The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 286 (Best of 8/7/23-8/11/23)

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 299 (8/7/23-8/11/23)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties
Starting point is 00:00:12 you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:00:30 I'm Jess Costavetto, 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,
Starting point is 00:00:56 or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. 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. So without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a very funny pop culture expert. One of our favorite first-time guests back for the second time. One of our favorite first-time guests back for the second time.
Starting point is 00:02:06 One of your favorite first-time guests. Also a restaurant expert, a restaurant food critic. Yes. Apparently a s'mores expert who hosts the show Black People Love Paramore. It's Sequoia Holmes! Sequoia Holmes! Welcome. I'm so happy having me back.
Starting point is 00:02:26 Such a warm welcome. So good to have you. So good to have you. I was just saying off mic before, I was like, I love your Drake-based restaurant reviews where you take a Drake lyric and then you hunt down the restaurant and dish. You try to have the meal comparable.
Starting point is 00:02:41 Like I said, for people who are like, there's a lot of hype restaurants that get dropped in these drake tracks let's sequoia do the exploring for you so you don't have to take a potential expensive l at a nice restaurant so i'll take you yeah thank you thank you do you tuck your napkin when you're eating there do you tuck your napkin in your shirt because you're like that i really do consider tucking my napkin my shirt because i'm just loving like that yeah my boyfriend said it was ghetto. So I was like, oh, I guess I won't.
Starting point is 00:03:08 You know, you go to those steakhouses that have like the button slit in the napkin for you to put it. That's when I was like, oh, OK. That's when I was like, there are levels to even the napkins. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I was like, damn, I'm up in here with a T-shirt. Maybe I'll have a little bit of a button I can attach the nap a button off next time yeah do you so what kind of it's only drake based restaurant it's just drake based thus far but take a lyric go to the restaurant the drake name drops yeah and rate his taste so far he has decent taste you
Starting point is 00:03:40 know but i don't expand other rappers also do you know restaurant stuff I don't expand. Other rappers also do, you know, restaurant stuff. Yeah, exactly. Like Ghostface will say a lot of food rhymes, but they're really not attached in a coherent way to a restaurant because it'll be like, you know, linguine off the boot sole and you're like, huh? Where's that? No, thank you. I'm good on that.
Starting point is 00:04:02 You mentioned the Cheesecake Factory, one of, I think, the greatest thing American culture has yet created is the Cheesecake Factory. Okay, Jack. Where do you put hip-hop? You go Cheesecake Factory, jazz, hip-hop, barbecue. Jazz, hip-hop, Cheesecake Factory, top tier. There's tiers, as we already said. Oh, so jazz, hip-hop, Cheesecake Factory are in that top tier. You're saying, wow.
Starting point is 00:04:28 Oh, for sure. I think those are the first three things. I'm pretty sure Ken Burns has a documentary that he's working on. Ken Burns Cheesecake Factory. The Ken Burns Cheesecake Factory documentary. But that's where I wanted to go for my birth i recently had a birthday wanted to go there but it didn't work out because we were also seeing oppenheimer so i saw i went to a local place the california pizza kitchen oh yeah the californians la people
Starting point is 00:04:59 will know all about that it's a little local haunt. Nowhere else. Man, we had one of the best dining experiences I can remember. It was so good. Wait, what about RHCPK? RHCPK, what happened? What did you eat? I had my standard Thai peanut chicken, Thai chicken peanuts pizza. Thai peanut chicken. Thai chicken peanuts pizza.
Starting point is 00:05:26 They also have like a bacon avocado egg roll that is so good. They have one at Cheesecake Factory too. I'm sure it's like copied. I think Chili's also has one that's very similar. They call them like Southwest egg rolls or something. It's usually what you see and you're like, fine, let's finally mash up.
Starting point is 00:05:42 They kept the Diet Cokes coming. You know, it was just underrated. Chain restaurants, truly. Some of them are underrated. I don't know if Sheikah is one of them. What's your favorite chain restaurant? I'm a BJ's girlie. I love a Pazooki.
Starting point is 00:05:58 I've never been to BJ's. You've never been to BJ's? No. You sounded like when Her Majesty told me she never saw City of God or Kill Bill. You never seen City of God? You what? You never been to BJ's? You never had pizookie?
Starting point is 00:06:11 You gotta get a pizookie. Yeah. It's anything for the pizookie. If you want to have a perfect Burbank day, spend some time at Ikea, get a lunch at Ikea, and maybe catch a movie. Look, if you're feeling spicy hit the islands if you're but if not go to bj's yeah where the good times are rolling mine was speaking to my childhood that was exactly what it was like where'd you grow up i know you're from la beach
Starting point is 00:06:36 oh okay yeah yeah but you know you got to have those balance of things those are like the go to chain places for me for sure's it. Islands forever. Islands forever. That is one that I know. I don't think it's that national. I don't think it's that national either. You got to get a little California. I always get the shake. Yeah,
Starting point is 00:06:53 exactly. The Yaki, the chicken tacos is what I always get. Not the burger. Not a big burger guy. When I go there, you know, I do me neither.
Starting point is 00:07:01 No, no, exactly. Got to have those. Got to have those. Got to have cheese fries. Got to have my grilled chicken tacos, but I take the pineapple out anyway that's my order and that's there you go they think they're a burger spot but they're like that that's not what people actually go there for i've never heard anyone be like you gotta have the burger at islands but there's like
Starting point is 00:07:20 a number of items that people really swear by they're oh yeah they have like some mixed drink that is like supposed to be really good there. I believe that. Their drinks are really good overall. Yeah. And those nonstop surf videos on loop. Okay. What's that? Ignore me.
Starting point is 00:07:35 I just said, and those nonstop like 90s surf videos they just have on loop by the bar. Yeah. And you're like, this shit is old as fuck. Very California. But yeah, go ahead. Put it on loop. What is something from your search history? Okay, so my search history from today is I googled inventor of the wheelchair.
Starting point is 00:07:55 And his name is Stefan or probably Steven Farfler. And I googled him because I wanted to write an appropriate joke about how i believe that the inventor of the wheelchair just really wanted some pussy um and then like that's how the wheelchair was invented and i tweeted it out and then i was like oh let me actually before i tweeted out i should say i looked up who invented the wheelchair because i was like man i already know somebody's gonna be mad everybody the thing about comedy and writing jokes is that you can see now how people are going to be offended. And I was like, oh, I got to be prepared for someone being like, how do you know a man invented the wheelchair? And it's like, oh, I don't I don't think that the person who's credited for inventing the wheelchair is the person who invented the wheelchair.
Starting point is 00:08:42 You know, I'm sure there was like some fucking ancient indigenous motherfucker who invented that shit that'll never get the credit for it. That's the truth of the matter. But like, you always have to be prepared. And I hate that. So that's a really good way to know me. I fucking hate that our crowds have gotten so like PC that everything has to be worded so perfectly.
Starting point is 00:08:59 And it's like, that's not how comedy works, guys. Like, it's just me making a fucking joke about how thirsty men are. And people are like, that's not how comedy works, guys. Like, it's just me making a fucking joke about how thirsty men are. And people are like, that's not historically. It's like, can you focus on some actual problematic comedy? Don't come at me for presuming the gender or identity of the person who made the wheelchair. Because I'm trying to make you laugh by saying wheelchair was invented by a horny guy. That's the distillation.
