Weekly Zeitgeist 236 (Best of 7/25/22-7/29/22)

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 247 (7/25/22-7/29/22)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Weekly Zeitgeist. Uh These are some of our favorite segments
from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment
laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is

(00:22):
the Weekly Zeitgeist. Well, Miles, we're thrilled to be joined
in our third seat by the wild Card of Mount Zepmore,
hilarious stand up comedian, actor musician with a seven point
for a rated album on Pitchfork No Big Deal. You
can listen to his podcast colbru Got Me Like or

(00:43):
streaming on twitch. His new book, The Advice King Anthology
is available to order on Vanderbilt University Press Vanderbilt University.
Can you he's Vanderbilt University? The same one you talk
about out at every guy dinner party, the same one,

(01:03):
the same one you go to goddamn Turks and Cacos
and tell everybody your son you know just got in. Well,
guess what this Brandy got into Vanderbilt. Oh that's so great.
He is gonna love it. Entrance unders and Entrance Brandon
is doing great. Yeah. And also the you know Rick,
who's the local judge. He actually dismissed his vehicular homicide case.

(01:27):
So he's got a clear plate to go to college.
Now we're really happy for him. Yeah, and they're having
this conversation out of beach Towl three after three hours
after they murdered somebody. You know. But that's what the
phone call with the businesses. It's not like a cool
way its ghost to talk about that. So you just
talk about like vaguerbuild. But yeah, I took over Vanderbilt.

(01:49):
Yeah that's ther University. Yeah. I can go over there
anytime I want. I could be like chancellor or what's up? Anyways?
Hold onto your butts because the poetry window is open.
It's Chris motherfucking Craft. What's up? Okay, I'm so glad
to be here in my in my thank you, in
my barn or whatever or wherever I'm in the storage

(02:12):
unit I broadcast from you see what's behind me? Uh? Yeah?
A bunch of junk. Looks like a yard sale. Huh
not really, I'm living that yard sale life. Do you
got a hammer there? It's not even mine, it's my
landlord stuff. It's like a bunch of children's toys and hammers,
and I mean whatever that somebody else's life that I

(02:34):
live in looks like a beach high al like one
of those beach high lie like scoop probably you know,
I don't know about the I'm like, I have to
block a lot of stuff out. Yeah, hey, that's modern
Americans surviving as a modern American. When I look at
that pile junk behind me, all I see is a

(02:55):
I see a fresh pineapple. I do I see like
I see a fruit bowl. I see a nicely arranged
fruit bowl, kind of like Sayson whoever, whoever would have
painted or whatever whatever getting party this El Greco. Yeah, yeah,
I just had some cold brew. I started talking about artists.

(03:15):
Greco is one of those rare like I don't know,
Renaissance but like master painters who also sounds like a bookie,
like a little bit. Yeah, nobody else feeling me on that. Well,
it's all right. It sounds like a mob episode. Greco

(03:37):
hashtag canceled. So so yeah, like I I don't. I
was an art history major, so I like to sprinkle in.
Uh yeah yeah, but I didn't. I was a sports
gambling major, so yeah I did. I didn't go to
class or anything. So I'm always like looking to paintings
and being like is that is that a um el
Greco or mm hmm, yeah, it could be el Greco

(04:02):
or probably Rembrandt, yeah, or you know, or it could
be could be uh Pollock Jackson. I mean, they're all
very similar, that's it impossible to tell them apart. I mean, way,
oh Greco and Rembrandt overlapped, but not Pollock. Come on, now, Chris,
holy ships, I'm just flexing on us with the knowledge,

(04:23):
just saying. I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, Chris Miles has changed.
I can read your expression and yeah, holy god. So
this is like, wow, this is like a serious podcast. Now, Okay,
I don't know, um okay, this is one of those
serious So you guys are gonna have to guide me

(04:45):
along because I like have been like completely I got
back from New York. I was in New York doing
a play acting into play. I was gone for six weeks,
and I came back to just like I don't know
if it's depression from like from COVID I had when
I was in New York, or whether it's from just

(05:07):
like being you know, popping around New York City and
then coming back to like this living situation that I'm
not crazy about. But I'm sort of spaced out, like
I'm not I'm not sure if it's code long COVID
kind of stuff, but I definitely feel like I had
COVID like a month ago now, and I feel like
I feel a little odd, like I don't know, so

(05:30):
I'm a little bit spaced out. So you know, if
I if I or if I just talk about depressing
ship today, if I'm just like, you know, sorry, I'm
just trying to like trying to get I can't quite
you know what I mean. I can't quite I can't
quite feel more. I'm trying to figure out how. But
you know, I can't get the joy from you know,
I'm drinking as much cold brew as I can, I'm
watching as much abandoned mind videos as I can, and

(05:54):
I still can't seem to get back to my usual
level of you know, just like barely hanging on. Now.
I'm like usually I'm hanging on with like yeah, three fingers,
and now I'm hanging out with too. I definitely felt that,
like it's a little maybe it's an overstatement, but you know,
but I'm hanging out. I'm not feeling it. It feels
a little bit different. I can I definitely hear that.

