Target’s Fake Smile Mandate, Elon Would Fail Turing Test? 11.12.25

In episode 1963, Jack and guest co-host Andrew Ti are joined by comedian and host of The Faucet & Broccoli and Ice Cream, Myq Kaplan, to discuss… More Emperor’s New Clothes, Target Is Forcing Employees To Smile and more!

1. Bezos's Evil Sci-Fi Fantasy World (Clip)
2. Great Job, Internet!: Joyce Carol Oates ethers Elon Musk on his own platform
3. Target is now requiring its employees to smile more
4. Target has a new approach for its employees - smile more!
5. Shoppers were already leaving Target behind - now half employees say they have little faith in store
6. Target distribution center is so large employees say they spend 30 minutes walking to their station and should be paid for it
7. Target Workers Reach Nearly $2 Million Deal to End Wage Lawsuit

Myq Kaplan's new special "Rini" coming November 19!

LISTEN: Sunset Canyon by Foxwarren

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
So we've been watching Alien Earth for a few weeks
behind the curve there. But my husband said the words,
said the phrase because I was like, did xenomorphs always
just look like a guy running around in a xenomorph suit?
And yeah, he goes, xenomorphs are part human and I
was like, well, obviously I understand the provenance of alien

(00:27):
DNA and xenomorph DNA, and I'm like, well, they share
DNA with humans. He said, they are part human, which
I disagree with, and I need your your Oh.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think originally it was that they're part like whatever
got face hugged, but now with Prometheus, I think they're
just straight up part human. Yeah, all right, all right,
I think I think because that was what that was,
what happened, That's what poor Numi was it newly Repace?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, was she was it?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Whoever it was? Whoever it was at the end the
end of Prometheus. Basically you only see her corpse in
Alien Covenant. But yeah, so her corpse this DNA. I
guess presumably it's it's implied that it's her eggs got
turned into the alien eggs, but you know what I mean, Like,
I'm pretty sure that's that's now just like part of

(01:27):
it is like every alien has I believe new me repaced.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
We could have looked this up, but I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, it has a little bit of new me repaced
DNA in them.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Okay, and she's a human, so yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
That's because of old David.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
But she's also though, a straight up creationist who somehow
believes in xenobiology. So the character or the Yeah, there's
multiple points in Prometheus where they're like, we're doing this,
you know the how okay for God with a capital
gene says we're says for letting.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Me like yeah, yeah, yeah, you can keep talking.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
We're no, And multiple points of Prometheus they're basically like,
oh God did this, and it's like, you're a goddamn biologist.
What the hell are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (02:17):
Hi?

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Mike, Hello, Hi, we're furious over here about uh Prometheus.
I'm really sorry to hear that. Yeah, thanks for doing
the show, Yeah, thanks for having me. Are you an
alien fan Aliens in general?

Speaker 5 (02:36):
Yes, the alien movies and stories specifically, I've seen some,
and I would say I have enjoyed.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
But if you're an Aliens fan, then you are. Then
maybe I'm not one. I'm not, but I just know
too much about this ship.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
That's that's very interesting to know a lot about something
that you're not a fan of.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
Really, I got, I got. Really, people are really bad.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
At me over the things I said about Alien on
the last promo clip these guys put out.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah, was pissed.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Because I wasn't our point just that they're not a
good weapon, they're not the perfect killing machine.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
My point, the point that I thought was being made,
was the freaks in the Alien movies who are like,
what a what an amazing organism? Those guys are wrong.
That was my point.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I'm sorry you God for that.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
I liked it. Is it?

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Is it possible that when you try to make a
nuanced point on the Internet there might be some people
who respond as though they don't understand the exact nuanced
point you're trying to make.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Is that to you?

Speaker 3 (03:49):
It's definitely a theory. You're good and they're bad. I
get it, Yet I can't be that. Hello the Internet,
and welcome to season four to fourteen, episode three.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Of Dirty Zi Guys Job.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
There's a production of Iheartradios, the podcast where we take
a deep dove into American share consciousness, and it is Wednesday,
November twelfth, twenty twenty five. My name is Jack O'Brien
aka Potatoes O'Brien, and I'm thrilled to be joined in
our second seat today by today's special guest co host,
a hilarious and brilliant producer and TV writer. You know

(04:31):
him from the US This racist podcast, a new star
Trek podcast that I'm thinking he'll probably tell us about.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
It's Andrew D.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
I'm guessing he's contractually obligated.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
I forgot to doing AKAA come up with one.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
But I'm just very clearly I am the way to
obsessed with alien biology, alien of all kinds. So that's right.
The fucking scientist is in the house. What's up, my
the fake scientist is here.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
That's rightationist scientists. Andrew T. Andrew wre thrilled to be
joined by a very funny comedian who you've seen on
basically every TV show that has ever featured stand up comedy.
Doing stand up comedy is a very funny stand up.
His newest special is out next week on YouTube. His
two podcasts are The Faucet and Broccoli and ice Cream.

(05:20):
Please welcome Mike Capwa. So happy to be here.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Mike Kaplan AKA, a guy whose last album that came
out was called Aka, and a guy who will point
out that Andrew T and Aliens have the exact same
vowels in that A and I and an E, so
we're not so different.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
You and Aliens.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's right. Yeah, thanks so much for having me a
pleasure to thank you for being here, an amazing I
for the vowels and people's gimes.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, vowel expert, that's right, you know all five.

Speaker 5 (06:00):
And sometimes and even sometimes doub you in certain situations.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
Why how come single you gets to.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
Be a vowel all the time, but double the single vowel.
I'm coming here to ask questions that no one cares about.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
So real wants to answer because no one cares to answer.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
Some comedians say the things that everyone's afraid to say.
I say the thing that everyone it's similar, but for
a different reason.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
They're afraid of what it would do to their career.
Sometimes a vowel is that.

Speaker 5 (06:39):
In the English language, not so much, but in other
languages sometimes here's the way that I did. I studied
linguistics in college and all such fu. Yes, so the
way that why is sometimes a vowel is that it's
basically the same as the letter I or the E
sound in consonant position. So you know, if the word

(07:02):
starts with A with a y, it's as if you
just said e, like yes is yes?

Speaker 4 (07:08):
You just say yes?

Speaker 3 (07:09):
It is like an E and anything that starts with a.

Speaker 5 (07:16):
Exactly, and it is basically the same when anything starts
with A with a sound, with a W sound, it's
basically you're starting with an ooh, you know, like like
what are we talking about? What are we talking about?
You know, So it is as much theoretically as much.
But for whatever reason, you know, we put why's in

(07:36):
vowel positions sometimes like in a tryst or a myth.
You know, the the why is the only vowel. I
don't know if there are any. Here here's the place
I figured it out as I was talking about it.
Here's the one place in the English language at least
where W acts as a vowel, no other vowels in
the word, and it is the verd P W N

(07:57):
pone and our consonants W. I just anyone thought that
I couldn't name it, you just got poned.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
I was going to say, if you're a graphic designer
from the mid two thousands.

