stray Mob. Was the Stray Mob all cats? I mean, Maestro, you'd hope Maestro, I don't realize they're mostly rapping about hunter they were part of the stray mob yeah was the stray mob all cats i mean maestro you'd hope maestro i don't know i haven't seen i
haven't seen a full image of the stray mob yeah but you'd think maestro would be a mice yeah okay
i actually didn't know how they were spelling it, but yeah. Yeah, you would think, right? Yeah. Damn.
And that does prove that any gang can get along if cats and mice can get along.
Oh, that's a good point.
Yeah.
That's true. That's a good gang.
Wow.
Oh, yeah.
Maestro.
Maestro is a straight up fucking little rat.
Hey.
Oh, whoa.
Yeah.
That's fun.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
That would have been so much cooler than than like, I got real into that.
So I like started with MC Hammer around the time of Opposites Attract.
And then like I real into, you know, Wu-Tang Clan and like all that sort of rap.
If I had just like gotten really deep into the mythology around the Stray Crew and like just had posters of each of their solo albums
on my wall when I was in high school.
You're like, oh, you don't have the Japanese single?
Right. That was a much more
interesting path for my life
to have gone.
Did you know that Roman Emalko wrote
the MC Scat Cat
verse on all the sets of tracks?
No.
I've got to start somewhere.
That's his big break. Yeah. Yeah. This is a big break.
Yeah.
All right.
What is,
what's something you guys think
is overrated?
I,
Carolina looks stumped,
so let me jump in.
No, no.
I have one.
I think,
I think data privacy
is,
is overrated.
I completely agree with Devin,
but I have my own because
this is just like carolina carolina will famously go to a restaurant wait for me to order and then
order the exact same thing and but and not even comment on it just as if she also wanted that
right wow like not say i'll have the same but like order it like you haven't just ordered it
she's just coming up with it it may have happened once and the only
reason devon's mad is because she likes to eat everything and doesn't want us to get the same
meal so she can have a bite of whatever i'm having okay this is some early 2000s era insults um
devon's just actually likes to eat everything oh that's not what i meant i once took devon out to
dinner with will ferrell and she whispered to me before dinner started
that she was nervous because we were eating tapas style
and she was like, I can't share.
So I had to announce at the table as if I were her mother,
like, by the way, Devin's going to get her own plate
and she's going to eat it by herself.
And Devin just nodded silently.
And you're not allowed to look at her while she does so.
Exactly.
And also tapas are overrated no offense to anyone wow but i think i think data privacy is overrated because
think back to the days when you had to go to a store and human beings would come up to you
disgusting human obnoxious human beings would come up to you disgusting human obnoxious human beings would
come up to you and say like why don't you try this like what do you think of that like try this on
this would look good what are you looking for what are you shopping for today that is hell
and what our lack of data privacy has done has made it possible the the internet boom when we didn't know that we were losing all
our rights to privacy made it possible for us to skip that step everything we want just gets shown
to us right like the wedding singer when i don't know what to watch on a saturday afternoon and
now people all just want to be like i want they're gonna take your alexa's listening to you first of
all are you doing anything that anyone would even care about?
If not, then you're just getting more convenience.
And what's the problem?
I like this.
Like, you sound like an ethicist who works at Amazon.
It's like, what's the fucking deal?
You get this, but so what?
We've mapped the interior of your home with a fucking Roomba.
And we know to sell you better.
Right.
I like that version. Like, pushing you around. Like, oh, you care about data privacy now? Oh, okay. with a fucking Roomba. Yes. Made your life better. Right. Yeah.
I like that version,
like pushing you around like,
oh, you care about data privacy now?
Oh, okay. So you're going to shop in the store?
I don't think so.
Shut the fuck up.
That's exactly how I feel.
Say that about when,
you know how people cover their cameras
on top of,
with like piece of tape,
they'll cover their cameras,
cover their whatever microphone.
I am always like,
hey,
I've never heard of that.
If someone, and literally Mark Zuckerberg does it like you,
there's been a picture of him.
Oh,
so people,
so a lot of normal people.
Okay.
Sounds good.
I use that example because it's so common that it's so well known that they're insecure that even people who are super high tech do it.
Yeah.
And also he has billions of
dollars, so he has a reason to worry about being
hacked to blackmail. He does seem to actually watch
his cookies. I
accept all cookies
because...
Can I actually get more cookies?
Do you guys have an option for extra cookies?
You could put a gun to my head and say
what are cookies? And I would say
just shoot me.
Just end it, please. Just end it.
Just get it over with.
Also a very interesting gunman who's like, what are cookies?
I know.
What situation is this?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Joke's on me, isn't it?
I also am like, if the NSA wants to watch me watch Southern Charm on my computer while I'm spilling peanut butter on my chest and then eating
it off my shirt. That's on them. That's their problem. I don't need I'm not worried about it.
Watch me do whatever. What I think is overrated is any kind of food that you have to wait in line
for. So once in a while,
you'll be driving through restaurants anywhere
and you'll see a line outside of a restaurant
or a food truck.
And your thought is that must be really good.
My immediate thought is what suckers?
Because you can walk down the street
and you're waiting in line
and thus your experience already sucks
for whatever you're doing.
So Stumptown Coffee in New York 10
years ago, because you know, like I'm a wise old lady 1010. Yeah, 1012 years ago in New York,
this was considered like, incredible rare coffee, people would wait down the street from the Ace
Hotel. And I was like, I'm not going to wait in line for coffee what is that this my time matters
I'm not going to wait in line for I remember my friends once made me wait in line for um
what's the burger place that's everywhere now Devin smash burger
Shake Shack what's your problem Shake Shack Shake Shack I remember when there was a line
through Union Square and i waited
on it for hours i remember that too and it's now it's ridiculous so there's no such food that that
is that good that i will wait for it when the croissant donuts that were in new york that was
a line people would wake up at like 5 a.m to get them i enjoy good things i like food i'm not gonna
wait in line for anything.
Right.
For you, it sounds for both of you sounds like immediate gratification is definitely like number one.
Sure.
Do not delay.
And yes, I don't fuck with delays, even if they cost me my fucking privacy data privacy. I actually think about it a lot when I'm getting lifts because, you know, a faster car sometimes costs more money.