(06:15):
I mean, I feel like other people who have experienced
like a similar thing where they were sort of confused.
I'm like, I don't know if I'm like just have
a general malaise or if I have long COVID is
something i've well, right, what a time to sort through symptoms,
you know what I mean? Like how could you tell? Like,
I mean you could have I can have a lot
of ailments, but I mean like it could all be

(06:37):
just reading the news, Like you don't you know what
I mean. It's like, I don't know. I either have
long COVID or I read the news, or I'm clinically
depressed or I'm just a realist. I mean, how do
you you know? Or or else I have too much
clutter behind me in this zoom in the zoom video,
Like what could it? Who knows what it is? It's
hard to pinpoint. I like a nice little, seamless blend
of depression, anxiety and stomach issues that's always good. Like

(07:01):
is my stomach is that because of MS McConnell causing
Is my stomach causing it? Or should I have brain
or my brain causing my stomach? Should I have put
two cold bruise in that fucking beer funnel. I've drank
as much cold brew as I possibly can today, and
I still feel like shit. And I still feel so
anxious and so much candy too, not doing anything to

(07:25):
set on my stomach. I mean, you've taken all my
suggestions drink as much cold brew as your body can
possibly contain and candy. That's the thing is. Also, I
have like a nineteen fifties idea of what like health
and wellnesses. Like It's like I went bowling. I still

(07:46):
feel I went bowling, bowing, smoked a bunch of cigarettes,
and I still feel like ship the hula hoop for
fifteen minutes. Hey, a huge hamburger with green peppers in it.
I don't know, doctors, I'm it's not right about a
plymouth and every I bought a new plymouth and everything
I drank, drank nine rhyind golds. I worked on the

(08:07):
car like absolute shit. I'm wearing my strappy undershirt. That's
what the doctor's gonna about to ask, are you are
you wearing the strap? Oh my god, you're and you're
smoking enough, you're smoking. I don't know what to tell you,

(08:30):
except for maybe just I don't know. I have a
couple more beers and go play more pool. You know,
some more men have a few schlits. Are you gambling enough?
That's the question, right, What is something from your search history?
So I've already given the game away a little bit
because to a couple of things in my search history
a water Part Vegas and American Ninja Warrior Vegas. But

(08:52):
I can tell you the other thing we landed on,
which was Munster Jam Vegas, because that was the last
thing I was. I was in Vegas for full week
and I was pretty bored during the days. So Monster Jam,
I don't even know that is. That is a monster trucks.
That is a monster truck tournament. Big trucks, huge tires,

(09:13):
doing backflips, jumping over things. It was also that the
addition of Jam makes it feel like they're getting to, like,
you know, go off book a little bit, just like
Ja just noodle around with the monster trucks like it's
just monster yeah freestyle, and anyone with their own truck
can kind of sit in. It's just a jam, baby,

(09:35):
We're just getting down at the monster Hey, do you
mind if I brought my truck? If do you mind
if I just you know, if I jam what you guys? Sure?
I mean, I'm in the famous truck called Grave Digger.
But what do you got? I got this old one
Chevy S ten with a tonnel cover. We can kind
of bube out with it. It's it's mostly made from

(09:57):
a cigar books uhand that made it. Yeah, I've been
passed down for generations. It's been through, been to a
few jams. Wait was Grave Digger President? Because I feel
like a monster jam. I only like it used to
be Bigfoot was like the monster truck that like the
both O. Yes, then it's a proper monster jam Thomas

(10:20):
and Macarina. That's exactly it. That's the only place it
can be something though it was like some like nineties
hip hop remake of the Monster Mash. But I'm glad.
I'm glad it is what it is. I've definitely heard
from like people who I wouldn't expect necessarily to be
monster truck fans, just in the traditional sense, being like

(10:40):
I went to a Monster Truck rally. It's awesome and
now that is something I'm into, Like I identify as
a monster truck person, you know, like that. I don't
know if I would put myself that far in the category.
But I'm definitely someone who gets bored on the road
doing stand up around the country and looks for things
to do, and yeah, maybe I'll get something I could

(11:02):
talk about on stage out of it, or maybe I'll
just get an experience out of it that I can
tell people about, or just enjoy myself for a couple
of hours before I go back to the hotel room.
For you, what's been the most fruitful sort of like
experimental event you went to, like in the same vein
and you're like, holy shit, I got a lot of
more out of this in many levels than I thought
I would. Oh, that's a great question. I don't I

(11:25):
honestly don't know. I I think some of the ones
that are just surprising. Going going to a laser tag
in a with another comic that was that was a
lot of fun. That was just like I was expecting.
I hadn't been since I was a kid, and I
was like, all right, let's see how we go. And
then it was just you know, we we absolutely murdered

(11:45):
the kids. Oh my god. Where it's just like real.
You know, you're doing stuff during the day and most
people have real jobs. So if you go and do
these things, it not just being a couple of idiot
comedians and then just parents like a seventh great Birthday
party exactly, and I want to send the great Birthday party.
And I was like, I'll let the kids have their fun,

(12:05):
and then like one of them shot my kid and
then I was just on a rampage after like it
was like not doing fun stuff. I was, I like
found a good spot and then just like sniped the
hell out of like everyone were first it were you
playing at ultra Zone? Yeah? I talked. We talked about this. Yeah,

(12:26):
where you get where you used to work? Where I
used to work in Dr Dre watched me make me
very uncomfortably go there to Matt it was that was
that where you went for for later? No, where's where's
ultra Zone? Ba lead like in Sherman Oaks And we
don't even need to tell people that usually justin you
can cut that out because ultrazone is nationally famous. I
done knows where ultrazone is someone surviving? Did you get

(12:49):
ultra Zone? Was it ultrasone? Then ultra Zone? Know what
is that? That's actually the first thing that Miles had
on his resume when we were like thinking about, uh,
you know, bringing him on for this show was proud alumnus,
alumnus of Ultra Zone exactly and no no follow up,
just Ultra Zone. That's it. That's all you need to know.

