May 23, 2025 • 60 mins
We dive into an array of trending stories from the uplifting to the controversial, giving you our unfiltered take on the week's hottest headlines and cultural moments.
• American Idol crowns Jamal Roberts, a 27-year-old gym teacher from Mississippi, the first African-American winner since Ruben Studdard
• Blake Lively allegedly attempted to blackmail Taylor Swift according to Justin Baldoni's lawyer in their continuing "It Ends With Us" drama
• President Biden announces prostate cancer diagnosis that has spread to his bones, sparking conversations about privacy and medical care
• HBO Max reclaims its original name after an unpopular rebrand, highlighting the importance of brand identity
• Walmart officially announces price increases due to new tariffs, affecting everyday shoppers
• Tommy Lee and Brittany Furlan's divorce takes a bizarre turn with a catfishing scandal involving a fake rock star
• Cassie Ventura completes her testimony in the Diddy trial while pregnant and near her due date
• A man sues Whataburger for nearly $1 million over an allergic reaction to onions
• The dangerous "Chromebook challenge" trend has students deliberately damaging school equipment
• TikTok's viral "redheads are the Black people of white people" trend creates both connection and controversy
If you enjoy our show, please follow Meryl at her upcoming comedy shows at the La Jolla Comedy Store on May 28th and at the Lakes on the Loon comedy festival in Minneapolis on June 6th!
Great conversations and a place where independent filmmakers can be highlighted.
Hello, and thank you for listening to Thirsty Topics podcast! I'm Lawrence Elrod, and every week Meryl Klemow and I dive deep into the stories that matter, the conversations that shape our world."
Please help support our show by following us and telling others about our show. New podcasts weekly.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode
of Thirsty Topics.
I am Lawrence Elrod.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I'm Meryl Clemo.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey Meryl, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, I'm great.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I am doing great.
It's been a whirlwind of stuffgoing on this week.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I know I feel like the news has been exploding.
Lots of things I even textedwe're not including it in this
one, but I texted you one aboutthe airlines.
Luckily we have so much stuffwe don't even need to talk about
planes just losing control andstopping, but it's been crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yes, definitely.
I mean, uh, I literally had 14items no way about today, so I
had to like trim that down tofive.
For people that doesn't knowthis, we actually cover 10
different items, so merle doesfive, I do five, and lately
we've had so much stuff that wecan talk about that we actually
(01:09):
have a hard time just trimmingit down.
This is so much informationyeah, I'm always happy.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Also, next time, if we each want to do 14, we can
just read them and give ourthree thoughts.
You know, like thoseassociation games, it's like the
color orange, and we just say,like the three things there you
go.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We can do 50 stories per hour if you want to.
Yes, we could.
Yes, we could.
Well, I am going to start off,and I'm going to start off on a
very happy note.
Um, don't know if you watchamerican idol or not, but um, a
gym teacher from Mississippi hisname is Jamal Roberts wins
American Idol.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yay, amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I am so happy for him .
He's 27.
I believe he's married, has, Iwant to say, three kids.
Very positive gentleman.
I mean, basically, you knowhe's a teacher, but he's always
had his dream of going aftermusic.
So even at 27 years old, whichto me is young, he still wanted
(02:15):
to go after his dream, eventhough he's a teacher.
I mean, what are your thoughtson that, meryl?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I mean I am with you, that I feel like, if any I mean
any age, people should go aftertheir dreams.
But the thought of someonethat's 27, that's like maybe my
dream passed me by.
It's like so ridiculous.
I'm like, I'm 42 and I'm justlike, what should my dream be?
I'm very confused, but I thinkthat's so amazing.
And I bet his students areabsolutely freaking out.
They probably have beenfreaking out like each week that
(02:42):
he was on and I also have beenfreaking out like each week that
he was on um.
And I also feel like this is agood time to win american idol
because you know, it's got.
It's not as popular as it oncewas, or maybe it is, I don't
know, but like to me it's not asmuch in, like it's kind of been
rolling for a bunch of yearsnow.
But I think it's a good time tobe on it because you get the
like legacy of all the othershows and you get to meet all
(03:02):
the other um like alumni of itand all the.
You know the things that itbrings you.
I know they do a lot of tourswhere all of the people come
around.
So I feel like you're you'rebeing shoehorned in like a good
section of people, which I thinkis awesome oh yeah, um, I
really like the performance hedid with jelly roll.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That was actually pretty cool yeah, yes, I saw
that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's super cool.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Also he's going to.
I think that I could see whythey picked him, because his
voice is so beautiful and he'sable to do different styles.
I think he'll be.
He's not just one.
So I think the industry has agood chance of marketing him.
I just hope that at this pointI hope his contracts that's the
only thing I've heard aboutthese shows sometimes is you
(03:47):
kind of don't get the bestcontracts or you kind of sign
your life away with these recorddeals.
I hope he's able to go into itwith some smart business sense.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's a great point.
I know that.
I saw that he wins $250,000 forhis family, which people have
to understand.
That's really not $250,000 forhis family, which people have to
understand it's really not$250,000, because Uncle Sam
won't get his cut first.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, the taxes.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I'm sure the network is like oh the network takes
this amount, this amount, yeah,so basically cut that in half.
That's really what he's getting, which is still cool, but, like
you said, he's getting aprofessional contract and I
agree with you.
I hope that he has his ownattorney.
Look at that contract just tomake sure you know he's not
getting screwed on it, becauseunfortunately we've seen that
(04:33):
way too many times, you know oh,my gosh for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
One of my favorite groups like is ridiculous, but
it was the girl group fifthharmony like I love them so much
.
I think they're so cute and sotalented.
I love, love all of themindividually.
But they were on the X Factorand they talk a lot now about
that.
They were just locked into suchcrazy rigorous touring
schedules and they weren'tmaking a lot of money and you
know like.
So I hope shows like that don'tgobble up their contestants.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I agree, I agree.
Like I said, I am so happy forhim.
He seems like a very very veryvery happy young man.
You know he's very appreciative.
So, kudos, I think that's agreat way to start our show off
today.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I do too, and now, now he gets to be friends with
Kelly Clarkson, which soundspretty fun.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Here's a fun fact which I did not know until it
was pointed out to me the lasttime an african-american has won
american idol is when rubenstutter won really yes, I did
not know.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh my gosh, wow, I love him too and I feel like
he's done a really good job ofjust performing and like I feel
like he's laid low and just beenlike a musician and, you know,
performed a lot, so so that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's hard to believe.
I'd have to look through thelatest because now I can't
remember if people like KellyPickler.
I feel like I'm getting a lotof my shows confused of who won
what and everything.
I think of Carrie Underwood.
I don't know if she was awinner of American Idol or a
different show, but some ofthese people turned out to be
insane superstars.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, I know she was on there.
Whether she won or not, I don'tknow.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I know.
For a while I actually heardand if you're the new winner,
don't listen to this but I'veheard that you don't want to win
first place.
It's always the second placeperson.
For a while they were callingit their first place curse or
something.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Let's hope he breaks that curse, yeah, I have a
feeling he's going to break it.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Could you imagine also If you're a teacher, if
you're in school and yourteacher won American Idol and
then trying to concentrate?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Oh, I bet that would be awesome.
Something tells me that If hiscareer goes the way I think it's
going to go, he's probably notgoing to be doing much teaching
anymore.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
But it's good go, he's probably not gonna be doing
much teaching anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
But well, good, because I think that um, I've
always talked about thisrepresentation means so much,
and when someone like theirteacher or someone that looks
like them, do something special,then they know they can do it
too yes, and I think that wasthe original goal of American
Idol.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
like picking someone like Kelly Clarkson, too, where
it was like showing, okay, whoin America you know, not someone
living in LA or New York, thatwould be like an obvious choice,
like who would be amongst us,that it would be a star.
And it's like, okay, teachers,you know, people that are just
doing everyday type of jobs.
So I love it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I love it as well.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, someone that would vote for herself as number
one on American Idol would beBlake Lively.
Somehow she would end up havingeveryone call for her and
somehow something would happen.
And okay, I'm just going totalk the latest, I'll go into
the specifics.
But basically some crazy stuffhappened recently.
Who knows if it's true or not.
You know this is all allegedlyand to me from the beginning I
(07:49):
feel like both sides of theBlake Lively slash, justin
Baldoni they've probably bothdone right things and both done
wrong things and you know, likewhatever.
But what had happened wasbasically they Justin Baldoni's
lawyer I'm going to break itdown as simply as I can.