And I think i have to think
about it like okay would i rather wait 20 minutes or would i rather pay ten dollars more and be out
of here right now just get away from this awkward conversation at this yeah i get away from my
plastic surgeon's office so yeah yeah all right what is, what's something you think is overrated?
So,
this is going to be in line
with my trip to Europe
because I'm never going
to shut up about it.
Love that.
Love that for you.
Love that for us.
I went last year to Europe.
I went with my boss
and he paid for everything,
which is a nice way to go.
That's amazing.
And this time I'm...
You hear that, Jack? And this time I'm, uh, you hear that
Jack? And this time I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm paying mostly by myself and because my boss is also
homosexual. A lot of people were like, Oh, your boss is taking a year out and he's paying for it.
You must be having sex with your boss. And I'm not, I think he respects me for my mind. I hope
there you go. And I'm a good time, I've been realizing and paying for this trip on my own
that uh if someone wanted to take me to Europe for free and the stipulation was I had to have
sex with them I would do it and I think based on the amount that you're spending I think the what
is overrated is shaming people for having sex for goods and services like tickets to europe you know what i mean like i feel like
that is an overrated thing too many people are are shameful or are direct shame at those who
barter with their body yeah and uh i think we need to uh cut that shit out something everybody
has done since the beginning of time but it's just you're not allowed to do it out loud. Seriously. Right.
Yeah.
I think when it gets weird is when the person who is offering the free stuff
begins to take that relationship dynamic to a place.
You're like, well, I now control you.
It's like, no, no, no, no.
We're bartering, actually.
Yeah, 100%.
You can have, like, we'll make a little,
it's like, you know,
how nice of a dinner are we gonna have you know, right?
I'm just saying I want to be a prostitute and I think that we should not be shaming people for it
So where did you go? Where'd you go with your boss? We went to Paris and then?
Corsica he's a he's a we I kind of
Help him develop ideas and he had an idea that was was set in corsica and it might have been an
excuse to go to just go to corsica he's also kind of learning french so he wanted to go
and um it was it was right before delta hit uh the delta variant so we're talking you know i mean
several variants ago yeah and it was right when the eu had opened back up and so and he normally
travels with various people but none of them wanted to go
so he was just like do you just want to go and i was like well i can't afford to go at your level
and he was like yeah yeah and i was like okay just show up show up to the airport okay so it's very
nice and we have you know we have and we have a very a very professional and fun relationship and
it was great and let me tell you my first time going to paris and was my boss the ideal person
to go to the most romantic city and beautiful city in the world no but again he paid for
everything so he was a perfect person as to go to europe yeah now you can set a baseline for
your own rates all the european stuff sounds nice uh i will have you know there's something
in dallas called the reunion tower um which is like a uh it's a bunch of lights on a stick, basically.
It's like a big round thing of lights at the top.
And on Valentine's Day, it has like hearts, and it's pretty cool.
It's like a big mega.
What are those screens called at sporting events?
Jumbotron.
Jumbotron.
It's like a big Jumbotron in the middle of the city.
It's quite phallic.
It's kind of cultured.
I don't know.
God, this guy never shuts up
about Texas.
Yeah.
What's something you think
is underrated?
You know, we were kind of joking
about Paul Pelosi pre-show,
and I got to tell you,
I think old people are underrated.
This guy knows how to party.
You know, he didn't get away with it.
But, you know, wine drunk, just, you know, he's the what do you call the husband of the speaker of the House?
The first call him Paul Pelosi.
We get it.
The name Captain Pelosi rings through.
Yeah.
But, you know, and I'm not going to want to get too neoliberal, but, you know, like Biden's having a good run, you know, things.
And everyone's like everyone can't shut up about how old he just canceled student debt for everyone.
And all my friends were talking about was how old and tired he looked in the speech he gave.
And I was like, OK, sorry that you got free stuff and you don't like from this old guy and you can't handle it and you don't want it because he doesn't doesn't look good.
You know, didn't speak. We were we were very look love obama did a great job uh for us really had
our our uh our uh interest in mind but he's the problem was he was too good he spoke too good he
looked too good you know and then we had four years of just fucking utter trash and and and we
expected whatever was going to come after that to be perfect again and it wasn't just this old
white dude who doesn't speak that good but apparently apparently is giving us some stuff that we needed.
OK, if he gets that Iran deal done, I'm going to start talking about him as a good president.
I might even vote for him again.
I might even vote.
Yeah, definitely a new context listening to him up there, like missing some words.
And I was like, yeah, that's fine. I'm good with that.
Like he said, he's talking about having actually done something it's it really is like what when you're missing words
and you're also like not doing stuff that like it seems like you should be doing then it's a little
unnerving but when you're like skipping words or like combining words and you know i do that shit
all the time my man biden just cancel all the fucking debt right because we're talking equity
right means everybody's equal that means everybody's debt should be canceled at the same
level don't leave people hanging with us though and i get it that a lot it is very helpful like
and most people a lot of people did actually get a lot of their debt wiped out part of me is like
man if you do all that you could speak as fucked up as you want. Like, you don't have to fucking show up.
You could go out there on fucking Molly peeking, like just taking deep breaths up there.
I'm like, yeah, man, whatever, man.
Just let him fucking cook.
We're just like not on Adderall.
There's a thing that happens where he like his energy like goes in like waves, like from sentence to sentence in a way.
I don't know.
It might just be like some internal meter that's telling him like,
oh,
they told you to just stop shouting like everything.
And then he like starts whispering and it seems like he's falling asleep
after he was just like,
bro,
it's the Molly.
It's the Molly,
bro.
It comes in waves.
Another underrated.
It's not enough of our leaders are doing Molly, you know, not psychedelics, you know, honestly, I've been saying this underrated it's not enough of our leaders are doing molly you know not psychedelics you know
honestly i've been saying this underrated you should to get into congress you you gotta you
have to trip balls psychedelics yeah i think you have to try you have to trip balls to get in there
and you need to have a moment where you can just be like go outside of yourself let your ego break
have a new perspective on how big or small you are in this universe,
then start legislating.
I don't think it would be terrorism to dose the punch
at a congressional party or something like that.
Because it's like, you got it like,
because then all the folks, you know, like Marjorie Taylor Greene,
she might jump off.
I don't want, I don't want, she might do something to herself
that would be beneficial to the country.