(13:11):
Is a week the longest time you've ever spent consecutively
in Vegas? And follow up? Is it the longest time
anyone has ever spent consecutively in Vegas? Because that feels
like a long time to be in Las Vegas. It
is a very long time. I would say. I would
say pen and Tella have beaten that amount of time
place several decades. But other than that, they have to

(13:31):
get out. We need travel every day. Well, they definitely
don't live on the strip. I'm pretty sure they live
in nice houses and then commute into the Yeah, I
would say that is exactly five and a half days
longer than you should ever spend in Vegas. Vegas is
fantastic for about thirty six hours, and that's that's the limit.

(13:53):
I hadn't work on a Senate campaign there for months,
and were you on this trip to just like literally
one block off the strip like that? The Candlewood extended
stays fucking hotel, Matt, you have no idea. This was
like right after the subprime like crash, so there were

(14:16):
so many displaced people living in this extended stay like hotel,
like on Halloween, like kids or trick or treating, and
like I had like a front row seat at like
the financial collapse of America, and I changed at a
molecular level being there for two months. I'm not gonna
lie it. It definitely put something, put some pep in
my step to get the funk out of politics. Uh well,

(14:40):
on Thoroughly Disturbed, what is something you think is underrated?
I've got an underrated and an overrated that go together
this week, and this one goes out to all all
my white friends, all my white homies who listened to
this podcast. Underrated hats, overrated sunscreen? How can I put this?
I was on an outdoor shoot recently and they were like,

(15:02):
we're gonna be outdoors all day, protect yourself from the sun.
You could really tell who had been outside and who
had not. I just was spending the whole day watching
people's shoulders grossed and it's not fun, and they're like,
it's fine. I put on sun block. Some block lasts
for two hours maximum. You have to keep putting it on,

(15:22):
and even then you're not going to get every single
inch because you can't reach every single inch of your back.
Just wear a hat, Just wear sleeves. It's a effective
it's not sticky. You don't have to reapply it. You
just put it on one and done. Baby, you go,
just don't. I just see so many people get sunburned
and they're like, oh, it's not a big deals. It

(15:43):
is a big deal. Man. Your skin is roasting from
the light. It's not cool. Like, it's not normal. You're
gonna get skin cancer. I'm upset for you. You know,
you smell like a turkey on Thanksgiving. I'm hungry. You're
making me hungry. I do like to reapply my hat,
but that's because I like to do funky little tricks
with it, spins and flips and stuff. Yeah, but it's

(16:05):
not like, yeah, yeah, that move, that's always a fun one.
I was sold by a thirteen year old that wearing
your hat like like just sort of setting it on
top of your head is the dominant way to wear
the hat because it makes your head look bigger. And
the way that Jack is wearing the hat is not
I'm I'm not gonna say it's submissive, but it is
not dominant. I'm a big hat sub. They say, oh wow,

(16:29):
look at this sub sandwich that just pulled up with
his hat all low. Okay, and I'm coming to that
big dom energy because I got like a ten gallon fitted. Yeah,
just real, real high. But yeah, I gotta recommend, gotta
recommend above all things, hats and shirts. I think they're
great ideas, you know, just you gotta wear. I feel

(16:51):
like there's there's sort of a feeling kind of the
norm here is that when it's hot, you show more skin.
And that may have been a thing that you could
do when we didn't live in a time of heat
waves literally every summer. But you know, it's it's hot,
it's not the heat, it's the light, you know, Yeah,
it's the light that burns you. It doesn't have to

(17:12):
be that hot for you to get sun burned. Um,
protect your neck, guys, you know, bandanas or your friend
shirts or your friend they soak up your sweat, which
is nice. I didn't ski growing up, but like there
would always be kids coming back from like ski trips
and they would just have like white there and then
their face would be like an ungodly like bronze color, like, yeah,

(17:35):
weird to me out, did I see goggle? Tan's yes, Jack,
I grew up in northern California. I'd seen a goglet. Okay,
uh sorry, I was too busy shredding the naral winter
Butter came back with a freaking sick goggle Tan. It's like, hella, say, dude, yeah,
exactly at the shirt I was wearing. This dude came

(17:58):
up and goes, oh, you had some friends and or POWs.
I'm like, no, dude, because I'm carving powe on the
fucking mountain side. Brat fun out my face? How do
my face loser? There is this I felt like this
weekend though, are that like? Over the weekend there were
so many viral posts of white people getting absolutely violated

(18:18):
by the sun's rest. I'm saying, dude, they don't understand.
They're like, oh, son is my friend you're not? Also like,
you know, my my boyfriend was like, I was like,
do you want to wear sun screen? He was like, no,
I don't like putting stuff on my face. I was like,
for sure, dude. And then we were talking about it
and I was like, so, why do you feel like
you need to be stronger than the sun. Yeah, here's

(18:40):
a question for you. Why do you feel like, as
a man you have to be like, no, it's fine,
I'm I don't the sun. Even if the sun hurts me,
it's okay because because it's you know, I can take it.
Do you think that you are you can beat the sun?
The sun is a you know what I mean? Yes,
that's you are extremely virile, extremely tough. My balls are

(19:06):
so big that they will block out the sun and
I will shade myself with them. And I was also
like my my circuitry was pretty much formed at a
time when I thought I was invincible, like in my
teenage years. And yeah, it reminds me of like people
like I. I I do. I think you're right to single
out white people. I think people like I've always made