Starting point is 00:09:24 Are y'all not fucking with that exactly so that's a little about me look where i'm at in my comedy writing i laughed from the setup the setup made me laugh so i'm fucking with it i'm on board it's is your presumption that the inventor needed a wheelchair to get to the pussy or that the inventor was just trying to okay yeah yeah like he he was at home he's like man that bitch suzy told me i could get it if i could just get to her house but my legs don't work how the fuck do i get this dick wet army crawl and i can't have my dad carry me again all that rubble that he has to fucking drag me through like, yo, that's desperation. That's innovation
Starting point is 00:10:06 via desperation. Which we all know is how the best shit is invented is through me. Oh yeah, horniness and desperation. 100%. Those are like the two pillars of pure creation. Poppenheimer taught us anything. Yeah. Pussy Poppenheimer.
Starting point is 00:10:22 Oh, crud. I need to write that down become death yeah destroyer of worlds he said as he had sex for the first time um jack did you get enough sleep last night why you seem really like you don't want to be here with me tonight today am i lagging uh yeah i think you're lacking is the real word. She wants you a little bit brighter, Jack. She's taking it personal. I need you, Jack. I need you.
Starting point is 00:10:49 I can't be mean to you when you seem a little down in the dumps. Are you tired? Get a good night's sleep? Yeah. How much coffee do you want? Oh. Did you have a nice breakfast? What did you have for breakfast, Jack?
Starting point is 00:11:02 Three eggs and an English muffin. Oh, damn. That's pretty good yeah that's good damn that's i know i like that we both were like oh shit three eggs not two you get a workout i think i was trying to loosen you up Jack okay okay I'm confused because I was in the middle of a sentence and I I don't give a fuck what you're in the middle of I'll fucking ask about how you're doing anytime I
Starting point is 00:11:34 fucking want to it was wild because Marcella you were lagged you were lagging on the call so when Jack started talking it seemed like you had nothing to say and then you started like are you okay Jack like in the middle of what you said I'm so confused i love it oh shit what is uh what's something you think is overrated what do i think is overrated i think not voting is overrated
Starting point is 00:11:58 yeah right not voting here's what's gonna. People are not going to vote because they think it's a waste of time. But it turns out voting is very important. No matter what fucking Republicans say about it, that's still how we're doing it. That's how it's done. And that's why they're saying it's fake. And that's why they spend all their money. That's the only thing we have. It's the only real thing. And I I'm very susceptible to this shit. You hear enough people on tv talking about something being fake it can't help but make even the smartest person go maybe it's fake maybe
Starting point is 00:12:51 it's fake i mean it's just the power of tv i mean everybody you grew up with tv being somewhat believable or you know depending on you know how deep you want to go with that but you know originally the tv was pretty straightforward the news was maybe close to being real. Like they were just like, you know, I don't know, everybody in the, I don't know what they did back then, what the news was, but, you know, it was like sort of connected to what was really happening because there were two parties that were sort of still functioning because they had to be in, they had to be doing, they were, we were on our way to monopoly. were on our way back then we were just baby companies merging so there was still enough companies that it was like there was some legislation to be done
Starting point is 00:13:30 like they had to like figure out ways to get these mergers in motion it turns out for the last 50 years all they've been doing is just merging and merging and merging until now there's no need for policies because there's only like one company so they don't care about it there's no you don't have to maneuver anymore now it's just about tax avoidance right so but for a long time america had a bunch of little companies and they were they needed like uh they were kind of competing like the way it's supposed to be and then and then when there's competition then there's differing opinions and then you need real legislators but you know now we just have like these stunt legislators, legislators. But you have to I I'm just saying I got 13000 votes. I mean, this is all silly.
Starting point is 00:14:10 I don't know why I'm talking. I should I should be I should be happy. I'm just in shock a little bit. I just ran this campaign. I got signs of my name on them. Right. I'm running around town. You know, I'm telling everybody that it's the end of the world.
Starting point is 00:14:23 And and and and they're and they're excited to hear it because they're sick of hearing the bullshit so it was a great experience and i'm not it's not the end of the world it's not the world is not going to end we're just going to end up in a bad spot you know we're going to end up in a really hot hot bad spot and i'm in hot like heat like regular sun right yeah we're just going to end. Yeah. We're just going to end up in a bad spot. And then it's going to restart. And some other kind of people, you know, bug people or whoever are going to emerge from the sludge. So it's like we're just fucking ourselves over by not voting.
Starting point is 00:14:56 So I'm just saying go fucking vote because the people who vote. I mean, this is absurd what I'm saying, but I just want to say that I got 13,000 votes. Yeah. And if I'd gotten 20,000, I would have been in. And if I'd gotten like a few thousand more, I would have made the runoff. Right. My position I was running for council at large was like 15, 20 people running. So it's like the votes get divided up a lot.
Starting point is 00:15:25 Like 13,000 is really good, but it was spread out so much. But 13,000 people voting for me as a first-time candidate was an incredible compliment. And I actually started to really want to win because I realized I was qualified. Also, if you want to run for office, you are qualified. I will tell you right now. And I know that fact now I suspected it, but now I know it for a fact. Yeah. If you're a nice person, if you're an honest person, that's two things that most people aren't in that space. Yeah. So go for it. We need. Surely you had to like get hired by the Democratic Party and jump through all sorts of hoops.
Starting point is 00:16:06 What was the process from going from I'm not a political candidate to I am a political candidate that people can vote for? What was that like? Well, I just took his glasses off. I went and spoke at that stadium hearing because the city of Nashville and now the city of Buffalo, New York, did the same thing. Or, you know, New York State did it for the buff. You know, they give all the tax money to the NFL because the NFL says if they don't get their stadium paid for, even though they could pay for the stadium and still have massive profits. They could pay for a ton of stadiums. But they just know that the promise of vague promise of economic growth and also just the fact that people like, you know, in a dystopia, people will do anything to keep a football team. It's their only joy.
Starting point is 00:16:57 Right. You know, so they've got this. They've got people over a barrel. I mean, your average person is like, I don't want to lose my football team. Then we got nothing. Even though they should, your average person should say, fuck off football team. And let's use that money for a decent, for decent bus stops, you know, or whatever, a bus stop that has a roof on it. So you don't sit in the sun while you wait for a bus and a
Starting point is 00:17:16 bunch of weeds like in Nashville and humiliated bus stops, bus stops in Nashville are fucking humiliating, humiliating because they have all these light up signs that say, oh, this person's riding the bus. Okay. Yes. I mean, if you guys know, you live in a functioning society in Los Angeles. I mean, it's not perfect. It's not. You got to come to Nashville and find out what the you got to find out.
Starting point is 00:17:40 You got to come to Nashville and find yourself in a pothole that you're like peering over the side of. Now, you got to come to Nashville and find yourself in a pothole that you're like peering over the side of. Anyway, it's Nashville is a whole nother level of of idiot. Like just just corrupt and no no services because there's no taxes. There's the other thing. I guess I guess I'll say overrated. This underrated is taxes. Hey, guess what? It turns out if you don't pay any taxes, there's no money. For anything. There's no money to do anything.
Starting point is 00:18:10 It's taxes are not fake. Elections are not fake. We have to get on board with this. And I'm reporting from inside. The shark. Inside the shark. I saw it. Inside the pothole. It's full of sad people waiting for doctor visits.
Starting point is 00:18:22 It's a shark full of lottery tickets and i'm crazy i'm just doing some poetry now beautiful shark full of lottery tickets is america and america is a is a flapping flavorless oh sorry that was just there's more poetry um yeah yeah yeah you got points from us on that we're suckers the alliteration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got points from us on that. We're suckers for alliteration. So anyway, the thing is, all you have to do to run is you file some paperwork. And I just decided I was going to run. I went down to the election commission.
Starting point is 00:18:58 You get like 50, 75 signatures or whatever it is. And then you're on the ballot. And then you start an ActBlue account, which is a, well, if you're progressive, that's the progressive, like, I hate this. Yeah, money-hoovering operation. I hate that expression. It's like, I just hate all the, they should just say normal. Non-goon.