Justin Baldoni's lawyer went tothe judge in their court and
said Blake Lively is trying toblackmail Taylor Swift and
(08:13):
basically saying to Taylor'scamp you know it's all through
lawyers and everything, butbasically saying if Miss Swift
doesn't make a support for BlakeLively, if she doesn't post her
support, then Blake is going toleak her text messages for the
past 10 years.
And so of course, this soundslike preposterous, but Baldoni's
lawyer signed an affidavitsaying like that he really
(08:35):
talked to someone in February.
That is very, very close toTaylor's camp, whether that's
her lawyer or her publicist.
You know we don't know who thatis, but everyone was saying the
fact that his lawyer signed anaffidavit and like publicly was
stating this is the truth, I'msigning my professionalism away,
but then the courts strike thatand basically was like, okay,
(08:58):
even if that happened, this isnot going to be part of the
whole thing, but it's stilldoing like such damage because
people believe that thisactually happened and they think
Blake is trying to leak textabout Taylor's love life and
maybe some very secret thingsabout the music industry and who
knows.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, I think he's playing with fire, to be honest
with you, the lawyer, actuallyBlake, and his lawyer.
Oh yeah, because the thingabout Taylor Smith smith, taylor
smith is a worldwide yeah, I'minsane.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Oh yeah.
What if taylor smith is like analternate universe?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
you know, and and the thing is is that you know, when
you start messing with therecord company and stuff like
that, you better make sure yourducks are in order yeah even
though we don't talk about itenough very, very, very powerful
organization okay, oh yeah, allof her swifties so you, you
really don't want to makeenemies, and and we haven't even
(09:55):
talked about the swifties yetbecause, yeah, they'll go after
them too.
So I I think they're playing avery dangerous game.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I really do, and I mean, I mean it's also.
I mean, there's so many things.
I guess one of the first ones,too, is that if Blake really did
this to one of her longtimefriends, like Taylor is the
godmother of her children herown children and I feel like one
of the most interesting thingsabout Blake Lively was her
friendship to Taylor Swift, so Ijust can't see her being like
that bonkers that she'd be ableto do that to her.
(10:25):
But I I wonder if, like thelawyers, did that without her
knowing, which would be crazytoo.
You know, maybe maybe it wasalso her lawyers, um, I don't
know, but nothing surprises meat this point with this whole
case yeah, I think it's justgoing in a crazy direction I
know, and and the thing withmedia is that we're seeing
there's some stories later onthat we'll get into too that
(10:45):
have kind of remnants of this,but, like, once something hits
the news, people are going tobelieve that.
So, even if this didn't happenor if it happened differently,
all most people are seeing waslike Blake tried to blackmail
Taylor.
You know so it may be thatthat's not the case, but I feel
like each time you're losing,like more and more people.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah, definitely.
And you know the thing is, oncecourts are involved, things go
crazy.
Yeah, oh, start going crazy.
All kinds of things come offthe woodwork and to me, if
you're a friend, you're a friendto the end, even if you guys
fall out, you still don't tellany secrets or anything that
happens.
Yeah, that's just like thisunwritten rule.
You, you just don't do that.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Exactly and honestly, if Blake or someone was to leak
Taylor's text, there's aportion of us that I'd be like
cool, she's talking about a guyor she's talking bad about Katy
Perry.
Who cares?
That still makes Blake look bad.
You're taking yourself downeven more than you think.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
And also, too, you have to understand, if I'm a
friend, I'm going to be watchingthat person very closely and I
may kind of keep them at arm'slength.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what a lot of
people say that she's like whowould want to trust that or text
with them, you know?
And so chances are that inthose texts I have to imagine
that, like Blake probably said,some not so great things too,
Because most of the time whenyou're talking with your friends
on text, it's like haha, it's ajoint experience, not just one
person.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Let's face it there are things you're going to say
to a friend that you won't sayin front of a camera.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, yeah, Even though a lot of people are
saying it's about relationshipsor maybe she had a baby and lost
it and it's like the publicwill just condemn Blake for that
.
Maybe there'll be some interestin what Taylor said, but for
the most part they'll beprotective of her, I think.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Absolutely.
I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
This is crazy, though .
Yeah, it keeps on getting moreand more.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, and unfortunately I don't think that
this is over with it either.
No, Well, a little bit of sadnews here, and I'm going to
preface this with.
Anyone who's watched our showknows that we don't really dive
too deep into politics, andthat's done purposely.
(12:59):
Sometimes we'll skirt aroundthe edges because there's
something important we need totalk about.
But regardless of whetheryou're Republican, independent
Democratic, it doesn't matter.
But thoughts and prayers go outto Joe Biden and his family.
He has just basically leteveryone know the world that he
(13:21):
has been diagnosed with anaggressive form of prostate
cancer and it has spread to hisbones.
So right now the family istrying to look at options as far
as what they're going to dowith treatment.
The thing is that once it's inthe bones, they can't cure it,
they can't get rid of it.
(13:41):
But basically what they'resaying is, because of the type
of cancer it is and I guess youknow everything that's going on
with it it could be managed, butno one likes to be diagnosed
with the C word there.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
No, that's so scary and like as if he already didn't
have enough going on the pastcouple of years, and I'm sure a
lot of the stress hasn't helped,or you know who knows if he had
it.
I saw an article, too, that hein 2000, in 2022, he said
something like that's why, andmyself, why others and myself
have cancer, but, but what hewas referring to at the time, I
(14:18):
think it was he had skin cancer,and so a lot of people are
saying, oh, he knew back in 2022, but I don't think that was
that.
I think it was referring to askin cancer that he had.
But, yeah, that's so sad and Ihope.
I hope it's the kind of thing.
I mean, you never know.
I hear stories all the time ofpeople that, like, were given
short sentences and then it'slike nine years later and
they're still able to live asomewhat manageable life, and
(14:39):
you know, you never know.
So, if anything, though, thiswould be the type of person that
would get, like, the best carethat they have or, you know, all
the doctors and all thetreatments hopefully would be at
his fingertips?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Oh, definitely.
And you know the other thingtoo I hear people talking about
well, how could he not know?
And he just found out.
On Friday is stage four, and youknow one thing is is that you
got to be careful when you startmaking all kinds of accusations
oh, yeah, yeah and you know theother thing too, and as I was
watching different programs andstuff, kind of, you know,
following the news, I did notknow that once a man gets like
(15:15):
70 or above, they don'tnecessarily recommend you doing
the prostate like they do whenyou're younger, which is Really
yeah, I mean you should stillget it, but it's not really
pushed hard by the doctors,which is really shocking to hear
.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I don't know.
I mean, obviously, prostatecancer is one of the leading
cancers for me, but I think thatpeople need to stop trying to
guess.
Well, how did he know this?
Why did he know that?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh my gosh, yeah, we don't need to.
It's like no one needs to knowthat much personal details about
it.
And even if he knows veryrecently and tells people, or if
he knows for a while and isjust regrouping and then tells
people like that is the mostpersonal thing, oh yeah and you
know the thing is is that nomatter how how much they put on
a smile in front of that camera,you know that's devastating
(16:10):
news oh yeah, devastating, yeah,and remembering that he's still
a person, a human, with like awife and kids, and I, I would
imagine something like this.
You probably need to tell peoplepretty quickly because, like
all the people that know at likethe hospital and your staff and
you, I think you'd want, you'dwant to be on top of it rather
than having it leaked.
Um, you know, because I feellike that's the kind of thing
(16:32):
that if it starts to get aroundlike washington dc and then out
and around, then you want to andyou want to be the people to
manage it.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And the thing is that I think, on one hand, they
might have wanted to keep thisto themselves Because of who he
is.
It's better to be ahead of thestory than behind it.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yes, and maybe people will stop being so mean about
him too, because he gets a lotof just you know things and you
know that at some point it wasgoing to get leaked out.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So I think it was good for them to get ahead of
the story before it got gotleaked out somewhere else.
So totally.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I'm the same way where, like Democrat or
Republican, if someone is ill orsomeone finds out something bad
, like I don't want, unless ifthey're mostly a good person
which I think he is, like youknow unless they're a terrible,
terrible human being, then like.
I still wish the best for them.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
So yeah, definitely so, yes, Like I said, our
thoughts and prayers go out tothe Biden family.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, yep, and hopefully, like we said, we
might be years and years thathe's able to have like a good
life.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So that's true.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
That's true.
Ok, I love this, this one.
I don't know why I'm sopersonally invested, but it
makes me very happy where, uh,it feels like all is right again
, at least on hbo max, becausethe streaming service formerly
known as max will once onceagain be called hbo max, which I
never stopped calling it like I.