(19:28):
fun of how people from New England are about the
cold where they're like this is this isn't cold to me?
Wear shorts in this ship, Like that's how basically all
white people are for the most part with regards to
the sunscreen and the sun. And I I my my
wife is not white and wears a lot of like

(19:51):
sun protective stuff, and that's the only reason it's evident
to me that I am a com But like my
the where I was coming from was incredibly wrong. My wife,
We've talked about people wearing driving gloves on this podcast before,
and I was like, wow, driving gloves. My wife was
wearing driving gloves. I just didn't know that's what they were,

(20:13):
but you know, yeah, She's like, I'm not cooking. I'm
not cooking. My fucking hands were crazy. I remember my
mom used to first she wear long sleeve and golf gloves,
and all my friends would be like, yo, your mom
plays golf, but like, why don't you take her golf
gloves off? I'm like, bro, she's so fair skinned. She
just and she reads too much about the sun. But
I'm on the other side. There's also like toxic like

(20:34):
people of color anti sunscreen sentiment too, which is, oh,
we got melanin, right, you can still you can still
burn with screen. I know, And I'm saying I was
raised on that version to where my dad would be
like telling my mom, like, you need sunscreen, not this
brown young man here. We're good. We have melanin and

(20:55):
I and then it took like my friend to become
like a nurse like in our twenties, to be like,
you know, that's all bullshit, right, I'm like, it's still
I don't get burned. It's like, yeah, but your ship
will be great, like the effects or that you might
not burn, but everything else happens. I'm like, oh no,
my beautiful skit. And going back to four year old's

(21:15):
real quick. But sunscreen sucks when you have a four
year old and you gotta put sunscreen on every inch
of their body and they are like, they don't like that. Ship.
At least my four year old does not like that.
You try to put it on their face and their
nose is running and then you're just rubbing their own
snot mixed with the sunscreen, all around their face and

(21:35):
then they're crying and they're sand and you know, because
also what it does is I remember as a kid,
it just delays you from getting the pool or whatever,
like meeting up with your friends. You're like, yeah, I'm here,
you're taking your ship off. You're like ready to hop
in the point like your parents like that that that.
Now let me rub your back for five minutes to
put the lotions on or what and now wait for

(21:56):
it to dry and then go in the pool. M
hm hm. Alright, let's take a quick break, we'll come back,
we'll talk about some news, and we're back. All right,

(22:17):
Let's move on to a story. The the hook is Coachella.
The thing hanging on that hook is the entirety of
our crumbling system. Yeah. Yeah, So the Coachella Owners, which
a e G. Is the company that most people are
probably familiar with, but they are owned by the Anschutz Corporation,

(22:39):
which is not, as you pointed out, Miles, the made
up Nazi company from the Man in the High Tower.
But it doesn't corporation. I'm like, yeah, yeah, they owned everything.
You're a e G. That actually stands for the Ant
Shouts Entertainment Group if you weren't aware, or a access
dot com where you buy tickets like they they they're

(23:02):
behind Coachella there, behind Stagecoach. They own a ton of
sports venues like there. They have their hands on fucking
everything like in the in terms of like live entertainment.
And we talked recently, just just some context about how
Coachella is like this marketing event that was created by
people who were like, yeah, man, people really liked the
like Woodstock and like those idealistic things. What if we

(23:25):
took that but made it completely just marketing and devoid
of any value other than like cultural signifiers. What what then?
So Coachella, like all the way down is you know,
it feels very It starts to feel more gross when
we get through this story where you figure out it's
like is it a collection get it's like a donation
gathering event to put more right wing wackos in office.

(23:48):
So not to say that the line is that clear,
but when you start digging in popular information, if you
follow that newsletter or the work of Judd Legum reported
along with the Rolling along with the Rolling Stones journalistic
and fucking all right, yeah, exactly, They're they're doing their thing.

(24:09):
They reported that, you know, the company, the parent company,
the corporation, made a pretty sizable donation to our a
g A, which is Republican Attorneys General Association. Just days
after the Row decision, the jobs decision that overturned Row
came down the r a g A. Like the day
Row was overturned, they blasted out to their supporters said,

(24:31):
hey man, we could really use some cash man, because
we're gonna need to put in more attorneys general that
are gonna fucking lay this fucked up human rights violating
hammer down. Are you in? Can we count on you?
And clearly the corporation was like, yes, you can, just
give us a few days to get that money together
and we'll get it right to you. And this isn't
the first time this company or their owner has given

(24:53):
to right wing causes either, Like in March, his company
donated a combined like seven fifty thousand dollars to the
GOP Leadership Funds, but are like focused on getting majorities
in the House and Senate. They're you know, like they're
called like the Leadership Funds or whatever. And he also
seems to have a knack for giving to anti lgbt
Q groups as well, like the Alliance for Defending Freedom,

(25:15):
the National Christian Foundation, and the Family Research Council. When
he pressed about it on Shoots, Defense was called it
fake news that he but they're like, these are these
are fucking tax that you have? This is document are
you talking about? And added quote I unequivocally support the
rights of all people without regard to sexual orientation end quote.