Starting point is 00:19:16 Progressive is normal. Or hateful. And the other is like hate group. Yeah, there's only two, yeah. Or backwards or forwards. Do you like human rights? Yeah, or backwards or forwards or violence or no violence. Those are better names for these parties. Yeah. So, yeah. So, Chris, I got it. I like how you said how you went from being like, I don't know if I can do this shit to very much like, no, you have to. And I know this happens a lot. Like when you enter like in politics, because there's this fucking mythological presence around what it means to run for office or the kind of people that run for office. What was that moment when you went, oh, shit, it's a everyone's a fucking joker in here. The first time I went to a mayoral forum,
Starting point is 00:19:56 my friend Lizzie Cooperman, you guys know Lizzie Cooperman. She's like, are you going to be saying mayoral like as much? You keep saying you say mayoral like I don't know if I can be friends with you if you're going to say mayoral this much don't know if i can be friends with you if you're gonna say mayoral this much yeah she has a good point but for the purposes of this show i have to say it mayoral mayoral forums are where the candidates for mayor here in nashville get together and are asked questions and i once i got in the race i had to start going to these events just to make myself known you have to you have to become a known quantity to these people and i had some head start with that because of the the advice column right and the book so people in this town and also
Starting point is 00:20:34 just like you know my previous life as a as a person who just you know fucking said dirty crowds do you rock bunk rock dirty shit person whatever whatever? Man about town. I don't know. The person is, yeah. Crazy person. Right. Crazy guy. Oh, punk rock. Oh, he's rude.
Starting point is 00:20:52 Oh, he's rude and crazy. And that's how you revolt, by being drunk as fuck on Anheuser-Busch products. That's revolution, is being asleep all the time with like four cigarettes in your mouth. That's how you fight the system i mean that is kind of impressive sleep on the floor with a cigarette in your ass yeah uh that's revolution no so like that that was the old self where i thought revolution was accomplished by being belligerent sure right and burning bridges like that's the funniest thing is you have to build bridges. Revolution is building bridges, not burning them. With tax dollars.
Starting point is 00:21:30 Yeah. Wait, so what happened at the mayoral forum? This show is going to be rough. It's my fault too. No, that's my fault. That's why we're the hosts and you're the guests. I drank cold brew. I drank a lot of it.
Starting point is 00:21:43 I just did it. The way I saw you looking down the barrel of that cup when you were drinking the cold brew, I was like, this guy is singing like stars. Like he's going like speed in Star Wars. It's not necessarily the best thing to do a level-headed political conversation and drink cold brew at the same time. So the Merrill Forum, I was just like, oh, my God. There were like 15 people up there. Some of them were like completely nuts like absolutely nuts you know and um and then some were like had zero charisma and and then there were
Starting point is 00:22:14 like two that like one that knew a lot of stuff uh and and then and but i mean it was not i was immediately like my first thought was you guys was why the hell am I running for city council? Why aren't I running for mayor? Far from being intimidated. I was just like, this is what we're choosing from? Right, right. And that's when you get into these people are, to run for mayor, you need a significant amount of money. And people are not investing in like bold, independent people.
Starting point is 00:22:48 You know what I mean? People are there. They want their candidate to be the kind of person who has no friends because then you give them one cigar. And it's the greatest experience this candidate's ever had in his life. You know what I mean? You can leave them around by that cigar. One golf club that has his name engraved on it. Remember that Kobe flag?
Starting point is 00:23:09 Yeah, you can put him in the wildlife refuge. Oh, my God. No one's ever given me a gift before. This is the first time I've been in a room with more than four people in it. Did people come to you? Did anybody? I'd imagine you're pretty clear that you're not like a party man but did did you get approached by any like political operatives
Starting point is 00:23:34 insiders yes just a little bit but i mean i'm not i don't have enough power at this i mean i wasn't enough of a known quantity to really get bothered so i just got like people who are some some billionaire startup thing that's trying to get you to use their app and those guys that were working for it were okay and they were trying i think maybe they were trying to do the right thing but i was just like this sounds like they're like our our billionaire benefactor is just sick of politics the way they are and it's like already i'm just like, that's not a real thing. Billionaires don't care about anything. So I'm already out.
Starting point is 00:24:10 And then you're like, no, no. You know I'm not a white supremacist, right? They're like, oh, oh, okay. Sorry, sorry. Oh, nevermind. Sorry, sorry. I actually think these were nice people. I think they thought that their billionaire overlord
Starting point is 00:24:22 actually was like a guy who's had it with partisan politics. Well, I don't. This is happening in entertainment, too, where I've heard tell now like a few billionaire like scion types who have all this money because their parents fucked up business. And like they want to subvert that, like with their billions of dollars. But they kind of don't know where to start and it is a little interesting thing where you see these people like look i know i have like this money comes from fucking death ships but yeah i want to make sure trump isn't president and make some cool stuff along the way so i feel like you can you definitely there there is that kind of like
Starting point is 00:25:00 billionaire with with a form like a very infant or a very newborn form of consciousness coming online right b yeah yeah i'm so unsympathetic to those people like i can't even believe you know i have no sympathy oh your empire is you're finally realizing like oh you're coming to some you know so you're starting to you know understand the you know like you're just going to give a little bit of your give all your money back then. Give it all back. Give it all. Go, go, go start the world's largest food pantry.
Starting point is 00:25:31 You throw away all your money. Get ready. You know, get out of here. I'm starting to feel like maybe. Fuck off. Yeah. So, you know, I'm not I'm not interested in slowly waking up billionaires. No, no, no.
Starting point is 00:25:46 I'm sleepy eyed. Oh, I think maybe we did bad things. Fuck you. You fucking. Oh, maybe maybe playing polo is not helpful. Maybe playing polo in Dubai is actually quite shallow. maybe playing polo in dubai is actually quite shallow so i yeah i got the cert i got the certification i mean i i i went and i i did the signatures and then i started my bank account i had to file a little bit of paperwork which is a pain in the ass i mean it was like a bunch of
Starting point is 00:26:20 stuff i didn't want to do certainly i mean like there was some paperwork that almost drove me insane like me uploading uploading a fucking spreadsheet into a portal. I mean, that was like, I mean, for someone who's 54 years old, that's like, you know, why don't you just fucking jump out the fucking window? I mean, this is the fucking worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I mean, that was excruciating. Yeah. Hold on. Hold that thought. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back quick break and we're going to come back and talk about spreadsheets. We'll be right back.
Starting point is 00:26:53 I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything?
Starting point is 00:27:28 You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television,
Starting point is 00:27:44 iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the 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. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two.
Starting point is 00:28:06 Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? Okay. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba,
Starting point is 00:28:21 and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. So all of these Latin cultures. We thank Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the 9th century B.C. B.C.? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:28:48 Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. Have you heard about my newsletter called Body and Soul? It has everything you need to know about your physical and mental health. Personally, I'm overwhelmed by the wellness industry. I mean, there's so much information out there about lifting weights, pelvic floors, cold plunges, anti-aging. So I launched Body and Soul to share doctor-approved insights about all of that and more. We're tackling everything.