Which is remove herself from office.
Yes, exactly.
Because the demons are deep, you know, with a lot of people on that side.
And our side, demons are real on all sides.
Oh, yeah.
All demons.
Pooh-pooh demons.
They're very strong.
But, yeah, I mean, you know, hallucinogenics made me the non-congressional, fun-loving, European traveling person I am today.
Yeah. the non-congressional, fun-loving, European traveling person I am today. Yeah, that's like the way that the Olympics tests for various drugs. And like, like, I feel like we
should be doing that with things like amphetamines. We've already seen that those are bad for
leadership and like to lead you down a dark path with the nazis so like yeah maybe maybe not that maybe they
shouldn't be allowed to do that and be president at the same time yeah let them talk to the mushroom
king yeah talk to the shroom god thank you man i would be joel biden's shrooms are right i like
that just a little tea yeah and then just like sit there next to the fire and have a think for like 24 hours
on the just i'm like i'm like joe don't say anything let's just look at each other for the
next let's see where this goes let's see where this goes yeah but it's what like it's funny too
because even though we joke about this it's like every fucking week there's a new thing about
the the benefits of psychedelics like psychedel psychedelic research, the study just came
out about psilocybin and treating alcoholism, and like how that could be a very potent combination
to help people. And we're like, God damn it, man, so many answers fucking right in front of us.
And not just in front of us, like literally grown out of the earth. And we're like racing to destroy
everything on the problems literally on earth. And I will say about biden you know uh i don't even know i i don't think what what hallucinogenics do is teach you
empathy they do they like that's a big part of it but biden does have empathy so like i i'm i'm not
i'm not sure he's uh an 80 an 80 year old man needs to start tripping for the first time but uh
although they say it's very good for end of life.
Oh yeah.
He's not going to die.
Two more years.
He looked great.
I've never seen skin.
Such a healthy gray tone like that.
It is impressive.
Imagine I can't get out of bed every day.
79.
You got to get up every day.
Early.
You got to be woken up.
I feel like for how old Joe Biden is and having to work, that's like us
like being hung over as shit
and having to go to work and pretend you're not
hung over. I went out last night. I almost
canceled on this podcast. I was at 1130.
Until 1130.
All right.
Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll talk
about the other side of the aisle and their branding problems.
They're demons.
Oh, shit. It turns out we're demons and people don't like that.
I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary, 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.
In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest.
This wasn't just a new game.
Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists.
But the prizes disappeared.
And what started as a video game promotion
became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture.
I just don't believe they exist.
My reaction, shock and awe.
That sword was amazing.
It was so beautiful.
I'm Jamie Loftus.
Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest,
a podcast about the fall of Atari
and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes.
We'll follow the quest for lost treasure
across four decades.
It's almost like a metaphor for the industry
and Atari itself, in a way.
Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest
on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Bruce Bozzi.
On my podcast, Table for Two,
we have unforgettable lunch
after unforgettable lunch
with the best guest
you could possibly ask for.
People like Matt Bomer.
Thank you for that introduction.
I'm going to slip you a couple of 20s under the table for that.
Emma Roberts.
When it came into my email inbox, I was like,
okay, I know I'm going to love this so much that I don't even want to read it.
Because if I can't be in it, I'm going to be bummed.
And Colin Jost.
You know, your wife was the first guest on Table for Two.
It's come full circle.
As long as I do better than her, I'm happy.
Table for Two is a bit different from other interview shows.
We sit down at a great restaurant for a meal, maybe a glass of rosé, and the stories start flowing.
Our second season is airing right now, so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious.
Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president
was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months.
These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months.
These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two
attempts on his life in less than three weeks.
President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.
And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate
a U.S. president.
One was the protege of infamous cult
leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other,
a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.
This is Rip Current,
available now with new episodes every Thursday.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back.
And we have an update from the Minneapolis Police Department.
And just like generally, the police have been really good at dealing with criticism and historically yes historically
have you did you guys watch we own the city no i watched the pilot and then i was like this is so
heavy i classic classic white privilege thing to say i was like this is so heavy i have to put this aside for later i'll learn about this later it's it's based on it's a lot of same like people being bad cops
repeatedly which is a criticism i heard i find it pretty entertaining but like one of the big
plot points is that after the freddie gray protests the police just like stopped policing and stopped even leaving their squad
cars like when they came to a crime so that's that's one example of how they responded to
nypd went on strike and crime went down i was like you're kidding
but yeah i mean like in minneapolis specifically you know there's a lot of like attention on the
minneapolis police department because there's a like a lot of calls of like defunding the police there.
And people were like, yeah, there was a lot of momentum to that.
But the biggest bite that was actually sort of taken out of their policing budget was like about eight million dollars, despite what cop humpers across the political spectrum were saying.
And the city also like eventually voted to like not reform the police department as like a department for public safety. So the blue line, you know, survived in that instance. But by this year now, like in 2022, their budgets are actually higher than they were pre George Floyd. So all's well that ends well for them but there's like so there's like this mounting crisis with the the city because
the police are basically just draining the fucking city budget with all their shit so to start off
there's been an exodus of police officers uh who have left because their feelings were just hurt
by the protest nearly 300 officers this is from uh this piece of mother jones saying that nearly
300 officers left the department since Floyd's murder.
That's a third of the force.
And 200 of them have left with workers comp settlement checks and lucrative disability pensions based on their claims that the policing at the protests of 2020 gave them PTSD.
Hurt their feelings.
And so now they are getting huge checks to not even fucking work anymore and the
city is estimated to pay about 35 million in these disability claims normal and these like workers
comp settlements like since 2020 yeah and and like and these are cops that have like some of these
cops have like extensive records of misconduct like leading to killings and just all kinds of
just shitty behavior so this is slowly creating this like fiscal om killings and just all kinds of shitty behavior. So this is slowly
creating this like fiscal omni crisis. And that's just sort of one dimension of it, because here's
the other huge number. The city has paid out 111 million dollars in settlements to people that were
fucking brutalized by the Minneapolis police in the first 15 days after George Floyd's murder.
They're saying all the misconduct from the first to the 15th day in response to that murder
has turned into $111 million in settlements. So city officials are now like kind of in a bind
because on one hand, they're like, well, this is fucking too much. Like they're just taking
off with all this money for reasons like we're not totally aligned with. But also, if they go to court and try and fight it, they could end up paying even more.