(25:36):
Okay um. And then at time he's like, look, okayn't
see sexual orientation, Like everyone looks the same, never had sex,
so it's really not relevant to me. I don't really
want to have an opinion on that, right, you know,
I give to a lot of people. And that's the
thing I wanted to take a side note here, because
you're you're pointing out something that I wish more people acknowledged,

(25:58):
especially in this field. The more innocuous the name of
an organization is, the more fuccory they tend to be
up to, right, like like the the Family Research Council,
right Alliance Defending Freedom. It's like back when the CIA
had Air America and that's yeah, that's that sounds dope,
that's fine. But and now it's like a knee jerk

(26:21):
reaction for me. Man, every time I hear a really
innocuous sounding name for a political organization, I'm like, the
clean sounds because they're yeah, when those groups are getting together,
all the founders like, what if we called it the
Gay people Shouldn't Exist Alliance? And then people like no, no, no,
they're like, why that's what we're here for. You you

(26:44):
got to say something like the Family Research Council. Do
you have any idea how many Harvard and Yale graduates.
We have working to come up with a beautiful name
that sounds perfect and it's people's brains exactly right. Yeah,
we don't call it gay people shouldn't exist, you dumb fund,
even if we have all the money in America to

(27:04):
spend on coming up with the right name for them.
So when he was pressed about it, they then found
it's like, okay, you know what, I'm gonna stop funding
any groups it turns out that are involved with any
anti lgbt Q anything. But then Pitchfork, like a year
or two later, looked into it again and he was
just giving a smaller organization to have a history of
anti lgbt Q like activity, and so again, you know,

(27:28):
this is just sort of when the parent company was
asked about this whole, you know, their support for forced birth,
they were like, oh, took a very similar path of
Like one of these spokespeople for the company said that
you know that the company and the owner, Philip Answers,
does you know he believes and he totally in the
right to choose and did not support the reversal of

(27:50):
row And either the company or the individuals himself received
saw or was aware of a Republican Attorneys General Association
fundraising soliciting Asian based on the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Uh t A C has contributed to r A g
A since at least no contribution to r A g
A by the Anciens Corporation or mr Anis has been

(28:11):
based upon, informed by, or motivated by, any R A
g A position on row or abortion. Mr Asos makes
contributions to numerous organizations, usually for specific reasons. He does
not review or support each of the positions taken by
such organizations. Okay, I gotta go. Wow fuck, just a
straight up run on word blast to be like, yikes,

(28:32):
that's how is that? How is that any different from
someone saying, Okay, did did I donate to the Nazi Party? Yes,
but it's because I liked the uniforms. I did not
do much other research. I think the arm bands are cool.
It's like their stance on vegetarianism and not smoking. Okay,
so get off my back. Like if you if you

(28:53):
do you think everybody should smoke you animals, then who's
real moss? I'm just a single issue donator. Hey look,
I met him in a reddit subreddit group where it
was people who had a beef against art schools that
they didn't get into. That's what we bonded over first.
I didn't know that's what he was up to. That's
not fair, like I just did only him from Reddit.

(29:15):
That's the same energy that all these people have. But
this is just again another example of how the billionaire
class has a public facing company that's aligned with the
festival like Coachella, yet in private, the owners and even
in public the company itself are actually a bunch of
sick fox who are hell bent on ending democracy. And
just I just wanted there's a There's an interesting report

(29:37):
that came out the last week from Common Dreams and
a few other groups that just showed just how much
billionaires contribute to the two parties. So the Congressional Leadership
Fund and the Senate Leadership Funds, these are both funds
that and shoulds direct donated to directly raised. It combined
eight point three million in the first sixteen months of

(29:58):
campaign cycle. Nearly half about ninety million, or forty percent,
came from just twenty seven billionaires. And on Shoots is
one of these twenty seven billionaires. A whopping eighty six
percent of the GOPS billionaire money comes from quote Wall
Street tycoons, which are the people who benefit most from
our shitty tax laws and loopholes, so that they have

(30:19):
a vested interests to stay in the game of influencing politics.
And then on the Democratic side, you look, they raised
about a hundred fifty four million in that period. About
twenty five point eight million, or seventeen percent, only came
from nineteen billionaires from Democrat Democrats, so they're only holding
to nineteen Democrats wh aren't giving as much but still

(30:39):
outsized donations. And a majority of those billionaire contributions again
comes from the investment sector. I mean, you know, the
Clinton administration is the one who let Wall Street become
a total fucking casino. So it's been a good it's
been a nice relationship since then. And in the shape
of the government like Wall Street logic, like we're we're
not you know, allocating funds for projects to help the public.

(31:01):
We are investing in these things. And then we use
Wall Street logic and like investor call logic when we're
like talking to the press about fucking like well, we're
means testing everything, like everything has to be like framed
as this like financial thing that's like paying back to
rich Americans. Essentially, who needs a pension, get a four

(31:23):
oh one K. That's the new rule, right. But I
mean this story just I feel like we could just
cover this story every day from now, Like this is
the whole thing they like that is so much money
that is being put in by these billionaires and they're
not doing it out of kindness or the because they

(31:46):
don't like pay attention what happens their money. Billionaires pay
way more attention to what happens to their money than
you and I do. Like they love their money. They
are absolutely they're doing it because they expect something in
return and will make sure they get it or they
will destroy the person who doesn't give it to them.
Like that is the mentality of a billionaire. That is

(32:09):
how you become a billionaire's by like liking your money
and making it work for you at like you know,
two degrees that are just completely absent of any like
morality or anything like that. But so this is what,
like the the Supreme Court has made possible, is that
we have an entire system that is just designed by billionaires.