Starting point is 00:29:16 Serums to use through menopause, exercises that improve your brain health, and how to naturally lower your blood pressure and cholesterol. Oh, and if you're as sore as I am from pickleball, we'll help you with that too. Most importantly, it's information you can trust. Everything is vetted by experts at the top of their field, and you can write into them directly to have your questions answered. So sign up for Body and Soul at katiecouric.com
Starting point is 00:29:41 slash body and soul. Taking better care of yourself is just a click away and we're back and i gotta say like so you know i've got to read read the news for for this for this job but to this point, my... And not really. You folks can tell. I'm just skimming here and there. But in terms of my fiction intake, the climate change fiction that I've taken in over the course of my life has mainly been the Mad Maxes,
Starting point is 00:30:24 all the Mad Max films, Water. All the Mad Max films. Water World. Uh-huh. The Day After Tomorrow. Yeah. Yep. And I think that's... Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:32 I mean, 2012, I think, seems like it should be a climate change parable, but it's actually... It goes out of its way to say that it's something weird happening with the core of the Earth. Yeah, new neutrinos, Jack, from a solar flare, like something weird happening with a core of the earth yeah new neutrinos jack uh from a solar flare obviously are doing something a core or something but it's also 2012 mayans knew that so it was a spooky year yeah dude did you did you buy it did you
Starting point is 00:30:57 even part of you think about 2012 no we i Cracked, we definitely covered the bullshit, but we I did not. I didn't believe it was not part of me. I remember in 2009, I started thinking about it. Oh, yeah. I was like, damn, I'm 25. Like and just eating all her food and shit, struggling to get a job in the recession. Like, please. What do I do? But yeah. The scariest of all years. There were those Mitt Romney videos. Yeah. But I don't know. The solutions of those films
Starting point is 00:31:39 and in just the popular imagination to a large degree seems to be everyone's going to die. And then you're left behind because you're the main character of the story to kill or be killed. I think the day after tomorrow, I remember ending with people like on the space station looking at the globe and the U.S. is like mostly frozen ice. Yeah. And then they're like, yeah yeah but the air never looked so clean it's like that's the earth healing itself killing us all off so just yeah just put just freezing
Starting point is 00:32:13 north america is the solution i mean fine if so be it i guess uh yeah do you have anything else to offer us that does seem to be like sort of stylish nihilism seems to be the way that is at least I think I default approach climate change until like we really start digging into it. Right. Because like books like man or not books, you know, novels like Waterworld. Again, the novelization very fucking water world fucked me up so bad as a kid like fucked me up because wouldn't that come out like 94 or some shit i'm like 10 years old i went to see that the magic johnson theater with my grandfather and he was like wow he's like that's i was like what a movie huh and i was like shaken to my core as a kid really yeah and i was like, what a movie, huh? And I was like, shaken to my core as it came. Really? Yeah. And I was like.
Starting point is 00:33:06 Because you were like, this is how we're going to be living? Well, the logic made sense. Because like you knew about like the earth heating up and pollution and things at the time. Right now, we had just celebrated getting rid of styrofoam, I remember, and like CFCs and shit. And, but like, but the logic path of earth become warm, ice cap, ice melts, therefore the water everywhere vis-a-vis. Yeah. And I was a bad swimmer. I was a weak swimmer. Like I was a terrible swimmer. So there was nothing more terrifying than a world where everything was someone's pool party where I sucked at swimming. pool party where i sucked at swimming yeah you know what i mean yeah and so like there were multiple layers to it and again that shit didn't really offer you any solution aside from like maybe you could find this map to find a fucking hidden island you could fucking live on or some shit yeah but it wasn't like you're gonna have to wear a t-shirt to cover your weird chest hair
Starting point is 00:33:59 because it's a pool party exactly and i think the kids aren't ready to really accept that yet or your three hairs you have on your armpit my chest hair grew in i i still have a weird patch of chest hair but it grew in asymmetrically what do you mean like it favored one side of your chest favored one side and was very like it wasn't like a small amount came at a time it It was like, bam, there's a weird patch of hair. Like I was just like one 10th of my chest was werewolf right away. No way. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:34 And just like coming down, like the left chest, the left. Poor guy. Yeah. So wait, you had to wait. So,
Starting point is 00:34:41 so, oh, so you were, you were rocking, you were rocking the shirt in the pool kind of thing. Sweatshirt in the pool. No. But yeah, that was a thought that crossed my mind.
Starting point is 00:34:53 Yeah. If that's Waterworld, then that's your cross to bear too. But yeah, no, I think all that to say is like, so from time immemorial, my concept of climate change is literally skip anything in the middle. It's just jump to the like Earth death where like I'm holding the dust. That was once my family. Yeah. And it ignores like what the reality of the next, you know, 40 years is probably going to look like.
Starting point is 00:35:22 you know, 40 years is probably going to look like. So the goal of the mystery for the future is to imagine, like, the time between now and, you know, when... It's, like, people describe it as, like, utopian, but millions of people, like, die from climate change, which it seems like might be inevitable, but it describes a possibility of like humanity changing the way that we live on the earth to actually like have a chance and it's very i don't know i kept waiting for it to like have like a plot twist
Starting point is 00:36:03 or something where it's like and actually i was the one blowing up those planes because and instead it's just very it's kind of hyper like feels like his goal the whole time is just like kind of working through it. And it's I read a review that said it's bad it's definitely worth reading but it's like it really delves into like there's long passages that are just meetings with like finance people and stuff and like talking about how you would make this shit possible but gives you a much more vivid you know idea of of like what potentially is was the work or the processes that we're going to undertake rather than like i because i feel so much of what we're experiencing right now just to be like so are we ever going to get off fossil fuels yeah and then we kind of feel really fucking just destitute and downtrodden and like you know hopeless because of just like focusing on one part when this is like a multifaceted issue with many ways to approach it to solve it. And I think that's what
Starting point is 00:37:31 that's why I appreciate works like that, that can kind of break our minds out a little bit of that like pattern of thought. Yeah, I truly just have a very difficult time imagining an end of capitalism because i like it's a quote like it's been associated with the author of this book he's not the one who said it and like when i've heard him interviewed about it he's like i don't i don't like that quote anymore but like it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism for me that rings true like i just couldn't yeah and and therefore every solution that like comes up i'm like but corporations are just gonna like fuck that out of existence like if you like any anything like that is just going to get ruined by us and i think one of the things that i learned in reading this book is that it's hard to
Starting point is 00:38:27 imagine the next 40 years from inside the United States. And like, especially from inside, like, if you pay a lot of attention to the United States zeitgeist, like it is, it has not been leading us in a direction that would suggest like that these things are possible. Right. That we're going to be talking about. So I don't know.