I just shortened it to hbo and,like to me, it's been hbo the
(17:58):
whole time.
I refuse to get into the macstuff.
Uh, warner brothers discoveryannounced wednesday that it will
soon put the hbo back in thename.
Two years and much criticismafter dropping it.
Uh, blah, blah.
So, pretty much they did seelike a um, a drop in, in, like
numbers and everything.
I think people were just soconfused of, like, you know, we
(18:20):
love this app and we loveeverything, but we don't
understand why you don't don'tbreak something.
That's not you know or whateverthe saying is.
You guys know what the sayingis, but I'm so happy about this
and I think it said the May 2023rebrand to max was widely
panned, with critics confused byboth the separation from HBO
and a glitchy tech rollout.
(18:42):
So, you know, fans did not likethis and yeah, that's it.
Okay, my thoughts are this,though, cause I don't know why,
I am like some people don't care.
I am a very like a attachedgirl to this type of stuff where
, like Dunkin' Donuts is the onethat bothered me, where, like
now, it's just Dunkin' and itreally like pains me every time
(19:03):
I remember.
And the same thing with Twitterand X, like I just refuse to.
It will always be Twitter to me.
So I feel like some of therebrands we've had lately have
been for the worse and peoplejust need to stop messing with
stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Oh yeah, and you know , the thing is is that once you
have a popular brand, you'll besurprised at what the fans will
really pay attention to Iremember this show called Ghost
that came on Showtime.
Then it turned into Power Bookor whatever.
The opening theme was a greattheme, everybody loved it.
(19:36):
They wanted to refresh it.
They changed it.
The fans were ballistic, theyhated it.
It was like great theme,everybody loved it, but they
wanted to refresh it.
They changed it and the fanswere ballistic.
They hated it To the pointwhere they were on social media
and all this.
It was just nuts.
To the point where they changedit back to the original song.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
And that's like yeah, I've worked for companies
before that have put in years ofgetting their logo recognized
and then it was kind of some outof touch executives that wanted
to change the logo, and it'slike why are you why?
are you messing with this justto like feel like you need to do
something, or you know you like, so I feel like they need to
stop doing that.
I remember another one too likeweight watchers just became ww
(20:15):
and it's like why, like you'vehad decades of people
recognizing this brand name andnow you're changing it.
I think it's honestly a lot oftimes out of touch people in the
company that are doing this, orshareholders or stockholders.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I think a lot of times and the intent is there,
it's a good intent, but thething is, a lot of times real
successful companies they don'treally sell a product, they sell
a brand.
Yeah, think about it when aperson buys a Rolex, they're not
(20:50):
buying a Rolex, because theyneed to tell time.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Right, they're trying to show their own, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
They're buying a Rolex to say hey look, I have
money.
Yeah, totally, they're like Ispent $100,000 on this, exactly
own.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, yeah, they're buying a rolex to say, hey look,
I have money.
Yeah, totally like.
I spent a hundred thousand onthis exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
And it's the same thing like when people the
starbucks thing you knowstarbucks coffee, you know it's
okay, it's starbucks, yeah, butpeople like the starbucks
experience you know, so that'sreally what they're buying is
the experience.
So really that's the part aboutbranding.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Once you get that portion done, you've hit the
mark and you really don't wantto mess with it at that point I
know it makes me wonder aboutfocus groups, though, because
for something like duncan, Ifeel like if you asked 50 people
which one you like better, likemost norm, most everyday people
would say duncan, donuts,donuts, cause it's just like,
even if you're getting coffeethere, if you're getting an egg
sandwich and not donuts, it'sjust the name like just evokes
(21:45):
way more comfortability andnostalgia and everything.
So I feel like I w I wouldwonder how many focus groups
they're doing, cause same thingwith HBO max.
I feel like most people wouldsay no, we like HBO, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
That's true, that's very true, and you know that's
true, that's very true, and youknow you definitely have to make
sure you listen to the peoplethat's paying your salary so
yeah, damn it, let us run thesemarketing talk about running
marketing stuff and I knew thiswas going to come up.
Um, I know a lot of Americansshop at Walmart.
(22:19):
Walmart has just officiallyannounced that their prices will
be raised because of PresidentTrump's tariffs, and they said
President Trump's tariffs byname.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Really.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, they didn't hit you or anything like that.
I mean they point blank said itand so I know they're getting a
little bit of flack from thewhite house and stuff like this
about them saying this, but it'sreality.
Yeah, I think the big thing is,merrill, is I?
I know a lot of stuff comes outof China.
I think people are going to beshocked at how much stuff comes
(22:57):
out of China.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I know.
So that's what I wonder.
With something like the thingsat Walmart, is it all separately
, like every item there iscoming from a different place?
You know, like the sneakers arecoming from a different place
in China than like maybe, andstuff.
So is it?
Do you think?
Is it all going up by a certainpercentage, like together at
Walmart, or like each thing islike this one's raised by 17
(23:21):
cents, this one's raised by like15 cents it's gonna be,
depending on where it comes from.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Okay, okay, you know a majority, I don't know and I
saw something that 80% and I wasshocked to see this 80% of all
toys sold in the United Statescome out of China.
Wow, that's a huge, you know.
Yeah, so the thing is is thatwhen you take a look at that,
(23:47):
and then also too, a lot ofagriculture comes out of China
and Singapore and a lot of otherdifferent places too.
Now, they may not have heavytariffs as much as China does,
but to a certain degree,everything's going up.
It's not a matter of if it'sgoing to go up.
It's going to be a matter ofhow much is it going?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
up.
Yeah, and I feel like a lot ofokay, this is going to get me in
trouble, but just stay with me.
People, this is my view thatsometimes I feel like people all
types of different people shopat Walmart, but I feel like a
lot of Walmart shoppers may havevoted for Trump, you know like
that's not good or bad.
(24:29):
We're just going to say how Ifeel, but I think that might be
a store.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
You're trying to pick that hate mail up.
No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
No, and this is my view.
So hate me, hate me, and thisisn't even hate things.
I'm not saying anything bad ormean.
I'm saying that this may be astore, that sometimes people
that may have voted for Trump,they vote for all different
things too.
I'm not saying anythingconcrete.
I'm saying that this may be astore.
I don't know if a lot of hisfan base is like I'm trying to
(24:56):
think of a store where they'renot at Ben and Jerry's or
something I don't know.
Yeah, you feel what I'm pickingup.
I'm sorry everyone if you'remad at me, but just know that I
love you.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
But you know, the real crazy thing about it is and
I think you hit on a greatpoint that no one's pointing out
is that even if you're adiehard Trump fan, you're going
to feel the pain, just likeeveryone else.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yes, exactly and I can see the people now like I
shop at Walmart with my familybecause I can afford it.
You don't know who I voted for,yes, I understand that, I
totally understand that, but nomatter what, just as a whole,
that's annoying for all of us.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, and you know it's not getting as much
coverage in the media, but youkind of hit on a great point.
There's a lot of voters whovoted for Trump that are voicing
their disapproval with theirlocal officials, and it's
happening all over the country.
So I think at some point that'sprobably going to get a little
(25:53):
bit more airplay than it'sgetting right now, but that is a
thing.
There's a lot of people thatare really upset.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yep, and they have a right to be too, so yeah, I'm
with it.
I feel like my number oneWalmart purchase is paper towels
and toilet paper, so I hopeit'll be interesting, because
they are already so expensivenow.
Isn't it crazy that we live ina time where toilet paper and
paper towels are this expensive?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, you know.
The karma thing to this is thatwalmart was one of trump's
biggest supporters yeah, Iremember that, and now they're
like yeah isn't it funny howthat happens, huh I know, I know
, I'm sorry, he can't know.
Crazy um okay.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
This next one is absolutely insane okay, I'm
gonna break it down very easybecause he can't know, crazy.
Okay, this next one isabsolutely insane.
Okay, I'm going to break itdown very easy because it seems
to confuse some people.
Okay, do you know who Tommy Leeis of Motley Crue?
Yes, yes, okay, cool.
So Tommy Lee, he's married to awoman named Brittany Furlan and
(26:59):
she's like she was a Vine star.
She's an internet personality.
She's really funny and cute.
I, like her went out was it wasbecause that Tommy was having a
hard time with alcohol, whichyou know.
(27:20):
He's in Motley Crue for yearsand years.
He's been known to like dabblein that rock star life.
And so at first people were like, oh, that's so sad that you
know he's having time withalcohol, that's really sad,
they're getting a divorce.
Then out comes the news thatthat might not actually be the
case.
And what happened?