Speaker 4 (08:09):
V is also a vowel.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Just you know, that makes a lot of sense because
V is for vowel.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Looks like you.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Rules such a such a great about universe of information that.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
We've just you guys talk about the zeitgeist. But I'm like,
we're gonna do my zeitgeist.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Okay, the Kathlin Zeitgeist. We're going to get to know
you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're
going to tell the listeners a couple of things we're
talking about. We've got a broad theory that I'm working
on on that, like, as billionaires and people in the
Trump administration become more and more isolated, we're just getting
like a more and more entertaining look at what the

(08:50):
inside of their brains look like, like what every everybody
thinks is cool. We got Jeff Bezos entering some like
stadium and on PEP rally through a laser tube flanked
by late saber wielding guards. And then more importantly, Joyce
Carol Oates telling Elon Musk who he was on Twitter

(09:13):
and him like, we're having a really hard time dealing
with that. So we'll talk about that. It's a little
update to the new Emperor has Emperor's New Clothes era
that we're living in. We're also going to talk about
Target is forcing employees to smile, and they have new
rules around this, like with if you're within ten feet,
you have to do this, if you're within four feet

(09:33):
you have to do this. And I think it's good. No,
I think I think it sounds terrifying. And I want
to just talk about the phenomenon of the artificial smile
because it's been exported from America to other countries with
varying degrees of damage and like surreal weirdness, all that

(09:53):
plenty more. But first, Mike, we do like to ask
our guests, what is something from your search history that's
revealing about.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Who you are?

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Sure I in preparation for this, I opened up Google
dot com and I'll tell you, Uh the here's the
the first several things stop me anytime.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
The most recent thing that I searched was literally my
own album A K. A. Because I wanted to get
a link for it to put in a newsletter where
I was mentioning it.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Uh So, look into my head is like, what's in there?

Speaker 5 (10:30):
Me? But next up is uh, Pips New York Times,
the new game. I don't know if you guys are
familiar with the new game Pips in the New York
Times suite of app uh, you know the game app
games that feature like Wordle and spelling Bee, Pips is
a new one. Like Pips refers to the dots on dominoes,

(10:50):
and so it's like it's like a.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, it's like ken Ken but with dominoes.

Speaker 5 (10:55):
So it's like or like Sudoku but with math, but
with domino So that's a fun game that every every
midnight a new one becomes available. And my girlfriend Renie
and I went out. If we're you know whatever, we're
re usually watching something and one of us will note, oh,
it's Pips time, so we'll pause, and I will. For

(11:17):
whatever reason, I don't just go into the app. I
just go into Google and search. It autocompletes Pips New
York Times, So that is that is there. Then I
put in Panda Kitchen Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, which is a restaurant
indoors my mom and I we live. My mom lives

(11:39):
in New Jersey. I live in New York City. We
both love the comedian Paul Riser. His special was the
first one I ever saw when I was thirteen and
nineteen ninety one, we saw him lie I opened for him.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
I know from a right that makes sense.

Speaker 5 (11:53):
Of course, it's all connected, but his I mean, he's
been in whiplash, he's been in stranger things, and the
boys like his acting career is really thriving, and his
stand up has been solid for as long as he
been doing.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
He's wonderful.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
Saw him live a couple of years ago, and my
mom and I were driving with our partners to go
see him in Pennsylvania, just like an hour and a
half away, and my mom I was tasked with locating
a restaurant where I, a vegan and my girlfriend, a
vegan who is allergic to gluten, can eat in Pennsylvania.
In that place turns out to maybe be Panda Kitchen, Stroudsburg.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
It is.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
I also looked up Nicki Glazer's SNL monologue. She is
a friend who I love, and I was so excited
to see.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
Her on there.

Speaker 5 (12:43):
And then also House of Dynamite White House Press Lady,
because my girlfriend Reenie and I watched House of Dynamite
on Netflix last night and she was like, I recognize
that person. Where else do we know her from? And
so I looked her up and found out where we
knew her from.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Do you do the guessing? She like, don't tell me yet,
don't tell me she.

Speaker 5 (13:04):
Is was incredible. She is amazing at like even just
if it's the eye. Like we were watching the Superman
movie a week or two ago and she had never
I saw it in the theater and I did not
recognize this guy. But she's like, is that bald guy Hank?
And at first I was like lex Luthor Hank from
Breaking Bad. No, not at all, but bald, the bald

(13:28):
guy who was the element man. Uh, you know, the
guy who could change part of his body into crypt
kryptonnight and such. He is the same guy who played
Hank No Ho Hank in Barry Yes, so much makeup
on Even when she said was, I was like, I
still almost don't see it. Reney has incredible powers of observation.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Friends with that guy, the guy who plays no Hoo Hank.
He's like a you know, family friends through and I
didn't know he was said, that's how deep he is
under makeup.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
He's so incredible.

Speaker 5 (14:07):
No Hohank character is so he's like one of my
favorite Greeings, my favorite characters in any any already so fun.
So tell tell your family to tell his family to
tell him that I like it.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yes, well, wait, Mike, going back real quick, not real quick,
to the to the vegan and Chinese restaurant thing. And
this this might be a thing you already know, but
it's a thing that I was told when I went
to Asia that I really liked. Which is that for
in Asia, especially in China, where they do have a
lot of trouble, like really really really understanding, Like no,
I seriously don't want any meat in this for real.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
You can tell people you're Buddhist.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Ah, and that's I am more Buddhist than many people. Yes,
though here's here's how a Buddhist I am. Like, I
don't want to say that I am one, because previously
I would have said Buddhist as well, like a chump,
you know, like a chump.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
But I love I've read a lot.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
I have a good friend who is a practicing Buddhist
who's taken you know, layperson vows like I have not
taken the vows myself. I would not claim to be
a Buddhist because I'm worried that people would say, oh,
you're a Buddhist.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Name three of their albums. Yeah, I do love you know.

Speaker 5 (15:16):
I've read a lot of Tick not Han and pay
my show Drum and Uh, Suzuki Roshi one of my
you know favorite like you know, teachers. And I have
this book of things that he has said that his
like students have reported, and one of them he said,
he said, Uh, for a non Buddhist, there are non
Buddhists and Buddhists, but for a Buddhist, everyone is a Buddhist,

(15:38):
including bugs, you know, just like we're all We're all
in this together, even the bugs.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I'm realizing as you say this, because because I was
told this advice and I'm not vegan, but it was
just given to I was on like a trip in
college and dah dah dah, and this was given to
a white person who was a vegetarian who was having
trouble not getting pork in their stuff.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
And I'm realizing.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
I think the choral to that is, if you're a
white person who says you're a Buddhist, you're not going
to get follow up questions, but they'll still serve you
vegan stuff. Because they will kind of roll their eyes
and be like, Okay, we get what they want, right, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
Yeah, appreciate it. I'll share one one more plug for
a Buddhist teacher who began life as a and continued
life as a Jewish woman, a culturally Jewish woman at least,
named Sylvia Borstein. And she has a book that I
believe is entitled That's Funny You don't look Buddhist so perfect?

Speaker 4 (16:31):
That's the perfect.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, amazing, But thank you, thank you for the tip.
I will use it. Mike, what's something you think is underrated?