So, you know, they're in a bit of a bind just being like, so we raise taxes and then cut back other programs to offset the cost of just having to deal with the police in our city.
police in our city it's just a very just a very fucked up situation as you look at it because even if you you know as they even ideated around it turns out it's they like the cops basically
play like a uno reverse card on the city right i would love to read a quick quote by miriam cabba
she's an amazing abolitionist and i think it goes into what you guys said but she said if we say
anything about the impunity with which they harm people, this is going to hurt their feelings and hurt feelings equals massive crime.
It sounds ridiculous if you actually think about it, but it is convincing to vast swaths of the
country. What other profession do we say that because they have low morale, we have to suffer
violence as a result. So it's this idea that like, need to fucking get Blue Lives Matter tattooed on our bodies to show police their support or else someone's going to murder us.
It's this crazy idea and it's completely mythical.
And I think it's also much more influenced.
Hate to say it because I was a huge fan of the show and it got me through college.
Dick Wolf's Law and Order.
I think it's plagues the nation more than we even know and it's given us this collective
story that they are here they work all the time to solve crime when really they're just
writing parking tickets yeah or killing people over a disputed 20 bill or you know like recently
happened um pulling over a pregnant black mother with her children
in the car and pulling their gun on her her entire pop culture like of you know my favorite
pop culture was like 80s movies where like die hard was my favorite movie right most of my life
and like that's just like a no-nonsense cop who like is just there and using violence like at his own discretion and like yeah i mean the
whole the whole thing is like built on that i'm like that i feel like that is a large part of
like it's not necessarily even the bureaucratic stuff as much as it's just like how deeply
ingrained culturally so much of this shit is that like our ideas around safety right this
is something we talked about with our guest yesterday seth about like being able to break
out of just like this sort of reflexive thinking where people hear most people say they hear defund
the police that means no police that means violent dystopia and that's the only that's the only
conclusion from that term from that phrase
rather than can we sit down and actually understand what the root causes of crime was
or crime are you wonder why people who are wealthy typically aren't the ones shoplifting
or stealing cars because they have the means to these aren't they don't commit survival crime
a lot of time we're just being like this is how people are surviving because they're excluded from the traditional economy so that's what this looks
like rather than yo man they need fucking you know fucking gatling guns and shit and you know
bigger trucks and all this other shit and we kind of fall in this absurd problem solving mode when
really it seems like the thing is public safety how do we keep the public safe and who does that?
And there's probably there's so there's so much nuance to it that not everything has to be responded to with aggro person that's armed to the fucking hill.
Well, think about when you call the police.
You don't call the police before violence has occurred.
You don't call the police before property theft.
You call the police after.
How can we say then they prevent anything like that? It's just this weird backwards way of thinking about life in terms of punishment rather than a social network that gives people more options than to resort to petty theft or which is, you know, most of what the police are doing right now for instance
there was something so it would be funny if it wasn't so fucking tragic there was a picture of
a black woman from a 7-eleven camera and the police released it saying she was wanted for
stealing a slim jim the resources alone going into that are fucking ridiculous when a woman is stealing food.
Yeah.
It makes me insane.
It makes me really sad.
And I think it's like the biggest mold on our country.
I think that's like the thing that when you feel that frustration is like really having to encourage people around you to be like the option isn't a dystopia, just so you know, because we're already there.
in a dystopia just so you know because we're already there the idea that you are exactly police even more and giving them more weapons that's the fucking dystopia not the version where
cops are like solving certain crimes of crime while also like supporting human beings to try
and elevate them out of situations that cause them to do what you know the police call extra
legal activity or whatever so i just think that if white children if white children of white people were being affected
this way if a white 15 year old foster child had been tased or shot this conversation would not be
radical at all and the fact that it's radical just speaks directly to race and i i think you know
when people were ever you know anyone with a working
brain and heart was so horrified but what was going on in the summer of 2020 even though it's
what goes on all the time but the fact that when you mentioned abolition people are defunding the
police people were acting like that was a radical reaction meant that they were not looking at these
people like their own they were looking at these people like their own they were looking
at these people like not my problem still has to be corralled and controlled yeah yeah it's already
a dystopia for someone you know for a dystopia for someone it's a normal reaction to someone
saying like yeah this isn't a safe world right you know this isn't a protection to me at all. Yeah,
Miriam Kaba talks about abolition as not
it is about building
something rather than removing something.
It's about building social networks, not about
just removing one part of the
country. Yeah. Which is
our militarized police.
Right. We talk about Alec
Katsanis. I think another like kind of
huge part of the edifice of like this pro police like can't can't possibly imagine a reality without police is the way that an unquestioning, the only source on most things.
It's pretty fucking crazy.
So go follow Alec Karakatsanis.
He spends all his time and energy just going one news story after another, just being like,
all right, so here's another one.
On top of all the legal work he does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he's also runs a huge fund that helps fight human caging
so there there's another story that i think kind of reminded me of this problem that so
it's completely different but it's another one of these like institutions that is unquestionably
just given carte blanche to like do whatever the fuck it wants and that's
like corporations and just like corporations acting within a market there's this article
from over the weekend where the wall street journal like published thing disney's new pricing
magic more profit from fewer park visitors and they're just like amazed they're they're like speaking
approvingly in economic terms about how the company has raised some prices and eliminated
or started charging for other services and features that used to be free and calling it like
pricing magic and like the new york times as if mickey mouse was the one who came up with it genius
and the new york times had another thing that was like well with biden forgiving student debt
like colleges are just going to charge more because now they can just like bake in that
ten thousand dollars into the price and that money goes to them and they don't have
to like worry.
They don't have to worry about it basically.
And like,
that's just how they're like in both cases,
it's companies doing what is objectively like evil,
you know,
just like bad,
bad shit,
like taking advantage of the,
of the pandemic to like discriminate against magic.
Yeah. Like using the magic of the pandemic to like discriminate against magic yeah like using the magic of the pandemic i'm sorry to discriminate against like the lower earning part of your consumer base and
then on the college front it's like exacerbating a problem that we're already acknowledging is like
a huge massive problem in in the country but in both cases it's not treated as like a huge, massive problem in the country. But in both cases, it's not treated as like a normative thing.