Okay, so strap in, because whatactually happened was that,
allegedly, britney was talkingto another guy on Snapchat, this
(27:45):
guy, ronnie Radke, who, likehe's the lead singer of the band
Falling in Reverse, and so youknow she was chatting with this
guy and like they were, you know, going back and forth.
But then the plot twist shefinds out that that guy was
actually just a catfish and nota real.
It was someone impersonatingRonnie.
So I hope everyone understands,because a lot of people are
(28:09):
confused online.
Basically, brittany was likecheating on her husband, but
then found out that she wasgetting catfished and like it
was a Snapchat account ofsomeone that's not Ronnie.
So the real Ronnie, the real,actual Ronnie, came on Facebook
and was making all these storiesand posting all these things
about like here's the proof itwasn't me.
(28:29):
I'm going to get a lawyer.
Supposedly he's like, because alot of people didn't believe
him at first.
They're like we know it's you,you know, we know it's you, you
know, we know.
And then all these people said,oh my god, I have this pretend
ronnie in my dms and, like, mygirlfriend got hit by this
pretend ronnie, and so it becamethis giant thing and it makes
britney look pretty damnembarrassing and foolish, you
(28:52):
know, I mean because not she andshe did cop to the fact that,
like, no matter at the end ofthe day she was messaging a
different man, whether that manwas real or not, you know she
was talking to somebody else.
We don't know the ins and outsof their marriage.
So you know, it's not a goodthing to do ever.
But we also, like it soundslike it was pretty bad.
So I don't know what washappening.
(29:16):
But this guy, ronnie, on hisactual, real, human Instagram is
posting like nonstop, he'sspilling tea, he's making videos
.
It's like it's crazy.
And so it is like this myweekend.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You don't want to you just love to get a story where
I was like refreshing to see ifanyone else was saying anything.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, isn't that crazy that she, she
was like and she didn't cheat.
But I mean, she was definitely,you know, up in there, like you
know, flirting emotionally,whatever, with someone else, but
that person turned out to benot the real guy yeah, and you
know, the interesting thing isthat if a guy did that like a
husband did, oh my god, let meget this exactly, exactly and to
(29:57):
me like it's even someone saidit best where they're like so
you're mad that the guy you werecheating on your husband with
isn't real and I'm like that'sreally at the end of the day,
you know, and I still standcorrected because there's still
time in this case where, likenext week, we may find out that
it really was him and it wasn'ta catfish.
You know what I mean like Iwon't be surprised if anything
(30:18):
happens, but right now theevidence seems pretty damning
that it like wasn't him.
He's been showing receipts andproof of and the person the
Snapchat pretend person doesn'ttalk like the way he does.
He was like messaging a milliondifferent women.
You know, I just think in 2025,it's crazy to like get
catfished and to not want tofacetime the person or just like
(30:40):
ask for proof after a few weeks?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
oh, absolutely, I mean, you know, we talked about
it before a few times on acouple of episodes where you
know these love scams are stillgoing on.
You know somebody online.
You never meet a face-to-face,you know, you don't even do a
FaceTime, but you're sendingthem money.
I don't understand that.
I really don't.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I know Me neither, and the part that gets me as
well is and I don't think, Idon't know.
I would hope that Brittanyseems like a nice enough person
that she wouldn't do this, butif, like, she wanted to get
ahead of the story and she toldPeople magazine or whatever that
the issue was because ofTommy's drinking, that's
horrible to do to someone.
Maybe that's happening.
(31:21):
But someone said that theythought that maybe she sold her
story first to try to makeherself not get in trouble, and
if so, that's terrible.
I hate that.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, that's true.
I mean that is crazy and, likeI said, people do crazy stuff
for crazy reasons.
Sometimes, you know, sometimespeople, celebrities do stuff
where they know it's going tobring their name up.
It's because, you know, somepeople have this crazy idea that
any press is good press.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I don't mean either.
This is like britney wassomeone who I thought of.
I don't think a lot about her,but I thought pretty highly of
her, like she's funny I havesome people that know her that
do comedy shows with her andlike she just seemed pretty
likable.
But now I think a lot of us arelike what the heck is going on?
You know, and even just tolearn that she was messaging
someone else, she even at onepoint messaged the real him and
(32:14):
said like um, um, I'm outside.
And she had driven to his house, thinking that she was about to
meet up.
And the real human is like whyis this person outside of my
house?
So it's just, it's like it'sweird and it's a little alarming
that someone in this day andage could go that long with
getting like scammed by aSnapchat.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
That is so true, that is so so true.
Scammed by a snapchat?
That is so true, that is so sotrue.
But I'm gonna say, if you thinkyou're talking to a person
again, if they don't want tofacetime, you yeah that shit.
And you know what some peoplemay say.
Well, what, if they don't havean iphone, they can't do
facetime.
Okay, there's zoom, there's allkinds of yeah, way that you can
(32:56):
see each other.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Totally, yeah, and this person's Snapchat videos
were like snippets of otherstuff that he had posted in the
past and it was just like soobvious.
It was very, very strange thatsomeone especially like she's an
online personality.
This isn't someone that goes onInstagram like once every six
months or you know, she makesher living with this.
So very weird.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
That is extremely weird.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I guess that 15 minutes of fame is important to
some people, huh.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Exactly yeah.
Or just like having an escapefrom your relationship, which
it's like okay, if it's so bad,then like please get divorced
immediately and then you canstart talking to catfishes.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
True, Very true, Talk about escaping relationships.
Next subject is we're going totalk about Cassie Ventura just
finished testifying in the Diddytrial.
So Cassie testified.
I want to say it was four days,I believe it was Tuesday
(33:57):
through Friday, and you know thejudge wanted Friday to be her
last day of testifying becauseshe is pregnant and she's
literally expecting, I believe.
Oh my gosh, that's so stressful.
Yes, so the judge purposelysaid you know all questioning
for her has to end by the end ofthe week because he's afraid
(34:17):
that she may end up having ababy there oh my gosh so I could
just imagine how stressful thathad to be, reliving what you
went through, having to, youknow, play video of freak offs
going on.
Video of freak-offs going on.
Yep, and from what I heard, shecan see it, the jury can see it
(34:41):
and the judge, but I think thespectators in the stands, you
know, in the audience there orwhatever, they couldn't see it.
Oh, somewhat, protect her, youknow some protect the people
there, but I don't know, I meanshe was a star witness.
So protect the people there,but I don't know, I mean she was
a star witness.
So all the witnesses coming upafter this are basically going
(35:03):
to be supporting what she saysand what happened to her and how
it ties into the sextrafficking.
I don't know.
I mean, obviously it's kind ofhard to really say if it's going
good or bad, because you knowthere's no cameras in there, but
what do you exactly?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
um, well, I saw, like I think they were talking about
some of her texts that theywere showing, and her texts were
like I love freak offs and it'slike, like, and she said so
many times it's like, okay,maybe she was just in a mood
that day, and it's like she islike freak offs are the best
thing I've ever been.
You know, like.
So I'm like, oh my god, but Ithink she was 19 and it's like
she probably was under the spellof what diddy was promising her
(35:41):
and we you know people thathave been, we've all been in
relationships not to this extent, but where it's like, once
you're out of that haze, you'rekind of like what, you know, who
was I?
Type of thing.
Um, I just feel like this isprobably especially if she is
about to give birth, like it'sprobably best that she focuses
on that and comes back.
But I don't know, this is just.
(36:02):
I don't have the most faith thatwe're going to hear like the
truth from a lot of witnesses.
You don't think so.
I don't know.
It just seems like eitherpeople are going to get
pressured or nothing will happen, or I don't know.
I just I'll have to believe itto see it.
But it just seems like a lot ofthe hollywood people I feel
like are going to be too scaredto speak up or if they do,
(36:23):
they'll like find they'll pokeholes in their story yeah, and
you know, the interesting thingis, um and we don't know, this
or not, is, are any of thosecelebrities going to be called
to the stand?
we don't know that yet I know II just feel like we've been
through this before with theHarvey Weinstein and Epstein,
and it's like all these peopleare named and then things happen
(36:44):
and then nothing really seemsto actually happen.
The one person ends up gettingin trouble, but then it's not
really like I don't know, theoffshoot doesn't happen as much.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
It seems like the prosecution and this is just my
interpretation is they want togo after Diddy, but they may,
like in the Harvey Weinsteincases, they're going to be a
little bit sensitive about whosome of these people are.
That someone involved?
They may not have done anythingillegal, but in that perception
(37:16):
like oh my gosh, so-and-so wasdoing freak-outs too, you know
what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, someone involved.