Speaker 5 (16:40):
So under I know that I saw I remember that
this question was going to be coming. I have a
few answers. My first answer is a thing that I
love that I feel like it's so interesting to talk
about things as overrated and underrated when I feel like
all of these things are relative. Where, you know, especially today,
when your algorithm will you know, prop gate and perpetuate

(17:01):
the things that you like or that maybe you don't
even know that you are clicking on and engaging with.
And you say to somebody like, why is my computer
why does my phone keep showing me this? It's like, well,
because of you, you know, you have revealed something about
yourself and there's less of a monoculture today. So, like,
I mean, one answer that I would say for myself personally,

(17:22):
I love advice columns, and I think that most people
don't think about, or care about, or read or engage
with advice columns or podcasts as much as I do.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
We're out there.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
I'm not the only one. I'm not innovating it.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
But I think, based on my tastes, I love advice
columns and would love to and think that they are
thus because of that underrated.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, they're definitely having a resurgence of the podcast space,
Like it is a type like a format that has
been coming back, I think because it's a way to
engage with other people that isn't the news, you know,
like that which people are just like, ah, I want
to hear about like messy drama that like isn't about

(18:10):
the fact that the world is dying, And so yeah,
let me hear about the politics of your workplace, you
know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (18:17):
And oh absolutely, And there's some that are so specific
like specifically with the politics of workplace, Like there's a
podcast I think she used to have a podcast, but
definitely has a column Alison Green, and her column is
called ask a Manager, and like, I'm not even I
don't work in a quote unquote workplace.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
You know, I don't have HR. I don't have you know,
a boss and a grand boss.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
And yet ultimately, at the at the root, all of
these questions are like, you know, questions about guidelines of
how to live as a human being, how to get
along with other people, Like there's you know, relationships, It's
all very human and relatable. Even if the question is like,
you know, my boss did this specific thing, shouldn't I

(18:59):
get paid more for? Like I know, one of the
questions we address later. Oh also, just real quick, do
you think that I know we're going to get into
this later. Do you think that Jeff Bezos is following
the target model of like, hey, everyone, when I come
out surrounded by lightsabers, smile if you're within one million
miles of me, smile.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Or is he like look scared.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
Before me?

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Because the way, like everything I've heard about Amazon, like
being an Amazon executive, is that people are openly crying
in their offices, like because of how like brutal it
is to work there, like at the high level, not
just like on the you know, factory floors. So I
wonder if he has like a different kink where he's like,

(19:44):
you better not smile.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
What is that he is knowing which side? I bet
he makes no rules. It's just like everyone who doesn't
do what he already wants get gets a little fired.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, people get fired so quick at Amazon, a little fired.
That's but yes, it felt the columns.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
Yeah, I mean, I just think that we all, you know,
in life, at various points, are trying to figure out
what to do in you know, in general or in
specific situations. You know, some of us have friends that
we go to. Some of us, you know, might look
to various community enterprises you're a part of, be it
you know, a religious affiliation or you know, just your

(20:24):
your group text or what have you. And yeah, I
think and I'm not saying that I get all of
my how I live my life from advice coms. I
just I do love. There's some element also of sometimes
a person writing in is the unbeknownst to them, villain
of the story, you know, the the am I the
asshole without realizing that they might in fact be the asshole.

(20:44):
And sometimes to see, you know, a person who is
the wronging party, the more harmful person in a situation complaining,
you know, the the one percent being like, hey, the
ninety nine percent has taken one percent of my one percent,
you know, in my mind, like what what can I
do about this? And to see you know, come up

(21:05):
and delivered or just you know, a deliver it's just yeah,
it's there, can be, it could be. I have to
be careful because I don't want to just slide down
into a realm of judgment. Because I want everyone to
live their their best, happiest, most productive, you know, most peaceful,

(21:25):
healthy life. And you know, sometimes for me that involves
a little bit of schadenfreude, but I'm much more I'm
much more into freuden freude, which is taking joy in
other people's joy, which is I like to see when
people figure out what to do and learn and improve

(21:47):
and atone and make amends. So yeah, advice columns like
you don't all you don't have to be into them,
but I I'm not advising anyone, but I advise myself
to continue enjoying advice columns.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
The underrated answer to your question.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
And that's like the best advice columns do. It's not
the specific advice right, it's like the train of thought.
I feel like the best advice columnists can even just
get to the point where like I might be wrong,
but right and then.

Speaker 5 (22:15):
Oh absolutely, I mean my I feel like the for
many people, like the OG advice columnists were Dear Abby
and Anne Landers, and so certainly I did read them
growing up, but at a certain point, I feel like
there's so many people occupying the space. Like Dan Savage
was my first like advice columnist who I loved reading
as like I think I found him in college and
so I've been reading him for you know, two and

(22:35):
a half decades and listening to his podcast. And he
brings on experts when the question. If the question is
about something relating to drag, he'll bring on, you know,
a drag performer. If it's about trans rights, he will
bring on a trans guest. If it's about you know,
racial issues, I don't know, like Andrew, have you been
on the show, Yeah, yeah, yeah, But I feel like,
you know, he'll bring on people who have expertise in

(22:57):
a thing. If it's like he's like, I'm a white person,
I'm a man, this is the question.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
About, you know, not my lane.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
I'm going to bring somebody in whose lane it is
so and there's just some people who have expertise and
like are really like adults in that they've put in
the time and work and effort, and so it's a
really it's a really cool thing. And then every once
in a while, like there will be obviously sometimes the
advice will apply. Like I remember, I don't remember who
the guest was, but I was listening to the Dear

(23:24):
Prudence podcast, uh several years ago, and this is I've
seen this other places other times, but they offered this idea,
which is just never compare your insides to someone else's outsides.
If you know, if you're looking at somebody's social media
feed and be like, wow, why are they why is
everyone happy except for me? Well, because you're looking at

(23:45):
the photos that they took one thousand shots to get
the right one, and you're comparing it to your like,
you don't know every time they were like, damn it
didn't get that one, Damn it didn't get that one.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Just standing there, smile on their face, going checking this thing,
stone faced, going back, smile on their face, going back,
checking the stone face.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
They're doing the target thing to themselves. They're like, okay, smile,
we're in four feet of this bone.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Smile. You can do it. Let's get it.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
But yeah, we know, we know our cockpit, you know,
we see every dial and lever and button and you know,
emergency light. But for everyone else, it's just the outside
of the plane or like that plane looks like it
knows what it's doing.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, that's a fighter jet. Look at that thing. Wow,
I'm a lover, not a fighter jet.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
But you know, also alternately, if you're a jet, if
you're a listen you're probably not listening to this if
you're this kind of person. But if you have the
exact opposite personality as Mike, you can also find advice
columns that just tell.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
You women are the problems for all your problems. So
that is also available, also available.

Speaker 5 (24:46):
It is an art form like many others, like I'm
a stand up comedian, and stand up comedy is not
a monolith. Obviously, you can find people, you know. There's
obviously the alt right comedy verse, which is, uh, you know,
who's the force is strong with them these days, you know,
the Darth Sith lords of comedy. But then there's also,

(25:06):
of course, you're you're Maria Bamford's and a Parnaan Surla's
and Tig Nataro's and Sarah Silverman's, you know, the kindness
bosses of comedy, you know, the self reflective you know,
discussing their own mental health and how we can all sincerely,
I mean humorously, like hilariously address things, you know, from
the inside. The people who are worried about having imposter

(25:30):
syndrome who shouldn't have that where versus the people who
don't have that worry who could stand to wonder if
they have it?

Speaker 4 (25:39):
Possibly?