It's like they just treat it as like an objective fact
that this is what corporations do.
This is like smart business.
And it's, I don't know, it's just very frustrating.
And again, it feels like the sort of thing
that we've just lost the ability to imagine or I don't know, it's not like these damn people like we've lost our imagination. It's that we've like never been given an opportunity to imagine anything other than a world that is ruled by corporations and, you know, market forces.
corporations and you know market forces no they're definitely they're in charge of the narrative i mean you're talking about disney which is a storyteller you know like it sounds paranoid
but it's or you know like a conspiracy theory but no these are people who literally build the
stories that reminds me of ivanka trump saying that she knew more about working people than AOC and that she thought that
that she knew that Americans want to work for their money.
Right.
And I was wild.
I was like, that is the craziest thing I've ever fucking heard.
As if like the problem is like I want to work more like a woman, you know, a mother of five
who works at the Walmart cash register.
Like actually her problem is that she hates tax
cuts because she loves working there well i i ivanka is i actually have a bunch of ivanka
quotes that i was gonna pull but it sounds like oh yeah what's today's quote yeah no no actually
caroline is here we'll actually do it after they leave that's probably yeah i know she's one of my
favorite american philosophers yeah she's incredible.
Oh, yeah. The Descartes.
There's Thoreau, there's
Ivanka, there's the Kushner.
The Kush.
Well, Carolina,
Devin, truly a pleasure having both of you
on the Daily Zeitgeist. I know you have
to bounce a little bit early.
Where can people find you, follow
you, all that good stuff?
Again, we want to blame our early absence
on the comedian Will Ferrell.
Oh, that's right.
We didn't blame him.
We didn't blame him up top.
Monster.
Famously cruel.
Cruel person.
A cruel person.
Just kidding.
He's truly an angel on earth.
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
He wore a t-shirt during the pandemic
that said pay teachers more
because he was getting
pepped all the time outside of his house.
And you can please listen to us on True Romance.
That is on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and iHeartRadio.
It's production produced by iHeart, Big Money Players, Will Ferrell's podcast network.
And funny story, one of the first people we pitched it to
was jack o'brien your co-host who um kicked us out of the room he said that's disgusting no one's
going to want to hear about your failures and romance so who's it going to be hosted by though
that's what i understand what are the two fellas you're going to bring in exactly yeah no i remember
that too when you're like my life is actually stranger than if I even wrote it
as fiction and that
that was enough I think for us to be like
they got stories
we do have stories
let me just please step in
for a second Carolina
let me get my green square
also you can follow us on Instagram
at trueromancepod on twitter
at trueromancepod also I have a new Instagram because I had to go through a breakup and then I had to Also, you can follow us on Instagram at True Romance Pod on Twitter at True Romance Pod.
Also, I have a new Instagram because I had to go through a breakup and I had to delete my whole Instagram.
It's really dramatic.
Sorry to hear that.
And so please follow me on at Devin underscore Hunter underscore Leary.
It's the same thing as before, but with underscores.
That'd be great.
Thanks.
And I am at Carolina Rose Barlow on Instagram.
And that'd be great.
Thanks.
And I am at Carolina Rose Barlow on Instagram.
We are so happy that we got to jump on with you guys.
We're huge fans of TDZ and ACAB.
There you go.
There you go.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Let's take a quick break.
We'll be right back. Just Miles and I.
Just the dudes.
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. Thank you. 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 Bruce Bozzi.
On my podcast, Table for Two, we have unforgettable lunch after unforgettable lunch with the best guest you could possibly ask for.
People like David Duchovny.
You know, New Yorkers have a reputation
of being very tough, but it's not. It's not that way at all. They're very accepting. Jeff Goldblum.
Are you saying secret fries? Secret fries. What? That's what you're saying? Yeah. And Kristen Wiig.
I just became so aware that I'm such a loud chewer. My husband's just like, sometimes I'll
be eating and he'll just be looking at me. I'm like, I'm just eating. I don't know how else to chew.
Table for Two is a bit different from other interview shows.
We sit down at a great restaurant for a meal and the stories start flowing.
Our second season is airing right now, so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious.
intimate, surprising, and often hilarious.
Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds,
Sword Quest.
This wasn't just a new game.
Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared.
And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments
in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe.
That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful.
I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest,
a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes.
We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades.
It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way.
Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two
assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago
when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.
President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.
And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.
One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.
I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.
The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.
The story of one strange and violent summer.
This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back.
And it is time, of course.
Do we have a theme song yet for on a streaming corner?
I mean, I have one.
Yeah, here we go.
Once again, it's time for super Producer Ana's Hoosniyes.
Ana's Streaming Corner!
It's Ana's
Streaming Corner! Ba-ba-ba-dee-da-ba-do-do-da-ba-dee-ba-ba-dee-da-ba-ba-dee-ba-ba-dee-ba-ba-dee-ba-ba-ba-dee-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba 20 minutes later.
And thank you.
Holy shit.
I have nosebleed.
Wow.
And that's exactly what I wanted.
Like 11 from fucking Stranger Things.
It's like, oh my God, more blood's coming out of both nostrils. Oh no, something bad's about to happen.
What's a dead, like, do you assume it's the person's in more trouble if they have a nosebleed after something weird, like, supernaturally happens?
Or an earbleed?
I feel like earbleed is freaky.
Well, earbleed.
An earbleed feels personal.
Yes.
Is that more brain?
Yeah.
That feels like you're dead or you're going to not be well after.
I do feel like maybe the nose is a direct pipeline to the brain as well.
So I don't know.
You always say that.
That's you.
The brain to nose pipeline.
Fuck the eyes.
Fuck the eyes.
I actually don't know.
The nose is a direct pipeline to the soul.
Anna,
it's wonderful to have you back.
We kind of have unofficial streaming
corners whenever you tell us to watch
something and we actually do it.
But this is, this one
demanded on like
for all
the world to see the rehearsal.
Did you watch it? I didn't watch it at all. One mic for all the world to see the rehearsal. Mm-hmm.
Did you watch it?
Yes, of course.
Are you kidding?
I was always the first person to watch it
because I watched it exactly 8 p.m. on the dock,
Friday nights, PST, when it dropped at 11 p.m. EST.