They may not have done anythingillegal, right, and that
perception like oh my gosh,so-and-so was doing freak-outs
too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's true, exactly.
This is why, going back to theBlake Lively and Taylor Swift
thing too, it's like please donot text anything that you don't
want.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I feel like between this and the Tommy Lee story
it's like the whole thing istoday, like just stay off your
text messages.
Oh yeah, and you know, thething is, I don't know if those
people doing the freak offs knewthat they were being taped,
because supposedly did he tapedall the time yeah, no, exactly,
and I think a lot of celebritiesmay have gone to his parties
because they always said thatthe freak offs happened way
later.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
We would have maybe been at 7 pm to 9 pm, where it's
like, okay, this party is likeit might be weird, but I go home
by 9 pm and then if you'renamed in it, you may not have
been part of the crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Oh yeah, I mean, it's like this open joke where
people will go to daily partiesand they'll be like, all right,
it's about that time yeah,wasn't it like denzel or
something?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I heard that there was like one celebrity that was
like everyone leave now.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, yeah, and it's like it's sad.
It's sad that we're saying this, but it was like this open
thing that no one knew.
But everyone knew, right, maybe?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
maybe people just knew.
Okay, people get weirdafterwards.
Like you know, there's drugs,there's girls, there's whatever.
I don't know if who knows towhat extent.
But like Hollywood is weird andI hate to say it, but it's like
people get warped or you justkind of turn a blind eye and
it's just you know it's notright, so I don't know I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
The crazy thing is there have been actors and
actresses at these parties.
Um, they have been people offaith at those parties.
Yeah, I'm not gonna mention anynames, but if you google it you
can probably figure them out.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
And again it doesn't look anything wrong, but the
optics don't look good yeah,lots of politicians at the,
maybe some royal members of theparty.
Exactly, and you know it goesback to you know you got to be
careful who you hang around,yeah exactly, and in this day
and age too, just know, I thinkmaybe more and more people are
(39:29):
like, ok, is this going to turnout in a few years to be a thing
, you know?
Because I think maybe at thattime people were just like it's
happening.
You know, right now we didn'treally think about like the
world of cancellation so much.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
That is so true.
I know one thing I am glad thatwhen I was young there was no
such thing as the internet, soMe too.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
We had like, right when I was in college, we would
have Facebook, but like peoplewere.
It was so funny because I waslistening to some comedy thing
about saying how you would like,for one night you'd upload like
37 photos of Facebook of justlike you by a pool table and
it's true, like a whole onenight would just be a whole
album of photos.
But but luckily there's neveranything like incriminating,
(40:09):
it's just a bunch of kidsstanding around, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
I don't know.
In fact, I remember when theinternet first came out.
You remember the annoying sound.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Oh yeah, the dial-up.
I love that.
I kind of wish we still hadthat.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
You have mail.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, see, I honestly love that.
I feel like I would go back tothat tomorrow if I could.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Really.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, I would.
I feel like I could havestopped easily at MySpace, aol
and a handheld BlackBerry phoneor something.
I would be happier with a Nokiaor whatever.
That would be my technologypinnacle.
I'd stop right there.
Well, someone else that may bein the court is this man, demery
(40:55):
Demery Ardell Wilson, who issuing Whataburger for nearly $1
million.
I thought this was so crazy.
He suffered an allergicreaction after staff at a
Whataburger location gave him ameal that included onions.
He filed a petition seekingmonetary relief of over $250,000
, but less than $1 millionaccording to the lawsuit seen by
(41:17):
multiple outlets andWhataburger denied the
allegations in a separate courtdocument, which demanded strict
proof of Wilson's assertions.
Per USA Today, where I firstread about it.
So he had an allergic reactionafter eating a fast food meal
containing onions.
He said that he requested thathe doesn't have onions.
(41:41):
I don't know.
To me this is like I understandthat sucks, but it's also.
This is the price you pay whenyou kind of eat fast food.
Like I understand that, like Idon't know if you're a fast food
chain, you're also not.
You're moving so fast and likethings might be contaminated
with other things and I justthink like to expect absolute
perfection is a little bit sillyto me.
(42:01):
So yeah, I mean people that arelike very allergic to dairy and
gluten and all these thingslike that.
It sucks to say, but I'm likeeating at a fast food place just
may not be like you don't want,you might not want to tempt it.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of questions there, like
one did he really tell him noonions?
That's the first thing I know.
And then the second thing aboutit too is, even if they don't
put onions on the burger,there's onions there in the
building, exactly.
So, like you said, there'scross-contamination going.
In fact, some of the packagesthat you you get will have on
(42:39):
there tree nuts are made in thesame facility as this product.
They would put that to let youknow.
So I don't know.
It's kind of an iffy thingthere.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
It really is no, I know.
It sounds a little bit like apayday is trying to happen and I
also like if, if you get sickthat I don't know, I would write
to corporate and maybe they'dgive you like a $300 gift card
or something.
Getting $250,000 or maybe morebecause of this sounds like I
don't know, a little bitridiculous.
Did you suffer that much damage?
(43:10):
Or like you need to buy a housenow because you had onions once
you know it's a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
And here's the crazy thing about it if you know that
they because typically anytimeyou buy a burger or cheeseburger
, nine times out of ten hasonions on there- yeah you know,
it would have took a few secondsto just open the burger up and
see if there's onions on there Iknow, I know or it might just
be an overly simplistic, I don'tknow exactly.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
No, no, no, I think so too and I definitely think,
like food allergies are totallya real thing, but it sucks.
It totally sucks.
But you just have to avoid likeplaces where you're not in
control.
Like I have a friend that'svery allergic to peanut oil and
him and I just can't do for themost part, he just like doesn't
go to a lot of Asian restaurantsand that's just like a no cause
.
He's not going to be like letme put it in their hands to see
(43:57):
if we could do that.
So that totally sucks, thatyou're excluded from a lot of
options, but it just is what itis.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Talk about options.
I can't even believe this is athing.
But there's a new challenge outthere.
Don't know what idiot came upwith this challenge.
What they're doing is it's theChromebook challenge.
Yay.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
No, not yet.
I do have a Chromebook, but Ihope it's not to like.
Throw your Chromebook on thefloor.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
You might as well, oh no, but what these idiots and
I'm not mincing my words, theseidiots decided to, whoever came
up with this decided hey, I'mgoing to take something and push
it into the port, you know, Ithink into the power port or
maybe one of the other ports onthe side.
Okay, and cause it to catchfire.
What Somebody thought this wasa great idea.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And Kids are doing it all over the place.
What?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
How many people have all this money to like get?
I'm still holding onto myChromebook from like 2011.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
You know the crazy thing, meryl, is a lot of
schools do their curriculum onChromebooks.
Now you know they very rarelyuse books now in school.
It's pretty much everything onChrome and nine times out of 10,
that Chromebook that you'recatching on fire.
You know your parents arepaying for that.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Not only that, you put yourself at harm and you can
harm someone else trying to doa Facebook or YouTube challenge
or whatever challenge it is.
I think it's all over TikTok, Ibelieve it is, but I don't know
.
What do you think it is withkids wanting to do these stupid
challenges?
I mean?
Speaker 2 (45:44):
if you're one of these kids and I don't want to
see you posting any like eat therich content, or like don't
waste food, or that you can't beupset about anything or be like
a crybaby about anything um, Ithink that's ridiculous.
I feel like there's so manypeople that would love to get a
laptop and, and especially Imean the Chromebooks are so
sweet, they're one of myfavorites, I mean it could be
any computer.
(46:04):
But to me that's such a greatthing and there's so many people
wanting for a computer that forsomeone just to set something
on fire is really stupid.
And it's also not impressive.
For like a three minute threeseconds of watching a computer
go on fire, it doesn't reallymove the needle of how cool you
are or anything.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
I don't know.
I mean, if you need that muchattention, there's something
going on inside of you.
Exactly.
That's stupid.
That's almost as bad as do youremember the crate challenge,
the which one Crate challenge,where they stacked up crates and
they would run up the crate andthen back down the crate?
Speaker 2 (46:45):
See, like what are the ages?
I wonder, because these arealso the people that are upset
about that are making fun ofmillennials, but maybe it is
millennials also.
Sometimes I talk some smackabout Apple products.
I'm like, if you want to breaka computer, just get just like,
buy an Apple and it will breakon its own, so they get so hot
anyway.
Anyway, I feel like a lot of myfriends apples have just
(47:05):
basically like caught on firejust trying to edit something.
Really, yeah, the ones I've,some of my friends, like the
ones they have, have gotten likeso, so, so hot like the bottoms
of it.
I'm not I'm not an apple fan.