Speaker 5 (25:39):
But yes, and advice columnists are I'm sure no different,
certainly there if you want, I bet there are some
alt right podcast advice columns out there as well.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
I myself have not stumbled across them yet.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
You know, the thing that needs to be like distributed
more than even money, I feel, is self doubt. We
just need If we had an evening distribution of self
doubt in the world, it would be everything so much better.

Speaker 5 (26:06):
Yeah, you know, there's this, there's this absolutely there's this
thing that I love from the Talmud, which is, you know,
collection of Jewish teachings and wisdom and what rabbis said
about what other rabbis said, and there's this one thing
in it where a rabbi says, I have a piece
of paper in my pocket that says this world was
created for you. And I have a piece of paper
in my other pocket that says you are nothing but

(26:28):
ash and dust, and so this world was created for you.
You're nothing but ash and dust. Those are both true,
valuable things to remember, Like if your head gets too big,
remember you're also in the grandest scheme of the universe.
You're You're not the center of it. You're not everything.
There are other people, there are other beings, Like there
is a whole world, you know, in infinity of universe

(26:49):
that you were not a part of until you were
born and won't be a part of for another billions
of years.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
You are.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
If you think you're everything, maybe consider that you might
be also a little bit closer to nothing.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
Whereas if you grow up and have the messages given
you you are nothing. You are not worthwhile to be like, well,
this world was created for you. You are the center
of your own conscious experience. You deserve to be heard
if you like you know. I don't mean to not
to make this only about gender, but certainly people in
our society, socialized as women, girls, female people in our society.

(27:21):
You know, the the the ideas like, oh, you know,
you're you're rewarded for being quiet, for acquiescing, for going along,
for listening, for not taking up too much space, whereas
you know, little boys and men and boys to men of.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Course are our talk. Yes exactly, not boys to men.

Speaker 5 (27:40):
But you know, the especially and it's not only I'm
sure it's every privileged group.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
It's not just men. It's also white people.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
It's also straight people, it's also able bodied people, it's
also cisgender people. You know, when you are the majority
or the salient appearance in society, like for myself, I
am many of those things. You know, I am straight, cis, white,
able bodied, you know, an American citizen from birth. You know,
I have many privileges that I wasn't aware of until

(28:10):
I started learning about them. And so for me, I
was given growing up by my family and society. The
thumb really pressed down hard on the side of the
scale that said this world was created for you. And
so when I started doing comedy and being an adult
and meeting different people and who had different perspectives, I
was like, oh, listening to other people also valuable for

(28:32):
its own sake to have other people be heard and
also learn more myself about experiences that are not my own.
And so yeah, if you have started your life somewhere,
or if you're at a point in your life where
you are like not heard as much, then it feels
it's important for you to learn to hopefully advocate for

(28:52):
yourself and speak up and find people who affirm you
and value you and support and endorse and celebrate. But
for you know, for I'm a man, and there's a
lot of us out there who could stand to learn
the lesson. And not again, not just men and not
all men, but yeah, the the So, if you've never
self doubted, consider self doubt.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
Try it, try it, try it. You'll like it.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Maybe it's super Bowl commercial for self doubt. Got Jesus
one from the past two years. What about maybe some
self doubt. Let's let's take a quick break, we'll come back,
we'll do your overrate and get into some news.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
And we're back and.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Mike, we do like task our guests, what's something you
think is overrated?

Speaker 5 (29:45):
Yeah, so, I guess my shortest answer could be sports.
But that's I understand there are many beautiful stories and
families and friendships and connections people have to it just personally,
that's not where my I, you know, understanding and connection
to you know, to society and humanity live absolutely. But

(30:08):
I'll also say, sort of as a combo overrated underrated,
I would say overrated is comedy that other people like.
Underrated is comedy that you yourself like, like truly, that
is what I say with respect, like whoever it is,
whoever that because and here's the thing. It's not to

(30:28):
say that there's some really popular comedians who are great
and I love, and yet they're even at a certain
point like that, probably you don't stop when you're rated
exactly the right amount. Like you know, if if Kevin
Hart's your guy, like maybe you love seeing him in
every commercial, you know, but maybe you don't. And if

(30:48):
if Kevin Hart's not your guy, if you're like, oh,
you know, if Joe Firestones your your favorite comedian, or
Nick vaderat or Baron Vaughn or James a castor you know,
there's so many medians who certainly my mom has not
heard of yet, and your mom may not have heard
of yet. And so there's I would say that's another
I guess underrated. I guess I guess what I'm saying

(31:12):
is overrated is talking about what's overrated. I'd rather talk
about what's underrated. You know, Yeah, so talking about the underdogs.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
But I do think that's a good that's a good point.
Like I was just talking to somebody who was like,
I really like, you know, I think you should leave
and the chair company and they were like, yeah, I've
been like trying to get into I think you should leave,
and like I just it never worked.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Like I watched every episode. I was like, why did
you do that?

Speaker 3 (31:39):
It's clearly it's like I was that show the very
first skit, I was like had tears pouring down my
face laughing, and the people I was on a plane
with like thought there was something wrong with me, and
like that's so just like find that for yourself, like
if it's not happening, don't try and like it's not
that like somebody else is like you know, right, and

(32:01):
you just need to like work to get yourself. That
is just like there's something wrong with me. That's not
wrong with you or you know what I mean or
right o me? But you know, like that is just
like that shape.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
If I may, my girlfriend RENI, who is that. We
have a lot in common. You know, we're not the
exact same person, but we have similar taste in a
lot of things, like a lot of comedians that I love,
she loves, and vice versa. We're not the exact same
but I watched I Think you Should Leave before she did,
and I was going to share it with her, and
like the first episode, we turned off because she was

(32:35):
like too chaotic, like I can't write, I don't understand,
this is not a flavor that I need or want.
But then I shared Detroiters with her, and Detroitters she loved,
and by the end of watching all of Detroit Ter's
she was like, I think I have a greater understanding,

(32:55):
a greater context for like what is going on with
Tim Robinson's comedy and brain. And then we did She's
like I think I can I get it now, and
we started watching I Think You Should Leave, and with
that context, with that framing, she loved it and loves
it and we saw friendship and we love the Chair Company.
So yeah, he is now basically invented a new flavor

(33:18):
that like when like when a baby tries something a
new food for the first time, it's always like yeah
and then yeah, you know, like when when it's something
is unknown, when something is mysterious, it often can be
frightening or weird or we don't get it. But then
once you're like, it doesn't mean that you don't like it,
like it just means you might need the Like when
Stephen Sondheim wrote the musical A Funny Thing Happens on

(33:41):
the Way to the Forum. When it first came out,
it bombed and nobody. Apparently people didn't get that it
was a comedy, so he went back and wrote a
new opening number called Comedy Tonight, which.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Basically delivered the message is idle yeah ad a sing
up front.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Maybe the original title was a thing happened on the
way to the Forum, you know, because like what, who
knows what kind of thing the forum?

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Ancient realm or Greece or wherever. Boring couldn't become.

Speaker 5 (34:12):
But truly having the framing of it being comedy led
people to get it. So having the right framing for
I think you should leave led rene to discover it.
So I'm not saying that whoever this person is like
absolutely like I wouldn't recommend I think you should leave
to everyone, but as a gateway, do try to.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
If you like.