And then I would immediately go,
I am unwell, to the press chat.
You would all get a text, I am the chat. You would wait till Saturday morning.
It's like, it's like, fuck it, man.
It came out last night.
And then you're like, did you see it?
It went even more off the rails.
And I'm like, I'm about to jump in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What a show.
What a show.
Yeah.
Nathan Fielder.
Truly.
I don't know.
I really like him. I saw him live once. I always
talk about it. And he did the he just pulled people up on stage that he thought looked weird
and had interesting conversations with him like that is his his singular skill is finding weird
people and being able to just dig in with them and have interesting conversations well
i guess broadly i'm curious to everybody here the i feel like the for people i think like there is a
group of people who knew nathan fielder and watched it and were like wow then there are people who
never heard of nathan fielder and saw this like what is wrong with this guy right like he's monotone
he seems like he's so arrogant and so i guess the first biggest thing is that I like I just want to read a criticism of the show just to get everybody's take is that people felt that he was like cruel and arrogant.
This I'm going to read from this New Yorker review of the show.
Quote, Fielder is manifestly impressed with his own methods and his own acumen.
At that moment, barely five minutes into the first episode, I wanted to throw my laptop across the room or just to throw nathan fielder out of it not only uh is this not he's talking
about the time when he sends the gas company in to like to map the guy's apartment he said
but like his senses like start breaking down i feel like richard brody's going through something
i don't know not only is the gas crew deception itself a reckless betrayal, but the gaze of superiority and dominance that he casts upon core struck me as arrogant, cruel and above all indifferent.
Yeah, I say in the like five minutes and you were like angry to the point of like violence, I think is is revealing.
I get like the that's definitely a thought that is on your mind while you're watching it. I think I do tend to like think that these portraits of these people are really interesting. And like, I don't core or core's trivia friend that i've ever
seen in art like the most like humane and i don't know it felt empathetic to me and what's what was
your response to when you tell people to watch the show because i'm sure like anybody's like
did you watch it and some people were like i don't know well i'm i'm of of the sort of realm of like, don't stop writing think pieces on Nathan Fielder shows.
I think you need to let go and let love, as it says on my wall, as you can see behind me.
But like, it's, I feel like every Nathan Fielder show is an examination of Nathan's own anxiety and issues and frustrations with his own like existence that's
every nathan fielder show it's just like him being like i got good grades so i think i'm good at
business and you're like well you didn't but you seem to think you are so whatever go do your thing
and then this is like the whole reason the rehearsal exists is because nathan is like an
anxious socially awkward person which it says multiple times.
So he's like, well, I figured out how to rehearse every interaction,
which immediately is like, okay, dude, you're a fucking weirdo.
And he's like, so I've decided to give this great skill of mine to others,
which is exactly what Nathan for you was.
It's literally Nathan for you.
I'm giving you this really absurd thing that i've
come up with back to the people even though nobody asked for it and i think that's all it is it's not
as deep as people think it is of like wow look at him destroying human like all these people it's
actually not these people exist right yeah nathan just started interacting with them because he
himself found it interesting and it's in a way he's being like, oh, look, I found someone who's maybe weirder than me.
Let me talk to them because I'm curious of how they exist.
And you're like, OK, I don't in a way like think like I think all these people interesting.
The only person who I literally was like, I do not fuck with you was Miriam the Zionist.
That was the only person that i turned on the whole
time and she didn't even start out as like a weirdo i gotta say no and then she pivoted
i was like oh fuck miriam immediately i listened to the ringer podcast about this show to like jog
my memory and then i was like oh this is not good and just re-watched a couple episodes but the ringer podcast about this they bring up that episode but they're just like i
loved her she like that end part where she's a problem like she's so glad angela's gone and i'm
so glad angela's gone too and it's just like a warm celebratory it's like she's talking about she kept talking after that did you not get that part
yeah what yeah the fuck yeah i mean look i'm glad about you know go ahead teach people about the
you know jewish culture and tradition that's fine the second you try and pressure someone
like nathan to make their show like a political stance supporting Israel because like, you know,
he has a platform.
You're going too far.
They'd be like, you need to side against Palestinian people on your HBO show right now.
It's like, well, those people, they were going to be bombed.
It's kind of a hot button issue, isn't it?
You're like, what are you saying?
That was an interesting thing because a lot of a few Jewish news outlets like grappled
with the show in different ways. Like this one website first're like saying like how judaism and kabbalah is
essential to understanding like the the show and then when the finale happened that same thing
it's so weird how some people absolutely do not get what he's doing they were like we really did
not like the fact that he had to renounce his Judaism, his religion to that child in the finale
and say, I'm going to hell and I'm going to be burning in hell because I'm not Christian.
And it's like, I think you're missing the point entirely there. Like what? That wasn't that he
was made to do anything like that. If anything, he started like underscoring this absurdity of
how children are indoctrinated. We're like, because most kids have no concept of what
religion or if they need it for themselves, it's just easier to grasp this framing of like,
it's us versus them. We do good. Those people burn in hell because that's like what the parent
was like. The kid doesn't know about Christianity anymore. Do the talk to the kid. And he's like,
okay. In kid terms, I'm bad and evil. You're going to be good. That's like okay in kid terms i'm bad and evil you're gonna be good that's what
you want right and they're like how could you do that i'm like that's that's already calling
attention to like how absurd it was that the mom would make that request at all like right yeah
and it felt like by the time he got to that point he was just trying to make right by all the kids
right because he then accidentally became a father figure to a
child actor who didn't know any better and he was like oh and child actors even so one thing i wanted
to say about the parenting thing like what my initial response to the whole show was like holy
shit i will never first of all kids are way better actors than everybody else. Adam, dude. Holy shit. Teenage Adam?
Teen Adam.
Oh, my God. Those kids were great actors.
But also, like, it seems super immoral.
But, like, on rewatching some of the early episodes,
there's, like, these moments where he's asking, like,
a mom of one of the babies.
Like, the actual, like, babies in a crib, like,
can't even, like, pull themselves up.
If, like, she's cool if robin
like gets involved as like the father figure and she's like yeah i don't know they seem to get
along sure whatever like and it reminded like kids so if you're just watching one episode
of like this six-year-old calling him daddy and saying i miss daddy like it is it that shit like
broke my heart for sure and like made the whole thing seem super like fucked up at the same time
like kids have like a favorite person that they're obsessed with for 24 hours and then just like move
on to a new thing and i feel like you see that in some of the parents reactions where they're
just like,
yeah,
man,
whatever.