(32:32):
Like when you look at the founding of Coachella, like
the two people who founded it were just like people
in punk bands who are like the sort of people
who maybe in the past generation like start like creating
like a community, like you know, build, build something cool.
They're like cool people who like you know, rock stars,
like to hang out with like there it like plugged

(32:55):
into the artistry. And instead, you know, they are fed
into this system that is controlled by billionaires. And the
result of that is that, like Coachella, a cool idea
becomes a funding mechanism for right wing like politics and
for ideals that just end up protecting rich people's money.

(33:19):
That is, that is what the entire American project is
at this point for for all intents and purposes, and
it's all happening behind closed doors. Like the public yeah,
well the right, but it's not not behind closed doors.
It's just not the part that the media pays attention to.
And that is because the media is also like the

(33:41):
amount of money that they're investing. They're creating so many jobs,
like the people who like created Coach Hell like that
every like New York Times fucking you know writer, They're
making like a good living. They these people's money is
putting people's children through college, and like those people now

(34:01):
take their marching orders from billionaires, and like that is
how you get to a system that that we're in
right now that it's just it's completely fucked. Yeah, I
mean that that Upton Sinclair quote couldn't be true true
or where it's difficult to get a man to understand
something when a salary depends on not understanding it, And

(34:22):
that's been true since fucking Upton Sinclair. Also looking at
this be like whoa, I feel like we get angry
at the New York Times. We get angry, and like
I feel like they they're not making the mistakes because
they want to be Necessarily there are billions of dollars
that are sending thousands of people's kids through college that

(34:46):
are buying that bias, and like yeah, and same with
the people who found at Coachella and now like are
you know working these like swanky giant things and have
like a million dollar mansions and ship like that, Um,
you know, like that is this is the system. It's
like billionaire money just buying a friendly you know, a

(35:07):
friendly to billionaire. Yeah, and all this focus on their
maintaining their wealth has just led to just complete destruction
of social safety nets in this country, and then with crimes,
I can't be because no one has options or supported
because they're none of ring cameras to hack or whatever
fucking logic they're trying to. But like, but since like

(35:29):
you know, they can buy votes, we've just been sliding
the scale the other way. And we're just like you're saying, Jack,
we don't live in a place that considers the needs
of a working person. We live in a place that
always centers what the desires of the billionaire classes. And
then you can dress it up as policy or these
other things, but the gist is always gonna be if

(35:50):
this ship takes a bite out of the billionaire classes
fucking bank account, you can pretty much bet that this
ship will not pass because they have too much influence
with the people who have the votes to make things
a reality. And I just want to say, those twenty
seven billionaires that were bankrolling the GOP super PACs alone,
their wealth increased by eighty two point four billion during

(36:15):
the fucking pandemic, meaning that the fucking barely ninety million
that they gave is less than one tenth of one
one percent of their overall pandemic era gains. That's like
that's an investment that the average person would salivate for,

(36:35):
like you would do dirt for that. I would, I
would commit crime for that. But the other thing that
I think is part and parcel of this we're talking
about the complicity of the system at a structural level,
is that there's no real insider trading law for Congress,
and it's it's an a political point, and people sometimes
don't like to hear it, especially if they consider themselves

(36:57):
very partisan, right, and they're saying, oh, you know, but
my side or this one is the good one for
some reason, Like Pelosi, I believe is all is cyclically
in hot water that somehow mysteriously goes away when people
learn about the profiteering that occurs on a routine, regular

(37:17):
I would say normalized and systemic basis there. I know
for a lot of us listening today, this is maybe
we're preaching the choir. Maybe the statistics and specifics are new,
and maybe it's really disheartening, but it's the truth. It's
not a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy on the part

(37:38):
of measurable You can, yeah, you can tie the amount
of their proximity to an industry to begin to understand
why they vote a certain way or why certain legislative
ideas are injected into bills and things like that, and
it's pretty clear. But again, if the if the mechanism
that people used to understand, and it is going to

(38:01):
be pushed through like a fun house mayor of corporate interests,
the ship that they're going to see is not going
to be that. It's gonna be Ah Joe Mantion, Christian Cinema.
It's all them. It's like, no, it's all of you.
But you're lucky that these two were particularly lacking moral
scruples that they're like visibly just going to be like

(38:22):
the centerpiece for it for it all. But really these
are just these are just like a zip on the
gigantic ass of our fucked up political system where it's
like they need to zoom out look at the whole
nasty but because it's the rules sound like you guys
were talking about kids before in some previous episodes, you know,
and I hope everybody's kids well listening to this, But

(38:45):
if you have ever caught your very young child trying
to cheat at a game, it sounds like that's the
kid who wrote a lot of these laws, especially around superpastrip.
It's like, don't know, it's not directly you know, count
beating right now, I get to have the power you
don't have. You don't get to have the superpower like

(39:05):
I have the Yeah, well hold on, what kind of
control are you using it? Wait, that's not fair. You
can put you can set the buttons to turbo. That's
why you sucking me up with Chuen Lee. That is
an argument that Miles got into with my six year
old recently. By the way, Miles is always pushing to uh,
pull the focus out on the whole nasty but I
will say exactly, stop zooming in on those zi man.