Everyone I know that has anapple is always like having to
fix them and stuff.
I have this janky littleChromebook that I've had for
years and it's like I love it.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I will not be participating in that challenge.
I will be loving my baby Chrome.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
I'm just shocked that not only someone was dumb
enough to do it, but how much ofa viral sensation this stupid
thing is that thing is stupid.
That's really surprising.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Yes, okay, speaking of trends, I'm so excited to get
your honest take on thissomewhat layered, somewhat
nuanced thing that has sweepingTikTok Okay.
So basically, I don't know ifyou've seen this, but a lot of
people are saying that redheadsare now the quote black people
of white people, according toTikTok.
Now, I can already tell by youreyes that you might not love
(48:05):
this, so I wanted to get yourtake because, as like an
annoying white woman, I had myfirst thoughts about this and
then I wanted to be sensitive tohow everyone may feel about it.
So what started as one woman'shot take has taken over
everyone's algorithm, sparkingsolidarity across a newfound
community.
Basically, a TikTok creatorposted a now viral video
(48:28):
declaring everyone who's gingerhas red hair, those are black
people.
All gingers are black people.
If they have red hair, they areblack.
The clip quickly took off onTikTok, opening the viral
floodgates to a creation ofconfused community.
Now, the thing that Iemotionally liked about this at
first is seeing a lot ofredheads that I feel like have
(48:50):
been made fun of in the pastfeel like they're very excited.
I think it's also a generalfeeling that a lot of people are
like oh my God, I'm suddenlycooler and, like you know, I'm
sure there's many, many, manylayers to this, but I think like
a lot, I got emotional when Isaw some redheads being like on
TikTok, crying, be like this hasbeen the best week ever.
(49:11):
I feel so accepted.
And then people are commentingunder, like black men and women
are commenting under, sayinglike welcome.
You know just the power ofpeople being connected.
But then I kind of got to thenext layer and I saw a lot of
black people not being veryenthused about it and saying you
know, this is taking away froma lot of stuff and just
generally feeling that this wasvery kind of silly and frivolous
(49:32):
.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Um, so I wanted to get your thoughts on it well, I
guess for me personally, I thinkit's a silly statement.
But there are, and I guess itdepends on the generation You're
looking at.
Younger generation willprobably look at this as being
(49:53):
Silly.
Ha ha ha, whatever.
Older generation's not so much.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
They're gonna look at it as so basically you're
saying they're the Black people.
White people mean that alsothey're the subhumans.
That's how some of us will takethat.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Really Okay, and that's good for me to consider,
because I feel like all I saw atfirst was almost like okay,
because they're cool and theyaren't.
They're like like.
I almost took it a differentway where they're like, they're
cool, I don't know, but it'salso probably on some level like
some level of like inunconscious racism, or even even
(50:34):
the cool part, or like they candance well, or some some
stereotype that is likeultimately hurtful to people.
Um, the part that I liked isjust the general connection of
like a man showed his littleredhead daughter getting ready
for school and then I saw a lotof black women commenting like
you have fun, baby, you know,like we love you and stuff, and
that's the part that I like theconnection of.
(50:57):
And I feel like people not notone, everyone could feel a
certain way about it.
Someone could love it, someonecould hate it.
You know that's.
The other thing is no one needsthere, doesn't need to be like
a blanket feeling about this.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Yeah, I mean, I guess a great example of this would
be and unfortunately thishappens sometimes within the
Black community where someonewould say, ooh, you know, you
sound white, oh yeah, and somepeople you know outside of our
community would be like, well,why is that so offensive?
Well, basically it's sayingthat if a Black person has great
(51:34):
grammar, they don't stutter,they're very articulate with
their words, then they soundwhite, white like black.
People can't be this type ofperson, oh my goodness.
So sometimes you know there'sdifferent layers.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
And I guess this is where the communication and
talking is.
And sometimes, when youunderstand why it's offensive to
some people, you look at it adifferent way, totally, and you
can't see it through their eyesExactly.
People you you look at it adifferent way, totally see it
through their eyes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
In your eyes it may not be something that you're
being offensive to, but thenwhen someone explains it to you,
you go oh, now I get itabsolutely, absolutely, yeah,
and I'm, I'm, yeah, definitelythat's good to know, that's good
to know, like that's it's goodto talk about, because I think I
think a lot of these thingswere just made innocently of
like redheads just being likelike.
I really started crying becauseI saw a bunch of redhead and it
(52:26):
might sound ridiculous, but Ithink maybe a lot of redhead
people might have have enduredlike being made fun of or you
know this or that, and I thinkthey just like seeing them feel
like they have wrong or right.
They felt like they werefinally part of like a fun,
awesome community.
But I think a lot of peoplesome people were like yeah, like
welcome, you know.
And some people were like notso fast, this is, this has
(52:48):
layers.
So I think it's it's good toacknowledge that like people
feel differently about it and tome, if it brings, if people
feel joyous about it, there's noneed to like we don't have to
deflate them, but's also we haveto acknowledge that people
might be not so happy.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
I think it boils down to just conversations.
You know, it's amazing.
When people sit down and starttalking, you'll be amazed at how
much that you have in commonthan not in common.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Regardless of your politics or anything else, most
people have more common thanthey don't and they don't
realize it until they have thatconversation.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Exactly, yep, totally , and I think like, yeah, I just
I love seeing all differenttypes of people and everything
commenting like on each other,and I think that's one thing I
love about Tik TOK is like Ithink sometimes it's like it's
so nice because I think, likethe media and politics tried to
divide us so much, and I just Ilove when, like, any type of
(53:45):
people come together, so likethat is a power that I like.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
I agree.
I agree and, like I said, Ithink we're in a point right now
where more conversation isdefinitely something that's
needed, because, you know, we'vebeen going through, as a
country, a lot of craziness.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkit's going to end anytime soon,
and the only way we're going toget through it whether we like
it or not, we're all in thistogether exactly a lot of people
(54:13):
too.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
I really was like in bed crying and I'm like I had to
explain to my boyfriend likeI'm crying about redheads and
people are commenting on that.
He's like you're crying aboutredheads and black people Don't
even ask me.
But then someone even said God,redheads, have you been ignored
for so long?
It's just ridiculous.
Everyone be nice to each other,I feel like, is the moral of
(54:36):
the story.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
Well, you know what?
We've got a couple of minutes.
Do you have any story you wantto sneak in?
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Ooh, oh yeah, I have a quick one.
I saw this.
I thought it was very likewhatever they were saying.
Another viral TikTok video Amillennial woman made a bold
prediction that Gen Z is goingto be the last generation that
has tattoos.
So basically they were sayingGen Alpha and everyone younger
(55:08):
than them.
They're going to look up and belike, oh God, tattoos are
cringy, tattoos are kind of, youknow, embarrassing or whatever.
And so it just started aconversation about like maybe
tattoos will be expensive orlike represent capitalism or
whatever.
I don't.
I don't think this is going tobe true.
I feel like just the way thatwe've seen, like skinny jeans
(55:29):
and stuff from the 90s.
I feel like tattoos are alwaysgoing to be around at some level
, but I think gone are the dayswhere we're going to have like a
like divine across your arm orlike kind of cringy tattoos.
I think people will be morediscerning about what they get,
and maybe that also goes forlike getting your eyebrows
pierced and getting your tonguepierced, you know yeah, I mean
(55:50):
like me.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
Personally, I would never get a tattoo because I'm
I'm dark-skinned, so if I got atattoo, you probably couldn't
even see it.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
So it'd be just a waste of money for me I know, if
anything I bet in the futurethey'll like, they'll create
tattoos.
They already have it now, whereit's like you can, it's like
invisible ink for a day.
You know, they'll probably getreally creative with the
technology.
I don't know if it will besomeone a tattoo artist, it
might be more of like a robotdoing it and you're able to peel
it off after like eight days orwhatever.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
But um yeah, nice, well, I got a really quick one
too.
Yeah, and actually I'm gonna doa fun one.
This gentleman his name iscorian evans.
Um, this young man is a hero,and I mean that literally.
(56:39):
He basically saw, I guess, someteenagers that drove
accidentally into a body ofwater, so he jumped in and he
saved three teenagers.
And also there was a policeofficer that went in too to help
them and he was struggling.
He helped pull him out as well.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
Whoa.
I love that.
See, he's someone that deserveslike $250,000, not someone that
ate onions Like I.
Feel like that person shouldmake the money that, like
baseball players and everything,make.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
That is true, that is true.
Speaker 2 (57:12):
That's so cute.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
I love that.