Like,
it's like watching people who don't have kids.
She's like,
think about parenting.
And then,
and then like people who have had like multiple kids just feeling,
yeah,
man,
like,
yeah,
that seems great.
Right.
The part where she's like,
and then I would like to use,
I forget what, what the oil was, lavender oil. where she's like and then i would like to use i forget what what
the oil was uh lavender oil and she was like okay yeah okay see if if that works give it a shot and
that that did kind of change how i thought about it a little bit yeah i i think you see like
especially with the child actor stuff you you can see some parents relationships to how
they even view their kids as acting right like some people might be like yeah dude i take my
baby to a set and they give me money yeah and it's like a baby system you've commodified your
child's existence just to be on camera and you see like some some of those kids were straight
up child actors right who are like knew how to disengage immediately.
And they're like, wait, are we in a scene now or no?
And then like with that little boy, Remy, I think he was obviously way too young to be in something that was so not a traditional acting thing.
Like it wasn't on a stage with an audience or like overt production stuff.
There's like a lot of hidden camera infrastructure.
But I think also the show does
a good job of going so absurd that you think it's not real and then it becomes so so fucking real
out of nowhere yeah like when he keeps coming back to the set yeah and just being like even in doing
this thing like even this they're showing the mom in a way like she's trying to do her best she
thought it was like a good thing but then he was sort of getting like with every subsequent trip to that house getting more invested in this idea
of like nathan as his dad and how she felt bad about it so there's like multiple commentaries
happening about like just child acting or parenting that i think that's what's kind of
really brilliant about the shows he says a lot of things through it's a it's absurdity yeah and i was gonna say
like and he and here's the thing nathan could have hit all of that he didn't have to show how
fucked up the kids like he didn't have to show any of that but he the fact that he was like and
here's how i potentially fucked up a child and you're like oh god like he's like he continued
to show the dark side of it all yeah regardless and i think like i would be
more concerned about i would actually have had more like oh if he didn't show that and that came
out later on like oh there was all these issues with the kids thinking that nathan was their
father and like now you know there's you know because as i was watching I was like, at first I didn't know how to feel.
I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.
But then I start to be like, well, look, he's actually trying to solve the problem.
He's working towards removing this child or like removing him from this child's life.
So the child understands he's not actually his father and that he's not going to be in his life.
understands he's not actually his father and that he's not going to be in his life i don't know i think those moments speak more to like what and who nathan like what nathan's trying to do than
the whole like wow look at him showing making robin look a certain way i'm like robin is who
he is robin's all over the internet continuing to act like robin he just like showed some light on
a kind of strange figure
that exists in the world.
We should talk about
like the individual characters
and like moments, right?
Like Robin,
for anybody who hasn't seen it,
Robin is,
holy shit.
Like how do you describe Robin?
I mean, again,
like to your point, Anna,
like he's Robin.
There was no writer's room
that came up with
I crashed my Scion TC
a hundred miles an hour
and came to upright onight on Miracle status.
Yeah.
That's Robin.
You couldn't write that if you wanted to.
No.
And if you did, they deserve 9,000 Emmys.
Because I've never heard anything like that, except from someone so themselves as fucking Robin.
Right?
Yeah.
I really admire Nathanathan as like a person like i just think it's all of his
stuff is really cool and challenging and like is designed to like make us have a conversation like
this and so every time he releases something and this like inevitable like series of discourse
takes place it's like yeah this is like a part of the Nathan Fielder like experience because like you were saying and I like what I really liked about this show it like was that it
like I don't know like I feel like with any reality premise or project shit like this happened and
there's all of these like is this ethical like is that was this okay to do but there's like not shows that very intentionally
call your attention to is this ethical so i don't like as as like bizarre and specific and like
arguably fucked up of a premise as it is it yeah like most reality shows have an absurd
fucked up premise but they want you to not think about that as hard as they can and they
go way out of their way with the production and the casting and the style to make you feel like
and this is a totally normal thing for us to be doing we're definitely not exploiting anybody
and like this is this is cool you should feel fine about participating in this as like a consumer
but that's like not what he does and i think that that is like you know whatever
when it gets down to the individual level there's definitely shit to be talked about but i i like
that that is like such a huge component of this show is like it's doing what a lot of shows are
doing but just like not being shy about telling you exactly what you're doing and like having the person asking like is
this okay i don't know i just think it's so cool yeah the discomfort is like from that honesty
right because it's like it's like he's giving you an album but the behind the music is also part of
the album right so you're like because you're like oh shit that's what's also going on like
it's always zooming out it's like zooming out so much it gets meta it gets so meta
but that's like the honesty aspect of it and i think that's why with like anna you know we watch
a lot of reality shows and half the time i'm like they're getting these fucking people drunk they're
telling them all kinds of shit they're they're provoked they're antagonizing them to do shit
on camera or they'll straight up just manufacture interactions but you'll never know that watching
most reality shows and with this one it tries to be like saying like, these are kind of the stakes, even just trying to even do this thing from a super zoomed out perspective.
Yeah.
Yeah. you never see anywhere else like because reality tv is essentially a very specific type of person
who is you know not not reflective of like the type of people who actually exist in america
i think it touches on like spirituality and religion in a way that like doesn't really in
a way that's like very honest and like doesn't really get brought up it just it feels like it's like on a different level
than not just reality tv but like just scripted tv as well like it's yeah covering a bunch of
wild shit that is like some of the most important stuff to in people's lives you know in a in a
fucked up way but a fucked up way that like makes you think about it i mean i also think a lot of you know i don't fault robin or angela
for having such intense sort of religious like so you know they're very religious people but i also
think they've all you know based on what they tell you if they've experienced this trauma and like
individually they talk about these things they've gone through and like okay that's fine let a
person be as religious as hell if it helps
them survive in this world like i think there was a lot of criticism about look i'm not going to
talk about angela's anti-semitism that's a whole another just because she loves every mel gibson
thing ever yeah that was like when she said apocalypto that was the funniest fuck yeah and
she's like i think mel Mel Gibson is the greatest director.