(39:29):
But I mean this is this is this directly ties
to the national mood of like people just being like
what like what like we the surreal phenomenon of having
the president that we elected being in office and not
being able to do anything he wants to do, and

(39:52):
the fact that this isn't given as the explanation is like, well,
he can't do it because the billionaires don't want him
to do it, like the that should be eighty point
font on the front page of the New York Times,
like every time something fails, but instead it's like, yeah,
Cinnamon Mansion gotten his way again. And you know that's

(40:14):
instead of like, yeah, this should be all we're talking
about it. But you know, those same billionaires own or invested,
they own the you know, Washington Post, or they own
the corporations that advertise on the New York Times, and
so you have to like, you know, listen to a
podcast story about Coachella to hear somebody talk about it like,

(40:39):
I mean, this is it's just a it is frustrating.
And when really every time, if there was like I
don't know, some shred of journalistic integrity, you could just say,
here's the bill that's being proposed. Here who here's who
stands to make less money as an industry because of
these changes, Right, because like even with something like back Better,

(41:01):
we're talking about clean energy and we're talking about moving
towards renewables. So that sounds like the money is going
to be moving away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. Now,
when you say the money is moving away from fossil fuels,
you're damn sure that the fossil fuel industry is going
to be giving as much fucking money as they can

(41:22):
and getting in the ears as many legislators as possible
to make sure that money doesn't go towards renewables, because
they probably most companies were probably more invested in trying
to kneecap renewables than seeing the future and being like,
you know, we should probably get it on this ship too,
because that's that's kind of where it's at, and now
we're the ones paying for it because a group of wealthy,

(41:44):
fucking people are saying, you know what, in this instance,
I can't stand to make less money and guess what
I can spend fucking less than one percent of what
I made in the pandemic and make this ship disappear
neo feudalism, shaking my us in the air. And I
think that's the hard part, I think for just in general, Jack,

(42:06):
Like you're talking about how like you've had an evolution
from starting the show right where there's a part where
we really do want to believe that the way that
we've been raised or taught of how the political system
works is actually centering the the American you know, And
that's like the first lie that I think most people
have to like. I think again, many people are still

(42:28):
reeling with the fact that like is that not true?
And then because if that's not true, then it's like,
well then what do I have to do? And I
think that's scary too. What does that mean I have
to do? Then? If no one's looking out for me?
And I think being outraged and getting you know, more
aware of what's happening around you is is the key
to that at least that Yeah, micronation of my one

(42:53):
my address, I think I think we should open it
in the dilapidated water part river Country in Disney World.
You know, just that they're already used to like having
a micro nation down there. Yeah, old theme parks and malls.

(43:13):
They have kind of infrastructure like plumbing and ship like
that ventilation. Yeah, I don't know, right, I just got
like my any any micro nation I'm involved in is
going to involve water parks. Colonize the water parks than
you done. The time has come colonize abandoned malls and
water parks. It's time to colonize them. All right, let's

(43:33):
take a quick break, we'll come back. We'll talk about
Spooky America and word back. So it's so funny. Have
we talked about the fact that the phrase like pulling
yourself up by your bootstraps is like it's self. Yeah,

(43:55):
it's a work of satire like something. It's a joke.
But like America just turned it into like we do
and we do the impossible. That's how it's like a
ten percent like being like, well that's not that's not
a thing, man, I can make gold from woody Okay,

(44:16):
that's the national motto. It's like, that's that's a fallacy
and incorrect. I don't work. We're ethic alchemy. That's that's
our thing. It's like, well, that's impossible. So you're a
dip shit. We're a dip shit. Anyways, America has a
toilet problem. Kalamazoo, Michigan just decriminalized public urination and the

(44:37):
mainstream media lost their ship. This is you know, according
to them, this was purely done to ruin the lives
of business owners and deep value property. Kalamazoo business owners
upset after decriminalization of public urination defecation, and in seventeen
New York City cops gave cops the discretion to punish

(44:59):
urinators with a evil summons instead of a criminal one, which,
by the way, giving New York City cops discretion over
anything is never, never going to help. But I'm sure
this just led to rich white stockbrokers being able to
pee wherever they want when they're drunk. And that's that's
about it, because the cops aren't cutting a break for

(45:20):
anyone else, it turns out. But what what when they
did that? Immediately Tucker Carlson was like, this whole city
smells like you're in all of a sudden, the first
time the New York had ever smelled like you're. But yeah,
I mean, Public your Nation shouldn't just be decriminalized, it
should be legalized. These laws really only served to punish

(45:43):
the most vulnerable. According to one report twenty pent Upon,
how's people have been cited or arrested for Public your
Nation in thirteen states. Public your Nation has classified as
a potential sex crime. Yeah, like you'd be a sex
offender for Public your Nation, which is wow. It's like
in imagine if you're in the housed and they're like,
you're now a sex offender, which means you you can't

(46:05):
really be anywhere now, like with all of the you know,
the sort of boundaries that come with like places you
can live near or whatever being near. Yeah, anyway. Yeah,
but their way, these laws are a way of criminalizing homelessness.
Essentially in skid row in l A, there are fifteen
thousand people and just five public toilets, so that's one

(46:27):
public toilet for every three thousand people. So it like
not having public urination, you know, as a criminal act
is essentially a form of entrappedment because it's like physically
impossible that you won't go to the bathroom there. There's
also some stories in Piedmont, Oklahoma, a cop gave a
two thousand five dollar ticket for public year nation to

(46:49):
a three year old. And in Ferguson, Missouri, which you
might remember them the Ferguson Police Department. Well, in Ferguson,
a family let their two year old and four year
old pie and a bush. Something I've done the near
constantly as a parent, just because kids constantly have to
go to the bathroom, like at the most inconvenient times.