Starting point is 00:38:50 Let's, let's dive in. I mean, the first big question, the book suggests that like the radicalizing event that, that will bring about this sort of global zeitgeist change is that india sees a heat wave that kills like five million people like it's the there's a certain point at which if the humidity is high enough and the heat is high enough your body just can't cope like the human body can't
Starting point is 00:39:20 cope and so like it seems like if things don't change this is something that's somewhat inevitable and this radicalizes india as a country and they start doing some of the things that have been like sort of controversial ideas that people have put out there like you know putting reflective material in the upper atmosphere to reflect, to like basically dim the sun. We did miss Snowpiercer as another cheerful look at how we might address climate change. because pentatubo was the volcanic eruption that most recently like significantly altered the temperature globally for a period of time, like I think a year or two. from the UN. And it's temporary, but it like, you know, it's the first thing that changes people and starts getting people motivated to,
Starting point is 00:40:31 all right, how are we going to deal with this? We need like... Because that can never happen again. Yeah, that can never happen again. It's the largest mass death like in the history of the world. And again, if you're just tuning in,
Starting point is 00:40:42 we're talking about a science fiction book. If you're high and listening, something's like, what is this happening? We're talking about ministry for the future. If you're just joining us, this is Terry Groff. And Kim Stanley Roberts. Yes. But like, it's science fiction, but a recent article in the New Yorker pointed out that we're actually like not far from the thing, from that inciting incident happening. Like this this spring or I guess
Starting point is 00:41:07 it was last spring saw the most dire pre-monsoon heat wave in Indian history and it was only a slightly lower humidity that prevented a real life you know event on par with what happens in the book and still like lots of people. Lots of people are dying from heat already. And it's just our... I don't know. We've suggested that it's just because it's hard to imagine
Starting point is 00:41:36 and there aren't that many movies that depict people dying from heat. You don't really have it in your head what that looks like. And the pictures that come with it in your head like what that looks like and the pictures that come with it in newspapers are people having fun while opening up a fire hydrant right yeah and so this is an event that like kind of makes it real for everybody in india at least and that that seems to be something that they also wrestle with
Starting point is 00:42:05 that I'm glad they did. It's not like all of a sudden, everybody in Texas is like, man, what happened to the people in India is really bad and we need to act on it. In the book, they're like, it needs to happen to you or to like your community
Starting point is 00:42:20 for it to be real to you. Yeah. And clearly we're, I mean, that's usually how the u.s works is like it has to literally be on your fucking doorstep walk through the door and fuck your shit up and then you're like oh okay so that's a thing but yeah he talks about an example of like a neighborhood that got destroyed by a tornado and like the people the neighborhood over were like yeah well that was on them they were they were in the path of that tornado and it's like well that could have been anything well yeah that's
Starting point is 00:42:49 like even like those like like small group of republicans in north carolina they're like really worried about sea level rise and yeah like they're like just shut up they're like i live here and i'm watching it the fuck are you talking about right yeah but anyways so he wrote this book in 2019 right he gave a speech this past april that he actually said the book is too bleak like he says calling like the the book talks about how the 30s is what he calls a zombie decade because of all the like institutions that are still coasting on the inertia of you know the past order of things right which you know banks running everything in the united states and stuff like that even though they no longer serve us or you know make sense in the world and he thinks that's actually already
Starting point is 00:43:39 too pessimistic and like to me that sounds like, that's a great description of the world as it feels inside America right now. We're in that in-between. Yeah, just things that are coasting off of inertia. But he sees a lot of really cool programs around the world that he finds encouraging. I do think this book kind of turned him into a public eco-intellectual. And so he is getting a lot of the information about like all the stuff people are trying, which is cool. It's stuff that doesn't get covered in the mainstream media.
Starting point is 00:44:15 And that's probably why, you know, I want to talk about it so much because it does feel like it's being kept like a secret from us us and it's kind of important information so what are the kind of departures from our you know our our current norm that you know uh that society moves into in terms of like addressing this yeah everyone just needs to get a tesla and you're good yeah just get get a Tesla and give you a lot of good money. And we're good here.
Starting point is 00:44:47 Oh, then, all right. Well, dude, it's been a great episode. Right, gang? You heard it. Get a Tesley, baby. Get that Tesla. Get that Teslizzle. No, actually, there's...
Starting point is 00:44:57 It's conspicuous in the omission that, like, he doesn't even bring up electric vehicles. Or if he does, it's just like as a... Like, there's more adoption of this happening like in the early stages. Sure, sure. We actually, like there's another thing from my search history is like car bloat,
Starting point is 00:45:12 which is something I found out about over the weekend, which is that like as people are making this transition to electric vehicles, they're also making the cars way bigger on the roads. And even in Europe. Like Europe... I'm sorry. I picture Europe as a bunch of people hunched inside.
Starting point is 00:45:32 Like those little tykes size... Those injection molded plastic... Red and yellow. Yeah. That's what I picture the shape of European cars. But the third most popular highest sales car model in europe in 2022 is an suv like they're they're turning into i mean yeah we touched on just on the normal show about how like people who are like city planning and like do that kind of stuff or just like
Starting point is 00:45:58 cars are too fucking big for streets for fucking parking lots like you're not like what it's eventually like the cars are literally gonna be too fucking big and people are gonna like fucking bump into each other not to mention that these cars are just like way fucking heavier and more tankish than ever do yeah they're so much heavier like evs like it compared to the like similar size gas burning vehicle it's not like well so you should keep burning gas but it's just it's a good example of like how in the current system right like why i'm so cynical is like the current system will find a way to take it and turn it into like in this case an arms race yeah or some kind of yeah consumer consumerist commodification
Starting point is 00:46:46 fuck fest where it's like oh yeah the way we get out of it is you buy this thing yeah it's like but that's more consumption when we're talking about what what the so what the fuck yeah and so yeah it's it's like breaking roads and it's also it's like really scary because those car carriers so the way the way this is being dealt with right now by the way just real quick and then we'll get into the things that actually work but just as an example of why this like hasn't naturally occurred to us like this this is what gets done with good ideas is like so they get these giant like f-150 pickup trucks that are twice the size of like an f-150 in 1993 but they're electronic and then they are like one of the complaints that people have is that when you have to like transport them they put them on the back
Starting point is 00:47:40 of those car carriers yeah but they're so big that like they don't you can only fit like a handful of them oh on the back of car carries wise like because yes you can see them loaded up with like the normal combust combustion cars but the uvs are so much heavier oh those things are already the scariest things to be driving next to oh fuck yeah like those car carriers where you can like just see the weight like you can just see it it. It looks like it's like a drunk, like 300 pound person, just like teetering next to you. And I have seen bad boys too.
Starting point is 00:48:14 So I'm already like terrified of what's going to happen with those. So the way that the shipping and, you know, trucking industry is trying to deal with the fact that it's like, you can't fit as many on is just asking for them to change the weight limit on car carriers so that they can carry more of them. We're not we're not a rise. We're not rising to the occasion with like actual solutions, stupidity. So to make things more convenient for the sale of objects. of objects. Yeah. And so this novel asks you to imagine that like there like as the consequences of climate change continue to become like realer and realer to people, you get a world where people are like, wait, what if instead of just doing that, what if we built more reasonably sized cars or what if since cars don't actually work and electric
Starting point is 00:49:08 vehicles are still polluting through the like manufacturing process like what if we found other solutions for getting around like what yes so one of the things that he talks about is just the need to transition to a post-capitalist system for world governance, just generally. All right. Just like that. He says, easy, easy does it. I love that. Yeah, for sure. The point is that like the climate and inequality are part of the same problem. 100%. Like the extremely wealthy will continue to make decisions as if the rest of us don't exist because under the current system, like practically speaking, as far as they're concerned,
Starting point is 00:49:54 we don't exist. They never have to see us. They never have to like deal with the consequences of their actions. Also, capitalism as currently constituted will continue to extract and like burn fossil fuels if not otherwise encumbered. And so like the current system is set up to reward people for doing things that are bad for us. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. The incentives are things that are not moving towards solutions or anything. Or they may be perceived as that in the beginning, but ultimately, no.
Starting point is 00:50:27 Yeah. And the most powerful country in the world is still the U.S. And it's run by capitalism without restraint, like proudly. Right. So one of the things he uses the model of Mondragón, which is a worker owned collective in the Basque region of Spain, España. Uh-huh. País Basco. Basco.
Starting point is 00:50:47 So this is a co-op that it's a voluntary association of 95 autonomous cooperatives that, you know, each co-op's highest paid executive makes at most six times the salary of its lowest paid employee. There are no outside shareholders. most six times the salary of its lowest paid employee. There are no outside shareholders. Instead, you have a tryout period. And then if they like you enough, you get a chance to buy in to be a part owner of the company that you work for. Right. And there is like a CEO type person that's called a managing director. And, you know, but the members themselves vote on many of everything i mean yeah like everything yeah strategy salaries policy the votes of all members whether they're senior management or blue collar all count equally and like in it he's saying that like
Starting point is 00:51:39 like moving first of all like we're going to be probably moving towards worker-owned collectives in order to survive yes and and that is a really like that example if you really like read up on there's like documentaries or you can find shit about the mondragon like they it it it will blow your mind as an american labor worker to see that you're like and then so the person right there in the factory line they own they also own the company yes exactly and then so the person right there in the factory line, they own, they also own the company. Yes, exactly. And then, but what happens like if they make less money? Well, what about layoffs? Well, see, they own the company. So then rather than answering to shareholders who are saying, well, I need my fucking shareholder value to hold up. So you
Starting point is 00:52:19 need to lop some heads off and do layoffs. They decide internally what has to be sacrificed, what can be dialed up, what can be dirt dialed down in order for the company to keep going long term. And like, that is such a completely different way to engage with what you do for work when you actually have ownership for it, which I'm glad to see something like that would seem normal.