Speaker 5 (34:33):
Detroit Ters, try Detroiters, which I think is really warm
and sweet. And if you then enjoy the weirdness of Detroiters,
then try to dip your toe in. I think maybe
you shouldn't leave. Yeah, maybe that's a that's a better rampant.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
I was going to say the sort of opposite thing
to Jack's friend, which is that, like, I feel like
so many people get the advice like, oh, you got
to give it like a bunch of episodes or whatever. Yeah,
I actually think it's fine to just tap out it.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
There's just so much good comedy, comedy, yeah, everything.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
I have a friend who never got into Breaking Bad,
like I think Breaking Bad is. I mean, it's I
watched it myself, I watched it with friends. I watched
it with Renie, you know, we watched Better Calls Salt,
Like it's amazing art, like, it's funny, it's dramatic, it's
it's really weird and cool and great. And also I

(35:25):
have a friend who's like I watched the first episode
or two, ah, not for me, And and I think
I said or somebody else said. They're like, oh, you
got to give it like, you know, six or seven episodes,
and he's like, I gotta give it like three movies
worth of time before I can decide that this isn't
for me.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
And so I think that's completely valid.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
Like there obviously are things that take time to like
get the tone or get you know, get into the vibe.
Like every work, every great work of art, many of
them teach you how to experience them. Like if you've
never read Dickens or you've never you know, Moby dick
is weird, you know, but if you get like truly yeah,
any yeah, Moby Dickens, you know, anything like that. And

(36:09):
I say this not as somebody. I have not read
all of Moby Dick. I have read some Dickens. RENI,
my wonderful partner, has read like she started a project
like seven years ago to read all of like the
agreed upon great the works of classic literature. Start she
started with Moby dick. She then went on to Anna
Karinna and a bunch of Dickens, and like then, I

(36:30):
I had just had a memory of it being like.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
In school going uh, no, thank you homework.

Speaker 5 (36:35):
I don't think so, but like if you don't have
to read it, like actually, you know, there's some funny
dickens out there and it's like just but it's a
different thing, and so like every but yeah, I guess
the main message is try something.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
If it's not for you, that's cool.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
I'm at the age where I kind of every like
every so often I'm like, I would really like to
take a literature class, like a college literature class now,
and I would do all of the work this time.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
I graduated with a philosophy degree, and as I was
like trading in my philosophy books like after graduating, I
was like, man, there's like I could just like read
the stuff that I always wanted to read, and it
became like so much more interesting to me, just like
outside of the context of homework.

Speaker 5 (37:23):
Yeah, you're turning in those bodies and you're like, oh, man,
I could have just been looking at a tree this
whole time.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Stack him up.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
You ever tried that?

Speaker 1 (37:32):
All?

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Right, we should get into some stories.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
This is just more so.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
We talked on yesterday's episode about the guy conducting the
National Orchestra who is like just a Trump appointee who
is trying to be I think Secretary of State, and
then they like put him in charge of the Kennedy
Center and he like he just didn't make a wish
thing where he like went up and conducted the like
best musicians in America and like didn't know what he

(37:59):
was doing. And I think just like had the assumption
that he like this is not yeah, exactly like the
thing that we all assumed when we first saw conductors
when we were like four years old. A billionaire last
year brought his way onto the USTA Tour to play
professional tennis and get rinsed, and then also to a
lesser degree, like Donald Trump, thinking he was going to

(38:21):
get like a call un response level response from the
NFL crowd when he went there, he was like repeat
after me and did like a you know, swearing in
oh thing with the crowd and was just like drown
out by boost. So I just feel like there is
a lack of awareness, a lack of just like connection

(38:44):
to reality that is happening both with this administration and
with the extremely wealthy. And then this morning, one of
our best AKA writers and favorite guests, Christy Almgucci Mane,
on Twitter, shared this video of Jeff Bezos entering a
stadium through a laser tube that was like coming up

(39:05):
out of the earth, flanked by lightsaber wielding guards with
these like wrap around Is it Jordi from Star Trek
or maybe yeah, Jordy wla forge sunglasses, staring straight forward
and like doing like trained soldier movements. And he you know,
rightly pointed out that like you couldn't right this level

(39:27):
of even evil billionaire in a movie. Everybody would just
be like what yeh right, it's really Zoolander, doctor evil
coded shit.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
I mean, at the end of the day, these people
are rich and evil and powerful, but like they can
kill you, but they can't make you think they're cool, right,
Like they can literally murder you and whatever, but for
all of their power, they just can't. They can't make
you think they're cool.

Speaker 5 (39:56):
And right, Like with the guy who paid money to
get to quote unquote be a conductor, you know, do
conductor cosplay, Like I can understand why the organization was,
like we could really use that money to like make
good art, which you know, a lot of comedians have
been like on a sitcom that might not have been
their favorite sitcom, but that you know, I don't I

(40:19):
think Patton Oswalt is wonderful and he was on the
King of Queens and he used that money to like
fund the comedians of Comedy Tour that launched the careers
of like zach Alafanakis and Brian Vamford and Brian post Say.
And so I think that, you know, if you for
an arts organization to be like, yeah, like give a

(40:40):
thank you, like obviously everybody gets it. Everybody's not like, wow,
this guy is as good a conductor, like he's on
our stage conducting, like you can do the thing. You can,
you know, go through the motions, but it doesn't make
you have the experience of like, you know, you can
memorize words in another language, and doesn't mean that you

(41:01):
are fluent in the language. You aren't able to communicate
if you don't actually take the steps to do the work.
And so yeah, I mean obviously anything I feel like
I'm a fan of anything where money goes from the
people who have too much to people who don't have
enough or could use it better. I mean like Elon,
you know, has so much money that he got he

(41:22):
can go on stage with Dave Chappelle at a certain
point and and it but it doesn't mean that people
will like the things that he's saying.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
He can't it doesn't make him good at stand.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Up, like it's it's fast, it's fascinating, like something else
makes him at stand up. I guess because he.

Speaker 5 (41:45):
Brought that sink into his workplace, right, I know, I know,
ye the dollars.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Letting you actualize your shitty ideas is the hardest thing
for them, so that they can do it, But that
doesn't make it good.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, they're so in their own world too, like they're
just in like they haven't taken a breath outside of
the biosphere of like yes men and people who work
for them that they exist inside and so like at
least with an artist there they have to be in
touch with their audience. But these people are just like
so far off on another planet that we're getting a

(42:22):
really accurate snapshot of just like what they think is cool,
like with any input from the outside world. And it's
really sad.

Speaker 5 (42:31):
It's really sad, feel I feel, you know, I hope
that everyone discovers the truth you know and is able
to you know, grow and change and learn. But here's
like an analogy that I think goes along with what
you're saying. When I was in college, I had a
friend who didn't like cream cheese. She's like, anything with

(42:52):
cream cheese in it, I hate it. I like cream cheese.
And then one day, where as like part of her personality,
one day we're at lunch and she's eating a carrot
cake and it has cream cheese frosting, and I say, hey,
just remind me you don't like cream cheese, and she
says yes. I was like, and are you enjoying the cake?
And she says I am, And I say, what do
you know that that's actually cream cheese frosting that you're eating.

(43:14):
And then instead of saying like, oh, then I guess
there's some situations where I do like, she just pushes
it away from her and says, then I guess I
don't like it.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I was about what I like.