Yes, I have a lot of otherstuff, but I'm like you know
what?
Let me pick a nice.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
Oh, I love that.
I wonder if any of your stuffwill be available.
Hopefully it will stand thetest of time For next week.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Most of these probably will, but something
tells me we'll have even morenews.
There you go.
Talk about news.
What do you have coming up,meryl?
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Yay, I have a show May 28th At the La Jolla Comedy
Store.
So if you're in the SanDiego-ish area, I will be part
of a wonderful, wonderful showat the Comedy Store.
And yeah, that's, excuse me, mynext exciting one.
Oh, and then, randomly, I'mgoing to be in Minneapolis at a
show.
It's a comedy festival calledLakes on the Loon or Lons on the
(57:59):
Lake, which is really fun inMinneapolis.
And then that's June 6th.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Nice.
Well, everyone, make sure youguys go out and support Meryl,
if you're in the air.
You can stop by and see her.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, I would so love that you can tell me your
thoughts on Redheads and Walmart.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
This has been a very, very fun episode.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
It has.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Everyone, thank you for watching.
We really appreciate yoursupport.
Please continue to support us.
I am Lawrence Elrod, and I'mMeryl Clemo.
Have a great day everyone.
Bye.
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode
of Thirsty Topics.
I am Lawrence Elrod.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I'm Meryl Clemo.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey Meryl, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, I'm great.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I am doing great.
It's been a whirlwind of stuffgoing on this week.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I know I feel like the news has been exploding.
Lots of things I even textedwe're not including it in this
one, but I texted you one aboutthe airlines.
Luckily we have so much stuffwe don't even need to talk about
planes just losing control andstopping, but it's been crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yes, definitely.
I mean, uh, I literally had 14items no way about today, so I
had to like trim that down tofive.
For people that doesn't knowthis, we actually cover 10
different items, so merle doesfive, I do five, and lately
we've had so much stuff that wecan talk about that we actually
(01:09):
have a hard time just trimmingit down.
This is so much informationyeah, I'm always happy.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Also, next time, if we each want to do 14, we can
just read them and give ourthree thoughts.
You know, like thoseassociation games, it's like the
color orange, and we just say,like the three things there you
go.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We can do 50 stories per hour if you want to.
Yes, we could.
Yes, we could.
Well, I am going to start off,and I'm going to start off on a
very happy note.
Um, don't know if you watchamerican idol or not, but um, a
gym teacher from Mississippi hisname is Jamal Roberts wins
American Idol.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yay, amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I am so happy for him .
He's 27.
I believe he's married, has, Iwant to say, three kids.
Very positive gentleman.
I mean, basically, you knowhe's a teacher, but he's always
had his dream of going aftermusic.
So even at 27 years old, whichto me is young, he still wanted
(02:15):
to go after his dream, eventhough he's a teacher.
I mean, what are your thoughtson that, meryl?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I mean I am with you, that I feel like, if any I mean
any age, people should go aftertheir dreams.
But the thought of someonethat's 27, that's like maybe my
dream passed me by.
It's like so ridiculous.
I'm like, I'm 42 and I'm justlike, what should my dream be?
I'm very confused, but I thinkthat's so amazing.
And I bet his students areabsolutely freaking out.
They probably have beenfreaking out like each week that
(02:42):
he was on and I also have beenfreaking out like each week that
he was on um.
And I also feel like this is agood time to win american idol
because you know, it's got.
It's not as popular as it oncewas, or maybe it is, I don't
know, but like to me it's not asmuch in, like it's kind of been
rolling for a bunch of yearsnow.
But I think it's a good time tobe on it because you get the
like legacy of all the othershows and you get to meet all
(03:02):
the other um like alumni of itand all the.
You know the things that itbrings you.
I know they do a lot of tourswhere all of the people come
around.
So I feel like you're you'rebeing shoehorned in like a good
section of people, which I thinkis awesome oh yeah, um, I
really like the performance hedid with jelly roll.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That was actually pretty cool yeah, yes, I saw
that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's super cool.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Also he's going to.
I think that I could see whythey picked him, because his
voice is so beautiful and he'sable to do different styles.
I think he'll be.
He's not just one.
So I think the industry has agood chance of marketing him.
I just hope that at this pointI hope his contracts that's the
only thing I've heard aboutthese shows sometimes is you
(03:47):
kind of don't get the bestcontracts or you kind of sign
your life away with these recorddeals.
I hope he's able to go into itwith some smart business sense.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's a great point.
I know that.
I saw that he wins $250,000 forhis family, which people have
to understand.
That's really not $250,000 forhis family, which people have to
understand it's really not$250,000, because Uncle Sam
won't get his cut first.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, the taxes.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I'm sure the network is like oh the network takes
this amount, this amount, yeah,so basically cut that in half.
That's really what he's getting, which is still cool, but, like
you said, he's getting aprofessional contract and I
agree with you.
I hope that he has his ownattorney.
Look at that contract just tomake sure you know he's not
getting screwed on it, becauseunfortunately we've seen that
(04:33):
way too many times, you know oh,my gosh for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
One of my favorite groups like is ridiculous, but
it was the girl group fifthharmony like I love them so much
.
I think they're so cute and sotalented.
I love, love all of themindividually.
But they were on the X Factorand they talk a lot now about
that.
They were just locked into suchcrazy rigorous touring
schedules and they weren'tmaking a lot of money and you
know like.
So I hope shows like that don'tgobble up their contestants.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I agree, I agree.
Like I said, I am so happy forhim.
He seems like a very very veryvery happy young man.
You know he's very appreciative.
So, kudos, I think that's agreat way to start our show off
today.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I do too, and now, now he gets to be friends with
Kelly Clarkson, which soundspretty fun.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Here's a fun fact which I did not know until it
was pointed out to me the lasttime an african-american has won
american idol is when rubenstutter won really yes, I did
not know.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh my gosh, wow, I love him too and I feel like
he's done a really good job ofjust performing and like I feel
like he's laid low and just beenlike a musician and, you know,
performed a lot, so so that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's hard to believe.
I'd have to look through thelatest because now I can't
remember if people like KellyPickler.
I feel like I'm getting a lotof my shows confused of who won
what and everything.
I think of Carrie Underwood.
I don't know if she was awinner of American Idol or a
different show, but some ofthese people turned out to be
insane superstars.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, I know she was on there.
Whether she won or not, I don'tknow.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I know.
For a while I actually heardand if you're the new winner,
don't listen to this but I'veheard that you don't want to win
first place.
It's always the second placeperson.
For a while they were callingit their first place curse or
something.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Let's hope he breaks that curse, yeah, I have a
feeling he's going to break it.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Could you imagine also If you're a teacher, if
you're in school and yourteacher won American Idol and
then trying to concentrate?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Oh, I bet that would be awesome.
Something tells me that If hiscareer goes the way I think it's
going to go, he's probably notgoing to be doing much teaching
anymore.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
But it's good go, he's probably not gonna be doing
much teaching anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
But well, good, because I think that um, I've
always talked about thisrepresentation means so much,
and when someone like theirteacher or someone that looks
like them, do something special,then they know they can do it
too yes, and I think that wasthe original goal of American
Idol.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
like picking someone like Kelly Clarkson, too, where
it was like showing, okay, whoin America you know, not someone
living in LA or New York, thatwould be like an obvious choice,
like who would be amongst us,that it would be a star.
And it's like, okay, teachers,you know, people that are just
doing everyday type of jobs.
So I love it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I love it as well.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, someone that would vote for herself as number
one on American Idol would beBlake Lively.
Somehow she would end up havingeveryone call for her and
somehow something would happen.
And okay, I'm just going totalk the latest, I'll go into
the specifics.
But basically some crazy stuffhappened recently.
Who knows if it's true or not.
You know this is all allegedlyand to me from the beginning I
(07:49):
feel like both sides of theBlake Lively slash, justin
Baldoni they've probably bothdone right things and both done
wrong things and you know, likewhatever.
But what had happened wasbasically they Justin Baldoni's
lawyer I'm going to break itdown as simply as I can.
Justin Baldoni's lawyer went tothe judge in their court and
said Blake Lively is trying toblackmail Taylor Swift and
(08:13):
basically saying to Taylor'scamp you know it's all through
lawyers and everything, butbasically saying if Miss Swift
doesn't make a support for BlakeLively, if she doesn't post her
support, then Blake is going toleak her text messages for the
past 10 years.
And so of course, this soundslike preposterous, but Baldoni's
lawyer signed an affidavitsaying like that he really
(08:35):
talked to someone in February.
That is very, very close toTaylor's camp, whether that's
her lawyer or her publicist.