Starting point is 00:52:43 Like would seem like naturally like a fair thing to somebody if you like presented the idea to them. Yeah. Especially if the alternative of like just full blown unfettered capitalism or neoliberalism, the current form of capitalism we live under is just like we start to see the evidence more clearly that it just doesn't like it's not possible going they got fucking little kids working at the bars now right like that's where we're at they can get their little hands inside the pint glasses miles and that helps yeah they keep the fruit flies out of the mixer bottles like no this is it but again yeah like we it we can see it play out because it is almost going like we actually already have a script it's called idiocracy right and yeah yeah it's it is that version very quickly my brain you know is so like
Starting point is 00:53:36 capitalism poisoned like it immediately when you talk about like a co-op like there's this quote in this profile of mondorgone in the new yer where Larry Summers, our favorite guy, Harvard president, so he must be liberal and smart, characterized co-ops as intrinsically sleepy and short-sighted. When you put workers in charge of firms and you give them substantial control over the firms, the one thing you do not get is expansion. You get more for the people who are already there wow everyone is greedy and will try and fuck you so you just have to fuck them back like it's just that very basic like intrinsic kind of cellular greed capitalism model of humanity that i like grew up in like that's how i thought for a long time the world worked.
Starting point is 00:54:25 But so Mondragon, there's probably a good reason that we don't know about it is it has succeeded. Sorry, did I cut you off? No, no, I'm just kind of just rambling on the side agreeing because, yeah, I mean, like, it's just wild when he's basically saying it's like, yeah, the problem is no just destructive growth. Right. That's the thing. That's the only thing about it. And when you hear people who work in worker owned co-ops or like even people in like in Mondragon, they're like, it's clear. Profit is important because you need that to to help sustain a business. But that is not the fucking be all end all it's to it's to it's to ensure the longevity of the of of this project and just be able to
Starting point is 00:55:13 have it be something because like these some of these people are like second generation uh in the co-op or they're like yeah my fucking parents started this shit yeah and yeah so now it's up to us to like to shepherd it as far as the like no growth thing is concerned this started in i think the 40s as like a four people four students from like this priest who is the founder like created a community college and then like worked with four of the people who graduated from there who were like really promising students. Like,
Starting point is 00:55:47 I don't think I have all of this correct, but like it started with like four people that he was like, I bet you guys would make a good company. And now they employ around 80,000 people. 76% of those work in manufacturing co-ops and are owners. And it's not like, I think the only thing that I had really heard of as a co-op in the U.S.
Starting point is 00:56:08 is like grocery stores or like little like boutique stores. Just like Mondrag, I'm like, one of the manufacturing companies makes bicycles at an industrial scale. Others make elevators,
Starting point is 00:56:20 produce huge industrial machines using the production of jet engines, rockets, wind turbines. They have schools, large grocery chain, a catering company, 14 technology, R&D centers. They even have a McKinsey-like consulting firm. Hey, see? Right?
Starting point is 00:56:38 Yeah, exactly. In 2021, the network brought in more than 11 billion euros in revenue. So I don't know. Like, I don't want this to be like and they've never had a problem but it's it's so directly flies in the face of everything i've ever heard about socialism or like well the possibilities of like how an incentive structure can work because of being you know raised in this country right and so the book just like generally creates a model of the present and near future where like things just
Starting point is 00:57:14 aren't i think i assumed like the internet had this like promise when it first like became a thing and like websites and you know the freedom of information and i just assumed that like the fact that it inevitably got fucked up by the forces of capital like it that it is inevitable and but like when you take a step back and like think about how things could work under a system where like the economy works to serve people rather than like people working to serve the economy like that's a line from the book that is like so basic i'm embarrassed that i stopped and like wrote it down but it seems profound that was your that was your real eyes realize real lies you're like oh what the fuck
Starting point is 00:58:08 man hold on man yeah i don't i know it's so simple but again to when you've been propagandized and evangelized about capitalism through from fucking the gamete phase of your life yeah like yeah it does it does seem like it's just like you can't even imagine the inversion of something it's like no what yeah we gotta we gotta help the economy it's like no motherfucker there's nothing about social media that inevitably says that the cup the companies who provide that service would sell your information for marketing purposes and it's kind of weird that like it turned into like a brainwashing like addictive competitive like fucked up thing like it right like but that's what hypercapitalism does to everything like the blockchain is a cool technology in theory and hypercapitalism turned it
Starting point is 00:59:01 into a fucking ponzi scheme right like that's what people think of when they think of the blockchain, whereas like it could be a very valuable tool and probably will be into the future. They actually do talk about the blockchain. How is it used in the future? In the, in a ministry for the future, they use it to just make it so that the hyper wealthy can't hide their money
Starting point is 00:59:23 in tax havens. Like all, all money is. Yeah. All money is online. So it can't be hidden anywhere. Right. And the way that that's brought about is that there's like an attack on the Swiss banks where a lot of the hyper wealthy hide their money. And it, you know, they lose they lose track of all the different accounts that they have and basically
Starting point is 00:59:47 they're like all right well we need to make it so that this information is just publicly available yeah because the old system kind of no longer works and i guess the the importance of the internet like point that is that like now everyone knows so much more than they did before like the internet gives us access to all this information uh all these tools for accessing the information and it's still just like a tiny drop but it right it's harder to fool people and it's easier to kind of it's going to be harder to hide the realities of the ship from people, or at least it should be in theory. Right, right, right. It's, I mean, it's interesting because so many of these things, right, because I know another element, because I've seen Kim Stanley Roberts speak
Starting point is 01:00:36 before too, and he also talks out about like regenerative agriculture and, you know, for something, you know, in my mind it's kim stanley robinson i've said that before i think yeah what did i just say stanley roberts oh why did i just yeah sorry i then i said kim stanley roberts for anyway like in other talks i've seen him give just like about the book and just like other sort of like climate change like well like what's like what the fuck are we about folks kind of talks is to also see like regenerative agriculture be brought up so much which again feels like when the ultimate sort of theme like if there is any sort of quote-unquote solution it's like to completely
Starting point is 01:01:15 like unfuck our heads with the idea that growth is good and we need to be seeking profits at all costs yeah and especially with regenerative agriculture it's like a really good way to wrap your head around just how we do things in like the most backwards way because current like just gigantic mega agribusinesses we're all about especially in america just monocrops it's like this piece of ground will only grow fucking soybeans or corn or whatever when that's done we're gonna fucking we're gonna boost the fucking because it's all about yields what we can get
Starting point is 01:01:52 from this it's all about putting as many fertilizers in and all kinds of chemicals and shit to bring about higher yields and then once we pull that shit out we just let that patch of dirt stay fucking dirt and do let like don't let like nature do its thing. Like allowing, like, for example, just like the soil erosion is a huge thing that I was not really understanding its connection to our ecosystem.
Starting point is 01:02:16 And the destructive way that we farm doesn't allow for our soils to actually regenerate the microorganisms that it needs and also allows for things like, you know, better water absorption. So they're like versions of it, like no till farming, like we're not just fucking ripping shit up and allowing plants to put roots deeper into the ground, which means if they have, they can go deeper into the ground photosynthesis, they can take that fucking CO2 and put carbon directly into the soil. And another huge part of it I did not realize was that as a reservoir to capture carbon, the ground is like something like many times larger than the atmosphere in terms of its capacity to absorb carbon.