Speaker 5 (43:25):
And I think that's what's happening with like you said,
the a lot of you know, rich, powerful, monetarily people
spend time surrounding themselves with yes people, many yes men,
and and yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
A lot of yes.

Speaker 5 (43:40):
And the fact is that they could love like an artist,
they could love a comedian, they could love someone. But
if they love someone who can't be bought, and they
say I love this person. And then if that person says, actually,
you know, like Bruce Springsteen saying like, don't use my songs,
or like any other artists being like, you know, you
want to use their art because you love their art

(44:01):
for whatever reason. And then when they speak out and say, actually,
I'm not a fan of what you're doing in these
ways for these reasons, then they're like, well, then I
guess I don't like it.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
Actually I was wrong about it.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
When I mean, the way to grow and connect with
other people is to like truly.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
I mean, I admit this.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
I I know that I am. I don't know everything.
I know that I don't everything, and I won't hear
it hardly. I can almost not admit it.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
I don't admit that.

Speaker 5 (44:37):
I do a bit on stage sometimes now where I
ask an audience a member to ask me if I
know something that I couldn't know about their life or
their job or where they live or anything. And so
if they say, like one guy, he was a forensic pathologist,
and so he said to me, do you know how
to identify the time of death when a body is dead?

(44:57):
And I said, probably, because that's what I say at that,
I'm like, it's a thing that can be known.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
I probably know it.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
But there's people like so I think everyone.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
You know, the wisest people, your Socrates, is, you're Confucius
is they like they're famous for saying I know what
I don't know, or I know that I don't know.
I don't even know what they said, but I know
that they said. They admit when they don't know things
that it's it's it's a wise powerful strength to admit
when you don't know something you can grow to. You
can only learn something if you didn't know it. So

(45:29):
if you're closed off to information or ideas that are
different than the ones you already think, like, that's the
it's weirdly like the it's the dumbest to think that
you're the smartest is the dumbest.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
Ye, Yes, exactly. I also want to get to Elon Musk,
who got called out by Joyce Carol Oates on Twitter
and then spent like seventy two hours trying to prove
that he is a human with human feelings and like
taste in film. So original post was so curious that
such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that
he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone

(46:05):
appreciates scenes from nature, pet dogger, cat, praise for a movie, music,
a book, but doubt that he reads pride in a
friends or relatives, accomplishment condolences for someone who has died,
pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team, references to history.
In fact, he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons
on Twitter may have access to more beauty and meaning

(46:25):
in life than the quote most wealthy person in the world.
And he, you know, called her like mean Oats is
a liar and delights in being mean, not a good human.
But his clap back, but then he spent the rest
of the day talking about like movies he likes, so

(46:45):
clearly he was and the movies were like Man on
Fire is great. Fifth Element has great style.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
Oh, I mean Fifth Element does have great style.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yeah, it's it's so interesting. I heard this thing.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
I feel like this might have been Confucius, but it
was like, it's not something to paraphrase. It's like, it's
not good to try to be liked by everyone, because
you won't be liked by everyone. It's good to try
and be like liked or respected by people whose opinions
are of value to you, you know, like if you

(47:21):
like as a you know, obviously as a comedian, like
audiences are one metric of how good a comedian is,
like how much people, but people can make people laugh
with stolen jokes or older, unoriginal jokes. Uh, And like
I think the best comedians are the ones. I mean,
my favorite comedians are my favorite comedians. But if you ask,

(47:41):
you know me, my favorite comedians, like I'll name people
like Maria Bamford, and if you ask Stephen Colbert, he'll
also name her, and so many of your favorite comedian whoever,
your favorite comedian is, like who are their favorite comedians
and who are their favorite comedians? Eventually you'll get you know,
You'll you'll get a lot of Davitel's, You'll get a
lot of Hedberg's. You'll get a lot of Reggie Watts's.

(48:02):
You know you'll get you'll get a lot of really
great like agreed upon you know, kind of like not
the popular vote and not even the electoral college, but
sort of just like the the inn group, the experts
opinions and so in like the way to live life,
Like I have a friend who This is an experience
she had where she was working at a college while

(48:25):
she was getting her degree, and so she was working
an administrative job and she had dreams of like, you know,
she's an artist, she's a poet, she's a comedian, she's
a performer. She's like maybe thinking about opening a cafe
that's also a performance space and you know, getting to
be like an artist collective. And she was talking with
a fellow worker who's on you know, her level, and

(48:46):
the worker was like, you know what you should do?
And I think my friend is a kind person and
didn't say this to her face, but said to me,
She's like, I don't want advice from people who are
where I am. I want advice from people who are
where I want to be. And so like for for
a person to like who, who's whose reverence do you want?

Speaker 3 (49:09):
If you want reverence, like who's approval? Whose appreciation?

Speaker 5 (49:13):
Like I love meeting another comedian, and I mean even
like yourself, Andrew, Like we've been we've known each other
on social media at least for many years, you know,
and I be when because I think I saw you
because some of my friends were either on your podcast
or were interacting with you or had retweeted you or
you had shared them, and I was like, oh, my
friend likes this person. Let me have I'm not gonna

(49:36):
just like this person because my friend likes this person,
but I'm gonna use that as a que to look
at your stuff and be like, oh, now I from
the inside also like this person.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
I like this person's work. I like what they're doing,
and like now I'm like, oh, and you also now
know me and know what I do and like what
I do. That's cool, And that's not what's happening for Joyce,
Carol Oates and Elon. He wants to be liked by
everyone is essentially like it does feel like he.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
I mean, he's like the speed running Citizen Kane in public,
which is I guess what Twitter has done to people.
But it's just like how bereft of any like joy.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
I mean, he he made that prompt like the day
that she said that, he made a prompt in with
using rock the image AI generator with there was just
a woman that said with the words I will always
love you underneath it. It is just like.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Dark dark, not even the best use of the words
I will always love you.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
Yeah, what's wrong with man I as a as a comedian, like,
when you start out doing comedy for those that don't know,
you do a lot of open mics, and you get
a lot of silence. You know, you get a lot
of there's a lot of a big learning curve, and
you know, for some it takes you know, some people
are great out the gate, but it's much more common

(51:01):
to not be great out the gate, and you spend
months and years of you know, honing and editing and
listening back to sets, and you know, theoretically quote unquote
failing in public and eventually discovering like what you enjoy
that other people enjoy, what makes you laugh that make
other people laugh. And I feel like that is like

(51:23):
what Elon is trying to do, is what the equivalent
of an open my comedian is trying to do, just
throwing everything at the wall to see what my is
this what everyone will like?

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Is this what everyone will like? Is this what everyone
will like?