I thought she was going to say anything by Lenny Riefenstahl.
Yeah, that's a whole other conversation.
That's the only way to escalate that.
Yeah, seriously.
I do think there is, you should maybe, she did release a video later being like, I understand now why that's not a thing that I shouldn't like Mel Gibson that much.
I just really like the film instead.
a thing that I shouldn't like Mel Gibson that much. I just really like the film
instead. She kind of like tried
to backtrack on it, which I was kind of like, just
be aware of what
you put out there in the world
when you say stuff like that.
But I don't fault them for having
such religious views
or how they live their life.
People need that.
Right. So I think this
series gave us a lot of moments where anna you and i
were definitely texting each other like fucking just rabid animals being like what about this
shit what was uh i just want to go around what was everyone's most cringe moment like what was
the moment when you saw and you could not believe what you were watching unfold on screen
one that doesn't get mentioned a lot but uh it's from the i think the first episode's still my favorite because it just like
stands alone so well and is rewatchable endlessly but when they have the undercover actor go to
interview his trivia friend who he's afraid is going to have a violent outburst which it turns
out is like so unfounded
but that's like such a funny revelation of how we like build build things up but so she has you
know whatever the disorder is where like she just like can't stop herself from talking and she's
like supposed to be interviewing the bird watcher lady but like they just have this montage of like
her just like talking endlessly about herself
and at one point she's like the fifth thing after she's like talked about her family and stuff and
she's supposed to be interviewing this other person for a story she's like and i have like
various travel rewards plans and including go-go in flight in flight yeah that was so specific
that was the moment that just...
That's the cheap chick in the city shit right there.
Yeah, cheap chick in the city.
What about you, Anna?
Chick in the city?
Cheap chick in the city.
I hope that did drive some traffic to her site.
I hope so, too.
Yeah.
I think that one of the i mean the one that comes to
mind of just like and just like nathan nathan having to deal with a different uh anti-semitic
person in the series was the guy at the raising canes oh yeah in that moment where he like said
something like mask off anti-semitic and nathan like tries to interfere and then the
guy is like well but that is something that i would say to my brother and he would agree with
me and then he's like oh well i guess if that's what you would say like it was just yeah it's
like uh and then makes a note like anti-semitic turn like and then that becomes a pack it was like oh my god yeah that was that was a that was
a brutal moment that storyline i feel like is one of the less discussed ones yeah that one
that episode was wild because that guy had a full-on like emotional reckoning with himself
like through this actor who was supposed to be his brother which i could not believe how powerful
that moment was yeah how absurd the whole situation like he started crying to this this
effigy of his brother and i'm like oh my god like what is nathan facilitating here and the fact that
it worked that well is crazy but for me it was when he went to go help that old man dig up the treasure and helped him
take a shit i could that's when i was like this is you're really you're you're layering so much
on top of it to try and get this response out of the guy then cut to i didn't realize that guy who
played the grandpa he was a former undercover atf agent oh Oh, really? Regularly go undercover.
So he was like built already to like be like,
hey man, like I know what part I need to play for you.
That was a little note I did not realize
because he felt upset that the show didn't help
like help promote his book that he had just written.
That's actually really interesting.
I did not know that.
I had no idea.
Yeah, that blew my mind.
With apologies to Anna's thing about the nose to the brain
being the pathway to the brain.
I feel like there was a similarity in the eyes
of that guy
and Angela.
The way they would close their eyes while
talking and working through stuff
that was interesting.
I wonder if that's one of the things Nathan
looks for.
What was your favorite moment, Anna?
Or most freaked out moment?
Yeah.
I mean, almost every moment.
But I think the most legendary moment on this show was Adam's overdose.
Yeah.
That shook me to my core.
I just didn't see it coming i wasn't ready for i was not ready for
nathan's reaction to it where i was like oh my god nathan is acting i don't know what happened
yeah i was like what is that and then the way that it affected nathan where he's like i can't
raise a teenager this is too much and i'm like you set up the overdose like what is happening i loved that transition after he decides i can't have a
teenager and the kid comes down the slide and then you see the teenager be like all right so are we
crawls back out of the yeah i will say that that actor he put his all oh yeah that dinner table
discussion's like wouldn't you be angry that i've been gone for like 10 years and he's like
look who decided to show up and i was like oh we are in it for a wild ride that's the kind of actor
that like when i saw that i made a mental note. I'm like, oh, that kid could be like super famous in 10 years.
I would have to be like, yeah, I got my start playing Nathan Fielder's like overdose son.
Oh, my producer just classic.
You're a you're a fucking disaster, my guy.
That was what his son said to him.
When he was trying to be like like you need to listen to me you
talk to us and he's like you've been gone for 10 years it's like this is you're a fucking disaster
my guy the way the fucking exasperation in his voice i'm like this is fucking that's why i think
i texted you and i was like this is fucking prestige casting right now. This is prestige casting. Team Adam took the role to a whole
other level. The girl who played Angela
was so good. Oh, yeah.
Holy shit. She's actually,
I think... She was on This Fool. Yes!
I was gonna say, I'm like, oh! She's in This Fool.
She might be the greatest actor of our
generation. I'm like, you're killing it right now.
You're killing it right now. That's wild.
I did not connect that. She plays Estrada's
sister, the older sister with
the kids right yeah i would never have connected that that's so wild yeah on a run oh my gosh yeah
what also 2022 one of the moments that really also like brought me to life other than every
minute of the show but when he enters that got that actor's bedroom
after he decides to fully encompass himself in this actor's life yeah and he enters his bedroom
and it's filled with squish mellows yeah i was like this
can't write this shit man but it's truly like great it was great the thing that he talks about
when he's like i went to the kid's house and it was like perfect in a way that like none of our
sets could have been because it was like accidentally that way like that is what is
great like that's the thing you're seeing on the on this show that you don't see anywhere else. Like any other reality show, you are
seeing something that is like
carefully, you know,
even if they're doing a hometown visit on The Bachelor,
like that is a version of their
house that has been like designed
and like reformatted
to look good on TV.
Yeah.
Alright, that's gonna do it for
this week's weekly Zeitgeist.
Please like and review the show if you like the show.
It means the world to Miles.
He needs your validation, folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to you Monday.
Bye.
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Bye. Thank you. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series,
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