Starting point is 01:02:59 And like when you look at something like that and you're like, holy shit, a lot of and again, I'm doing a very like very simplified distillation of regenerative agriculture. But the idea that we need to be actually working in harmony with the earth actually also helps for things like the desertification of our land for drought and, you know, carbon capture. And now that's. Miles, how do we 10x that? How do we scale that? Okay, this is how we 10x that. Double click on that real quick for me. Yeah, yeah. Bank play? Bank run on that?
Starting point is 01:03:29 Yeah. Dude, what do you think? VC play on that? Yeah, this should regenerate agriculture. It should be people's new social media. It should be people's new bank. Well, this is the thing. This is where our old ways kind of slip in, right? Because now many people are using the term, but with interchangeable definitions, whether that means it's regenerative in the sense in the process that we're doing or that the outcomes are regenerative. And they mean very different things in terms of how we're interacting
Starting point is 01:03:55 with the earth. So again, like when I read stories about that and some people like the most optimistic forecasts and the white paper that the stud that this like forecast was based off of has been debated by other scientists was saying that like you know if you actually were able to properly do certain regenerative practices on like all of our grasslands and farmlands and that just sort of became the norm it we we would capture all of the carbon that's emitted right now already and have the capacity for more gigatons of carbon now i think a more not getting completely carried away with that version of that at least for me that is heartening is the idea that we we have all of these tools
Starting point is 01:04:38 that we know work right and whether that means it's going to 100% or even fucking 30%, any reduction is a good thing, along with all the other things we're trying to do as a species. But being able to see that those things are available, these are things that we are trying to implement, people are definitely trying to implement it, there are definitely like large interest groups that are trying to do it for many different reasons. But that helps me as a human being move away a little bit from the water world idea of where this thing goes.
Starting point is 01:05:13 And to know that like, we have the ways to do this. We just have to fucking put it together. And that's the fucking hard part, right? But I think for me, it's better to have an idea of how to like to actually address the situation rather than to be completely
Starting point is 01:05:32 resigned to the fact that it's going to overtake it like the way I felt about police violence in 2014 is very different than how I think about police violence and how to actually address it now now that I've I've done like more research, more work, more interacting, more conversations with people to know that it's not
Starting point is 01:05:50 just like, man, it's always going to be like this. It's like, well, no, there's things like qualified immunity that are holding us back. And in the same way, it's really good to be able to also arm yourself with these kinds of points of knowledge because it goes a little bit less from like okay well i guess i'm gonna wear my football pads with spikes in it and face paint i burnt out honda prelude in the desert to being like no man like these are a lot of things like we need to be thinking about more and are there but again that's that's our main battle is to not is to be able to coalesce around these things yeah can kim Kim Stanley Robinson, like in a speech from... Is it Roberts?
Starting point is 01:06:29 Kim Stanley... I think I've been saying Roberts and that might have fucked everyone else up. But it was funny. When I Googled his name a few weeks ago, I found a... I found a... Like one of the Google hits was a transcript of one of our podcasts where I called him Kim Stanley Roberts.
Starting point is 01:06:51 I know. Every time I actually talk about it in my mind, I always say Swiss family Robinson. Exactly. I say Kim Stanley Robinson too. That's a miracle, empirical rap. Miracle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, y'all.
Starting point is 01:07:03 The fever cooked my brain but he he talks about how like in the years since the book because the book does talk about regenerative agriculture but he's like i was a little bit skeptical that it was as big a deal as people were making it seem he was like i i thought it might be kind of like AI, like this buzzword that people are throwing out. I'm like, this is just the solution and we can like knock it out and 10 exit and scale it. And he's like, no, it's, you know, it's actually a real thing. But again, it's it really is like a thing that I've heard him say multiple times is that like, and he says it a couple of times in the book also, is that like profit is inherently predatory and is inherently going to like that. That can't be the motive of a world that gets out of this problem.
Starting point is 01:07:56 Right. Because if that if that in any way is intersecting with what's presented to you as a solution, it is not. It's actually the problem. And even as much, and we see this so much, like in how we are presented products as consumers, as a way to do your part, et cetera. When you do,
Starting point is 01:08:16 you do a lot better is like, if you fucking can find ways just to do things immediately around you. But yeah, it is, that's kind of what's interesting or that's that's what makes it so daunting is that it's like okay so the way out of this is the opposite of this eventually yeah but i think at a certain point there are too many people who are not benefiting from the current like order of things that you i I guess our hope is that we can,
Starting point is 01:08:47 we just hit that critical mass where we're all realized like it's, like something has to be drastically different. Yeah. All right. Let's take one more quick break. We'll be right back. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life.
Starting point is 01:09:05 It's too late for that. I have a thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.
Starting point is 01:09:25 What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.
Starting point is 01:09:41 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. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves,
Starting point is 01:10:15 the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. A lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team?
Starting point is 01:10:38 I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On segregation academies, when civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric.
Starting point is 01:11:02 If you follow me on social media, you know I love to cook or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyt, Alison Roman, and of's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water. Think a candied bacon Bloody Mary, tacos with cabbage slaw, curry cauliflower with almonds and mint, and cherry slab pie with vanilla ice cream to top it all off. I mean, yum, I'm getting hungry. But if you're not sold yet, we also have kitchen tips like a foolproof way to grill the perfect burger and must-have products like the best cast iron skillet to feel like a chef in your own kitchen. All you need to do is sign up at katiecouric.com slash good taste. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C.com slash good taste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did.
Starting point is 01:12:25 I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. in Major League Baseball. And then the Doc Brawl came up afterwards. And I was like, guys, why are we so obsessed with all these fights? And it sounded like I was like, no big deal. Leave white people alone. You're like, guys, let's not get carried away with this video. Moving along. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we got to clean this up. Right, right, right.
Starting point is 01:12:43 So, yeah, I chose the exact wrong moment to be like, enough with the fistfights, folks. Guys. Guys, why don't we just all love each other and be nice? Yeah. But anyways,
Starting point is 01:12:54 I've watched it from all the angles. Oh, yeah. All the key moments, the swimmer, the Aquamane. Scuba Gooding Jr. Scuba Gooding Jr. Scuba Gooding Jr. Swim cell Washington.
Starting point is 01:13:07 Shaquille O'Gill. Yeah. Wait, what was Washington? Shaquille O'Gill? So many, the hat throw is just wonderful. And the folding chair. Oh, yeah. Some things.
Starting point is 01:13:22 So I went back and watched the argument that led to it and the restraint from the eventual hat thrower to not start throwing hands at the people as he's having this conversation is not to be overlooked. It reminds me of like when
Starting point is 01:13:41 an umpire is talking to a baseball manager, and the baseball manager is just swearing in their face and spitting on them. And the umpire just had... Their point is just very basic. This boat needs to go right here.
Starting point is 01:14:01 And he's just pointing... This is a message that could be explained in five seconds to a five year old. But because you are drunk white boat people who have been in the sun all day, this is taking an hour. So just I want to shout out his his restraint in the in the lead up to them then fully like, like you know sucker punching him and gang tackling him that's why there's so many levels of catharsis as a black viewer too where there's that restraint where you know you can't fully come for this fucking drunk asshole and you kind of got to take it and And you're like, God, I know that fucking patience. Then when the hands get to flying, it's the next level that the fucking portals open in the Avengers.