Speaker 5 (51:36):
And as a new comedian in my twenties, I was like,
I don't know what people like. I don't know, like,
I know what I think is fun and good and interesting,
but there's a lot of stuff I think I've written
for every joke that I continue to tell on stage
because it works. There are I can't even tell you,
probably thousands tens of that, however, many thousands of jokes

(51:58):
that I have tried to write that maybe I could
make work today if I put in enough time. But
it's just in the beginning. It's a numbers game. It's quantity,
and eventually you settle into like, oh, this is what
I want to talk about. This is like what I
care about, this is what's meaningful to me, this is
what I'm gonna spend my time on. But it seems

(52:18):
like and there a lot of people when you're when
you're new, want a short cut, and there's the There
is no shortcut. There is only putting time and work
and effort into it and not just paying to be
on stage with the conductor of comedy.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Elon is a like I opened my Communitian who bombed
one time and then bought every comedy club and also
every performance venue on Earth in response.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
And then is trying to do the open mic winnowing
honing process into a galaxy of sycophants who are just
like It's import for him.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
The problem is he gets enough feedback that he likes it,
but humanity still can easily see he is not funny.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
Yeah, no, anybody who's not coming in just being like,
I want this guy to like me. Maybe he'll make
me rich too. Yeah, we've own the libs.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
That's true. That's how you do that. He did that.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
We should take a quick break. I want to talk
about Target forcing employees to smile, and we'll be right back.
And we're back, and there's a there's a new program

(53:44):
at Target called the ten to four Program Good Buddy,
which follows similarly creepy rules enacted by Walmart and Disney.
So store employees are now required to smile if they
are within ten feet of a shopper. They also must
make eye contact with a wave to or greet the
customer if they're within four feet. The employee should ask

(54:05):
how the customer's day is going or if they need help.
And this is first of all. They should like pay
their employees a little wait, that would be one thing,
or pay them for all the time they're working. Target
warehouse workers had to take legal action to actually get
paid for the thirty minutes it takes them to walk

(54:26):
from the entrance to their workstation. Yeah, Target is bad
at this, but I do just find this this interesting.
Like I've definitely been to Trader Joe's and had the
experience of like being lost in thought and somebody like
the checkout person starting a mandatory small talk conversation with

(54:50):
me and like being kind of thrown and feeling a
little weird and alienated by it. But I just think
it's an interesting like the it's a thing that if
people came down or like outside of history, if people
from other eras were able to look in, I think
it would be one of the things that everyone thought
was weird about our culture, is like like because there's

(55:15):
I remember there was an either Radio Lab or This
American Life episode from the early days of podcasting where
they talked about the phenomenon of when they first opened
the McDonald's in Russia after the wall fell, and everyone
was like the people who worked there were just like
what the fuck do you mean smile at them? Like what,
like what are you talking about? And they had like

(55:35):
the hardest time getting them to do it, and ultimately
like gave up on it. There's also something called smile
mask syndrome, which was diagnosed in Japanese young women who
like work in the service industry where they have to
like smile so much that like this psychologist was like
they were still smiling while relating like really stressful or

(55:58):
troubling experiences, which I think is like the movie, the
horror movie Smile, but and like it's again they're like
this came because of Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in nineteen
eighty three, and then throughout the eighties they found this
thing of like the obligatory smile in the workplace, creating
this sort of psychological or like existential weirdness that people

(56:24):
have a hard time dealing with.

Speaker 5 (56:26):
Do you know I co sign everything you're saying, And
I obviously like capitalism is this is a feature of it,
you know, not a bug. This is it's a it's
a trap and it's unfortunate and would be better if
you know, people all could be more self directed in
how they want to live their life and not need
to be behold into these massive corporations. Like my girlfriend

(56:49):
used to work at a you know, a big department
store in the fine jewelry department, and you know, like
there were times when if you didn't like some people,
if you didn't sell as much as others in one month,
Like if a couple months in a row, your job
was potentially at risk. But there were times when if
she sold enough in like the beginning of the month,
then the rest of the month she could relax and.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
She would actually sell.

Speaker 5 (57:12):
She would be a better employee then because she was
relaxed and not you know, constantly masking and constantly you know,
on her toes to be like I gotta do this.
I got because it's ultimately, I would say, at best,
it's I mean, it's like acting, you know, like you
get a job as an actor, like well, in this scene,
maybe smile because the character is happy, you know, And

(57:35):
maybe a director could be you know, as you know,
difficult to deal with if it's a difficult director. But
I ideally, if you're making art, it's gonna be. But
here's the I don't want to I don't know that
I even believe what I'm about to say, but I
want to present this as as an option. I do
think that there's like this the guys of familial you know,

(57:58):
happenstance in workplaces like we're a family here, you know,
like hey, which they use like it's not a family.
It's your job that you agree to do something and
they agree to give you money, and like, hopefully you
get along with your coworkers, you get hopefully your boss
is a kind human being. Hopefully, But they sometimes use
that to say like, hey, maybe put in some extra
time because we're all a family here.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
You don't just back out on your family.

Speaker 4 (58:22):
But so with it.

Speaker 5 (58:23):
In opposition to that, I feel like there is something
nice about saying the quiet part out loud, or saying
it saying it explicitly to be like, look, we're paying
you to be the face of this company, which involves like,
here's definitive directives, like as opposed to just being like hey,
when people are around, try to be cool. Try to

(58:44):
make it seem like there have to be like, look,
we're hiring you to smile when you're at this particular
trajectory at this juncture. Hey, you're eleven feet I love
that if you're eleven feet away from people.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Flow nuts with your face, you know, just like shut
it down, like, don't give them a line that will
not come within ten feet of you.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
Just just sort of shuffle away as they get closer.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Right, Oh yeah, so you're running a zone defense in basketball,
you're like trying to stay in between people.

Speaker 5 (59:14):
That's like there's I think this is somebody's joke. It
might be the comedian Tony v in Boston, who's an
incredible comedian. I know he has some jokes about scientists
who study dolphins, and so this might be from his bit,
or it might just be a fact that I learned
somewhere along the way or somebody else's bit, but that
some dolphin was trained to like get litter out of

(59:37):
its enclosure. Like if there was like pieces of paper
or debris, it would pick them up and then you
would it would get fish, you know, get food for
each piece of paper that it delivered each piece of trash.
So dolphins, I don't you know, they're smart. So dolphins
would then start, after they realized the system ripping trash
in half, they would start ripping the pieces of paper

(59:59):
and being like two pieces of fish, please, Like I
got you two garbages, so give me two foods.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
And so I feel like that.

Speaker 5 (01:00:07):
Also, I wonder how how Target employees are going to
gamify it. They're like, where's the ten foot mark? Like
nothing in the rule book that says I have to
move into the zone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
This is a big corporate game of I'm not touching you,
They're just fucking running. I mean obviously, like this is
just poor even if you want to just be shackled
with the strictures of capitalism, this is just poor management.
Like you shouldn't need to define this if everything else
was being managed correctly. But I do think this this

(01:00:38):
has like a really nice letter of the law, not
spirit of the law, opportunity for some enterprising Target employees.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
Absolutely, it's you want to address the not this is
addressing the symptoms, like the external like, hey, your face
isn't doing what we wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
What do we do to make your face smile?

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
Order you to smile?

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeah right, yeah, superducer cat there and asks if they're
trying to combat the gen Z stare, which I think, oh, yeah,
the thing but that is a big news story. We
were like gen Z look at us, like they don't
know what we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Yeah, this is this is this is all I'm reading
here is this is a nationwide fakest smile contest for
all Target employees.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Yeah, he's just most unnerving smile. Can I help you?
They should just hire everyone to wear a mask. That
is the target bullseye over their face. You know, Oh
my god, that's kind of like a smile at the bottom.

Speaker 4 (01:01:35):
I would love that, honestly.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
I do personally just feel like like set on edge,
like anytime someone is starting an interaction with me, Like
I feel like you can tell the difference when it's
like enforced and when it's not. And usually any sort
of forced social exchange is like you know, someone trying
to con you or sell you something or something like that.