(47:11):
It's like they have a sense for what is the
most inconvenient time, and that's when they will have to
go to the bathroom, like horribly badly. But a cop
came by and arrested the dad for a child neglect.
He was held for nine hours and felt found guilty
by a judge. The couple understandably later through the city.

(47:32):
But you'll you'll never guess that the family were black,
So shocking, m hm hm. But so one solution is
they're just absolutely needs to be way more public toilets available. Yeah,
I mean that's isn't that Isn't that how you solve
a problem? Well not in the United States. No, They're like, well,

(47:55):
how do we make this. Let the market solve it.
Let the free market saw the toilet. That's what they did.
Like the Starbucks announced that they would open their watchrooms
to everyone in and people are like, seed the market working.
They know it's a good publicity thing because Starbucks are everywhere, right,
except Howard Schultz recently came out you know now that

(48:19):
he's he's probably now that he's like probably turning right.
I mean, he's like union busting and has been was
criticized during his presidential run as a Democrat, So I'm
sure he's basically a fascist at this point. So he
then recently announced that they will actually soon limit access

(48:40):
to customers only, which amounted to a loss of critical
infrastructure for the broader public in the United States. Like
so a a company changes a store policy and it
radically fox over the country. That's the that's the United States.
But this this feels to me again like putting, like

(49:00):
dumping a bunch of labor on service workers who aren't
being paid a living wage anyway, that now you have
to police the toilets. Like I think that was the
fundamental problem with the mask mandates was that you were
you're literally asking service workers to enforce a state a
state regulation like policy, law, something something right. It's like

(49:23):
you don't, yeah, and like your life being threatened, Like
that's it's not worth that, It's not, it's not. I've
always found that people who don't want to wear a
mask in public seem to be very reasonable and just
like easy to talk to and like here you want
to hear you out. That is I feel like people
not like refusing to wear a mask when it's appropriate
or required is like the domestic violence of like gun owners,

(49:48):
of like mass shootings. It's just like, oh, those those
are the people who are going to flip out and
try and fight you in this subway or wherever you are.
Thank you bring it back to some way. Yeah, can
I just throw in really quickly. Historically that cities were
cities were adding lots of public toilets until desegregation, and

(50:09):
then they started closing them down. Huh huh. Interesting, fascinating
hand of white supremacy is always, always, always, we don't
have enough toilets because white people. Yeah, like Iceland have
around fifty six toilets per people. The US has eight. Yeah,

(50:31):
because people don't have to pay, right exactly, Hey, pissing
your bootstraps. Yeah, we we have stronger willpowers, so we're
able to just hold it longer than people in Iceland.
But yeah, it's straight up, it's white supremacy and racism
like that. Yeah, it's and it doesn't even again, like everything,
and there's a problem, they don't fucking actually address it.

(50:53):
People are pissing everywhere. What's the problem because there's not
enough toilets. What's the solution ging make them sex offenders? What? Wait? No, sorry,
did you did you just get a step there? Nope,
that's not what we're doing. That's how you stop him.
Like California sitting on a record breaking surplus of you know,

(51:14):
taxpayers money, and rather than like spending that on building
public toilets, they instead you brag about having a surplus,
and uh it works. First of all, the media is like,
holy sh it, Newsome, he we should make him president.
He has a surplus. And then also it's austerity and yeah,

(51:34):
and then like start freaking out about San Francisco having
like poop on the street, like that's that's how people
you look at a place like in London, right, I
was just there they got they have public urinals fucking
everywhere because they're like, man, too many people leave the pubs,
this ship or whatever and they just piss all over
the street. Yeah. Their solution was, well, then put up

(51:57):
some fucking urinals that people can use, like more toilets
for people, and then you're spending less time cleaning up
piss in the streets and giving up a person to
use the fucking bathroom. London has some experience there. I'm like,
they used to use the streets as the sewers, so
they would know they've evolved, you know, they've come around.

(52:20):
Everyone used to use it as the sewers though. That
was like the like Spanish colonizers, and they first came
to like South America, they were like, what the fund
is this? Your streets are clean? Yeah, right where. It
is definitely a European settler, European colonizer movement of yeah,

(52:41):
we just kind of shipped everywhere, right, but we also
put it, yeah right, we put that's our right, that's
our divine right as colonizers. Now show me the late
the closest place I can defecate on something sacred. So
just to kind of closed loop on this, the US

(53:01):
government and you know various like local organizations appointed to
the high costs for installing public toilets, but in fact,
you actually save money by investing in restrooms because you
wind up spending millions cleaning up all the p and
poop around your city. And according like public health, right, Yeah,

(53:23):
according to the World Bank, every dollar spent on urban
sanitation brings a return of two dollars and fifty cents
to the economy through reduction in medical costs and increased productivity. Whoa,
whoa will hold on reduction in medical costs, that's actually
not profitable anything. I need to increase the medical costs
so I can keep my pockets fat, Okay, Like what

(53:46):
the fuck? And I can't well because the like that's
people pooping on land that I'm not going to because
I'm going to my country club where the people have
to poop and p everywhere are not allowed in. So
you know, it's just the public parks that get shipped on,
impete on and make people sick, and it's not it's

(54:08):
not my country club though. Anyways, I piss on your
local country club. Yeah, let's start start the movement. Start
start reasoning, just being like, hey, golf clubs, golf courses
shouldn't exist, right, and see see what what kind of
response you get. I bet, I bet there's more people
who would find you than to say all right, that's
gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, please like

(54:32):
and review the show. If you like the show, uh
means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation, folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
talk to him Monday. By Sa