Starting point is 01:14:51 And people are like, we're fucking here and we're not going to watch this shit happen because it or nicole hannah jones talking like you know there's a history in alabama obviously and there's obviously a history of racial spectacle like violent spectacles where people have had to watch untold horrors happen to black people at the hands of a white mob and there was just really nothing you could do because of the white supremacy that exists in our country and to watch it all kind of coalesce into this like three act Shakespearean like brawl is like, it's really, it's really something. I don't know. Sequoia, how would I, you know, I know I see that. I see the energy coming from you just from the mention of it.
Starting point is 01:15:39 But yeah, did you, where, where are you at with the video now? This filled my spirit up so much. I have never felt so nourished as I did watching this particular piece of content. It is so cathartic. Like you said, like we're watching the entire story arc, something that was captured from so many different angles. Yeah. You're like, OK, that's how that started. Oh, we got here okay but my favorite part of the video is when we watch the crew get off the boat and the people are skipping up to the boat with the white people on it the skipping is a threat if you've never
Starting point is 01:16:19 seen somebody skip to a fight you take it as some light if you know you know that is a that's a warm up it's a warm up like it's a warm up my man's was so giddy to skip to be also that moment where the boat gets close enough for the dock to the dock for them to disembark there it's like almost like at the gate they're like let me fucking get off this. It's D-Day. I swear to God. It's like leaning over the edge. Yeah. That was my favorite commentary where the people watching were like, oh, here they go. They knew.
Starting point is 01:16:52 They're like, oh, no, you fucked up. You fucked up. And you get bonus black points if you said oop or boop every time you saw a punch connect. Oop, boop, boop. I know you boop. You felt that? You're taking me out. Oh, my God. It was so good watching it with the commentary. of punch connects you know what I mean boop boop boop oh I know you boop you found that you're taking me
Starting point is 01:17:06 out oh my god it was so good watching it with the commentary everything about it was so good I have not seen a video that made me feel that good
Starting point is 01:17:13 in so long yeah and you know what I think there's something too like that I saw you pointed out on the root also that just like
Starting point is 01:17:20 the reason I think too that it feels better is that like luckily no one is pulling firearms out. Yes. No one died. Yes. That would have been a complete different thing would have been a whole other escalation and something that we kind of brace ourselves as Americans to be like, oh, shit, there's group violence. Someone might start busting something from somewhere in the South. I'm shocked nobody had a firearm on them.
Starting point is 01:17:46 I was shocked. Based on new police reports that came out, apparently one of those guys was throwing racial slurs at that dock worker and also said they were going to go get a gun, too, according to one of the people that they witnessed and another person who was working with the boat. But part of me, this is just a general warning to people you have to know when someone is at their like wage job and you fuck with them
Starting point is 01:18:12 chances are they are there will be some kind of like collective response like having a shitty job is like being in the game you know what i mean yeah when you got that shitty job you're like yo you are not, like, you'd be like, look at this motherfucking talking shit to him. Hold the fuck up. Absolutely.
Starting point is 01:18:30 You are going to get a level of smoke returned to you when you fuck with somebody at their job, too. That's the other part. I was just like, they have done no analysis.
Starting point is 01:18:42 They did not do the proper threat analysis with this. They did not have any context to have the proper threat analysis if you've never seen somebody skip to a fight you don't know that you're in grave danger when that happens if you've never like had a wave job wage job i don't know these people obviously they might have but if you've never had that collective action spirit you don't know that you fucking with this one person this is a dog whistle everybody's on you right now right and there are definitely more people who have had shitty jobs than not like that it's also
Starting point is 01:19:13 you know people pointed out that like the the structure of the video is people standing by watching and then joining in and that's a big deal because like standing by and watching horrible shit happen is how i think a lot of people feel a lot of the time now yeah and so like that there's something cathartic of you know the it starts as one of the things what one of those types of videos that we've seen so many times and then the thing that doesn't usually happen and finally happens where everybody is able to join in. And there are more of us than there are of them in a lot of these circumstances. But it just hasn't felt that way to this point. And I think I don't know.
Starting point is 01:19:59 I think it does a good job of driving that home. So and I was fully prepared for the cops to not arrest any of the voters, the initial voters. Oh, yeah. And I was I was still going to be like, OK, I'm going to look at these black men that went to jail on this behalf as vigilantes. And like, you know, right. But they went ahead and arrested all the right people, too. You could not have had a better video. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:20:23 Even the chair guy even the chair guy the chair guy they're like look we don't we don't have charges but like bro we need to talk to you man we need to talk to you because right you that was it and you you fucking united that poor woman with the fucking chair that's why i started watching through my eyes where i was when i saw the chair come out i was like oh this might get a little bit more violent than I'm comfortable actually doing. But luckily it was plastic. It definitely, the way... But it was plastic, right. Nobody was bleeding. Like, it was like, okay. Sure. It wasn't WWF style, but... I don't know.
Starting point is 01:20:51 One of my favorite moments is when they're arresting the chair guy, and then that white woman comes up in, like, the all-white dress, and I don't know what she says to the cop, but the cop just, like, gives her a tiny shove. And it's immediately revealed that she is way too day drunk to be in this situation.
Starting point is 01:21:10 I'm like, does the wobbliest fall on her ass that I've ever seen? Oh, man. That's one of the great falls in the video. Yeah. Some of the men jumping in the water to avoid the fight. Yeah. It was all good. That was truly, you know, you can't, sometimes your ignorance does boomerang back to you.
Starting point is 01:21:31 And I don't know what, I saw this one, there was like one fucking, someone made a TikTok parody video of like, try that in 2023. Like, I don't know what year you thought it was, but try that shit in 2023. Jason Aldean, what's he think of this? No, no, thought it was, but try it in 2023. Jason Aldean. What's he think of this? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. People are people. People got their eye on the prize.
Starting point is 01:21:52 And yeah, like I think if there's a Jack, you wrote in here about how people pointed out that it is, you know, this is this is Black August, too, where a lot of significant things have happened in black history, including rebellions, the Nat Turner rebellion, the birth of Marcus Garvey and Fred Hampton. Like, this is another historical month in Black history. And it's kind of like, not to say that this is in line with that, but things happen in August. The Ruth did a list there with this as the latest in a timeline that has, yeah, Fred Hampton's birth, the March on Washington, you know, the Watts riots, the Ferguson protests beginning. And I kind of loved it. So, yeah. Anyway, just y'all, please just listen to people who are trying to keep you safe. You know, that's that's all this guy was trying to do. And then you had to go and get in your ugly racist bag.
Starting point is 01:22:46 And look what happened to you. Look what happened to you. Look at you. Yeah. So, God, between between that and the Boston cop video. So, so many healing videos. Boston cop videos. Oh, man.
Starting point is 01:22:58 And I thought Oppenheimer was the best thing I saw this fucking week. No. Damn. Top three movie that you saw this week. Top three movie I saw this fucking week no no damn top top three movie that you saw this week top three movie i saw this week uh in the last week the doc brawl then boston pd cop slide then oppenheimer yeah yeah that's good that's an oppenheimer deserves oscar attention but so does this yeah yes yes yes we need we need this to be like just captured in like renaissance like painting form you know what
Starting point is 01:23:23 i mean wow what if beyonce placed footage of it on her show i would be actually really excited a different but yes that would be i don't know what effect that would have on the crowd but it would have a fucking effect for sure when would she play that you know what i mean when could she like what song could she juxtapose that? And people are like, yeah! I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Womp womp. Womp womp.
Starting point is 01:23:52 And you're like, oh, shit. All right. That's going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like the show. 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. Thank you. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
Starting point is 01:25:14 There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation,
Starting point is 01:25:29 then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer
Starting point is 01:25:40 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.
Starting point is 01:25:59 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. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single
Starting point is 01:26:20 game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.