(01:01:56):
So I just like have an immediate like detection of like, yeah,
you get away from it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
But also target management, you know, maybe you could also
just not loudly trumpet how you don't support de I
or you know, like not lock up all your here,
all your remotely valuable things. Maybe that's why people don't
like shopping at targeting or not not the lack of
fake smiles from children of the corn.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
What do people like friends? We're going to be their friends.
That's yeah, Mike, such a pleasure having you on the
daily Zeicheist. Where can people find you? Follow you, catch
your new special all that good stuff?

Speaker 5 (01:02:38):
Yes, of course, So Mike Kaplan is my name spelled
this weird way? M Y q K A P l
A N. That's my you know, at Mike Kaplan on
all the social media at Mike Kaplan dot com. I
have a newsletter at Substacks that's Mike Kaplan dot substack
dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Uh. I've got podcasts on my own. You mentioned them,
Thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (01:02:58):
But yeah, I've got a bunch of comedy albums and
specials out there on the various streaming platforms, the latest
of which does come to YouTube New York City time
eight pm on November nineteenth and accordingly the rest of
the world. So that'll be on my YouTube collaborating with
the producers Blonde Medicine, so like and subscribe their YouTube

(01:03:19):
channel and my Mike Kaplan YouTube channel, and I'll be
in there interacting with people for the debut.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
So if you can watch it at exactly the time
that it comes out, that will help the robots tell
other people about it. So yeah, but if you remember anything,
I appreciate it. And it's the new special is called
Renie name for my girlfriend Reni, with whom I created
the special Reenie Reni on YouTube November nineteenth. Thanks so
much for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
Love the name Reeni.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
By the way, I have an aunt Rene. Is it
short for anything? Your aunt Reenie Mareen?

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Nice? Is your partner's name short, It's short for Catherine Katherine.

Speaker 5 (01:03:58):
As a child, so many mom called directions Reenie Catherine,
So yeah, that's Reenie's.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Are not a monolith? Is there a work of media
that you've been enjoying? Many?

Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
And I will say, you know, I we watch. We've
already mentioned many of them, obviously, the new Tim Robinson
works and the Nathan Fielder the second season.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Of The.

Speaker 5 (01:04:28):
We Might we might be one behind. I just realized.
So that's exciting to think about. But I will say
one piece of media that I've been really loving. I
don't know if you guys read comic books, but the
DC Universe has a new, uh, a new universe of
comics that they call, uh, the Absolute Universe, the Absolute
d C. They've like begun again. You know, your classic

(01:04:51):
heroes you're like, but with a slight tweak to their
their origin story, like Superman comes to Earth as a
teenager instead of a baby, Batman only as one parent die,
and Wonder Woman gets raised not on the Amazon Island
but by Circe in the underworld. The realm of Hades,
and so that's the one. They're all really great. I

(01:05:13):
really like Jason Aaron is an incredible writer who's writing
the Superman one, the Batman one.

Speaker 6 (01:05:19):
He's also not rich, right, isn't that one of that That's correct?
He is he is so much he is not rich.
It's really there's so many distinctions. It's really cool. Like
the art is incredible, the writing is incredible. The of
those three, like, I love them all, but the wonder
Woman one is really it's the art is so beautiful
and she's such a wonderful, pure character. I'll just share

(01:05:40):
here's one interaction she has it that I think is like,
you know, not representative of the entire story. Like the
entire story is like gigantic and beautiful in many ways.
But she's talking to Steve Trevor.

Speaker 5 (01:05:52):
I believe Steve, like you know, the main in the
original story, he like washes up on the island and
she like helps him and protects him and becomes you know,
friends with him, lovers with him, and he's like a
good a good man from the real world, the one
good man from the world outside of her island. But
so in this one, she meets him and they're about
the same height. And he's like, wow, you're really tall

(01:06:15):
and she's like, you're the same height as me. And
he's like, oh yes, but where I come from, I'm
really tall, and women where I come from like almost
no one is as tall as uh as me or you.
And she says is that important? And he's like, uh,
I guess not. And she's like, great, will you tell
me more things about where you come from that are important?

(01:06:35):
As like what an incredible? Like you know, it's funny,
it's like pure hearted, it's compassionate, it's about, you know,
commenting on women's bodies, commenting on people's appearances in a
way that like it's so simple and effective and funny
and cool and beautiful. So yeah, I would recommend of

(01:06:57):
My piece of media that I've been really enjoying is
Absolute wonder Woman by I believe the author Kelly Thompson.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
Nice, Nice Andrew. Where can people find You? Is their
working media you've been enjoying?

Speaker 4 (01:07:08):
Oh god, Andrew t everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
I have a new podcast called starter Trek that is
a premium podcast on you can get it on suboptimal
pods dot com, which is.

Speaker 4 (01:07:18):
Our yos is racist thing doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
But yeah, my podcast co host Tany Newsome Trek Royalty,
and she's basically walking me through. We're doing all the
pilots for the Star Trek episodes right now.

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
I don't know. You can see clips on our social media.
I'm really happy. It's really fun to do. I like
Star Trek, but I don't know jack shit about it.
That's where I am. There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
Sounds great.

Speaker 4 (01:07:44):
Oh and piece of media.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Piece of media is it's per Simon season in Los
Angeles and I'm eating the shit out of the per
Simmons are so good.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Yeah, there you go. Some of my favorite media. You
can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien on
Blue Sky at Jack o b the Number One. I
enjoyed a tweet from Respectful huff that said comedians and
cars eating cars. They have to eat the cars. They
have to eat their way out all capitalize. That's the

(01:08:12):
name of the show. So that's that's a work of
media that doesn't exist. Great tweet, I tell you one
damn thing. I'd be enjoying it if that did. You
can find us on Twitter and Blue Sky at Daily Zeitgeist.
We're at d Daily Zeigeist on Instagram. You can go
to the description of this episode wherever you're listening to it,
and they're at the bottom you will find the footnotes,

(01:08:33):
which where we link off to the information that we
talked about in today's episode. We also link off to
a song that we think you might enjoy. With Miles out,
we usually ask super producer Justin Connor, is there a
song that you think the people might enjoy.

Speaker 7 (01:08:47):
Yeah. This song is called Sunset Canyon by Fox Warren,
and it's really fun to listen to because in my view,
there's two ways I've seen a steel guitar applied to music,
and it can either add like a rough stick feeling
to a song or a relaxing, vintage surfer vibe, and
this manages to do both in my opinion. If someone

(01:09:08):
lives in like a seaside log cabin, this is the
song for you. It's a nice, chilled out mood for
a sunny autumn afternoon. For anyone else who doesn't have
a seaside log cabin. But this song is called Sunset
Canyon by Fox Warren, and you can find that song
in the footnotes footnotes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
The Daily Eszite Guys is a production of by Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit Yeah Heart Radio, Wrap,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
That's gonna do it for us this morning. We are
back this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and
we will talk to you all then.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
By The Daily Zeit Guys is executive produced by Catherine Long.

Speaker 4 (01:09:41):
Co produced by Bee Wang, co produced by Victor Wright

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
Co written by j M McNabb, edited and engineered by
Justin Connor.