You know we don't know who thatis, but everyone was saying the
fact that his lawyer signed anaffidavit and like publicly was
stating this is the truth, I'msigning my professionalism away,
but then the courts strike thatand basically was like, okay,
(08:58):
even if that happened, this isnot going to be part of the
whole thing, but it's stilldoing like such damage because
people believe that thisactually happened and they think
Blake is trying to leak textabout Taylor's love life and
maybe some very secret thingsabout the music industry and who
knows.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, I think he's playing with fire, to be honest
with you, the lawyer, actuallyBlake, and his lawyer.
Oh yeah, because the thingabout Taylor Smith smith, taylor
smith is a worldwide yeah, I'minsane.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Oh yeah.
What if taylor smith is like analternate universe?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
you know, and and the thing is is that you know, when
you start messing with therecord company and stuff like
that, you better make sure yourducks are in order yeah even
though we don't talk about itenough very, very, very powerful
organization okay, oh yeah, allof her swifties so you, you
really don't want to makeenemies, and and we haven't even
(09:55):
talked about the swifties yetbecause, yeah, they'll go after
them too.
So I I think they're playing avery dangerous game.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I really do, and I mean, I mean it's also.
I mean, there's so many things.
I guess one of the first ones,too, is that if Blake really did
this to one of her longtimefriends, like Taylor is the
godmother of her children herown children and I feel like one
of the most interesting thingsabout Blake Lively was her
friendship to Taylor Swift, so Ijust can't see her being like
that bonkers that she'd be ableto do that to her.
(10:25):
But I I wonder if, like thelawyers, did that without her
knowing, which would be crazytoo.
You know, maybe maybe it wasalso her lawyers, um, I don't
know, but nothing surprises meat this point with this whole
case yeah, I think it's justgoing in a crazy direction I
know, and and the thing withmedia is that we're seeing
there's some stories later onthat we'll get into too that
(10:45):
have kind of remnants of this,but, like, once something hits
the news, people are going tobelieve that.
So, even if this didn't happenor if it happened differently,
all most people are seeing waslike Blake tried to blackmail
Taylor.
You know so it may be thatthat's not the case, but I feel
like each time you're losing,like more and more people.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah, definitely.
And you know the thing is, oncecourts are involved, things go
crazy.
Yeah, oh, start going crazy.
All kinds of things come offthe woodwork and to me, if
you're a friend, you're a friendto the end, even if you guys
fall out, you still don't tellany secrets or anything that
happens.
Yeah, that's just like thisunwritten rule.
You, you just don't do that.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Exactly and honestly, if Blake or someone was to leak
Taylor's text, there's aportion of us that I'd be like
cool, she's talking about a guyor she's talking bad about Katy
Perry.
Who cares?
That still makes Blake look bad.
You're taking yourself downeven more than you think.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
And also, too, you have to understand, if I'm a
friend, I'm going to be watchingthat person very closely and I
may kind of keep them at arm'slength.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what a lot of
people say that she's like whowould want to trust that or text
with them, you know?
And so chances are that inthose texts I have to imagine
that, like Blake probably said,some not so great things too,
Because most of the time whenyou're talking with your friends
on text, it's like haha, it's ajoint experience, not just one
person.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Let's face it there are things you're going to say
to a friend that you won't sayin front of a camera.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, yeah, Even though a lot of people are
saying it's about relationshipsor maybe she had a baby and lost
it and it's like the publicwill just condemn Blake for that
.
Maybe there'll be some interestin what Taylor said, but for
the most part they'll beprotective of her, I think.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Absolutely.
I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
This is crazy, though .
Yeah, it keeps on getting moreand more.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, and unfortunately I don't think that
this is over with it either.
No, Well, a little bit of sadnews here, and I'm going to
preface this with.
Anyone who's watched our showknows that we don't really dive
too deep into politics, andthat's done purposely.
(12:59):
Sometimes we'll skirt aroundthe edges because there's
something important we need totalk about.
But regardless of whetheryou're Republican, independent
Democratic, it doesn't matter.
But thoughts and prayers go outto Joe Biden and his family.
He has just basically leteveryone know the world that he
(13:21):
has been diagnosed with anaggressive form of prostate
cancer and it has spread to hisbones.
So right now the family istrying to look at options as far
as what they're going to dowith treatment.
The thing is that once it's inthe bones, they can't cure it,
they can't get rid of it.
(13:41):
But basically what they'resaying is, because of the type
of cancer it is and I guess youknow everything that's going on
with it it could be managed, butno one likes to be diagnosed
with the C word there.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
No, that's so scary and like as if he already didn't
have enough going on the pastcouple of years, and I'm sure a
lot of the stress hasn't helped,or you know who knows if he had
it.
I saw an article, too, that hein 2000, in 2022, he said
something like that's why, andmyself, why others and myself
have cancer, but, but what hewas referring to at the time, I
(14:18):
think it was he had skin cancer,and so a lot of people are
saying, oh, he knew back in 2022, but I don't think that was
that.
I think it was referring to askin cancer that he had.
But, yeah, that's so sad and Ihope.
I hope it's the kind of thing.
I mean, you never know.
I hear stories all the time ofpeople that, like, were given
short sentences and then it'slike nine years later and
they're still able to live asomewhat manageable life, and
(14:39):
you know, you never know.
So, if anything, though, thiswould be the type of person that
would get, like, the best carethat they have or, you know, all
the doctors and all thetreatments hopefully would be at
his fingertips?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Oh, definitely.
And you know the other thingtoo I hear people talking about
well, how could he not know?
And he just found out.
On Friday is stage four, and youknow one thing is is that you
got to be careful when you startmaking all kinds of accusations
oh, yeah, yeah and you know theother thing too, and as I was
watching different programs andstuff, kind of, you know,
following the news, I did notknow that once a man gets like
(15:15):
70 or above, they don'tnecessarily recommend you doing
the prostate like they do whenyou're younger, which is Really
yeah, I mean you should stillget it, but it's not really
pushed hard by the doctors,which is really shocking to hear
.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I don't know.
I mean, obviously, prostatecancer is one of the leading
cancers for me, but I think thatpeople need to stop trying to
guess.
Well, how did he know this?
Why did he know that?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh my gosh, yeah, we don't need to.
It's like no one needs to knowthat much personal details about
it.
And even if he knows veryrecently and tells people, or if
he knows for a while and isjust regrouping and then tells
people like that is the mostpersonal thing, oh yeah and you
know the thing is is that nomatter how how much they put on
a smile in front of that camera,you know that's devastating
(16:10):
news oh yeah, devastating, yeah,and remembering that he's still
a person, a human, with like awife and kids, and I, I would
imagine something like this.
You probably need to tell peoplepretty quickly because, like
all the people that know at likethe hospital and your staff and
you, I think you'd want, you'dwant to be on top of it rather
than having it leaked.
Um, you know, because I feellike that's the kind of thing
(16:32):
that if it starts to get aroundlike washington dc and then out
and around, then you want to andyou want to be the people to
manage it.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And the thing is that I think, on one hand, they
might have wanted to keep thisto themselves Because of who he
is.
It's better to be ahead of thestory than behind it.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yes, and maybe people will stop being so mean about
him too, because he gets a lotof just you know things and you
know that at some point it wasgoing to get leaked out.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So I think it was good for them to get ahead of
the story before it got gotleaked out somewhere else.
So totally.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I'm the same way where, like Democrat or
Republican, if someone is ill orsomeone finds out something bad
, like I don't want, unless ifthey're mostly a good person
which I think he is, like youknow unless they're a terrible,
terrible human being, then like.
I still wish the best for them.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
So yeah, definitely so, yes, Like I said, our
thoughts and prayers go out tothe Biden family.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, yep, and hopefully, like we said, we
might be years and years thathe's able to have like a good
life.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So that's true.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
That's true.
Ok, I love this, this one.
I don't know why I'm sopersonally invested, but it
makes me very happy where, uh,it feels like all is right again
, at least on hbo max, becausethe streaming service formerly
known as max will once onceagain be called hbo max, which I
never stopped calling it like I.
I just shortened it to hbo and,like to me, it's been hbo the
(17:58):
whole time.
I refuse to get into the macstuff.
Uh, warner brothers discoveryannounced wednesday that it will
soon put the hbo back in thename.
Two years and much criticismafter dropping it.
Uh, blah, blah.
So, pretty much they did seelike a um, a drop in, in, like
numbers and everything.
I think people were just soconfused of, like, you know, we
(18:20):
love this app and we loveeverything, but we don't
understand why you don't don'tbreak something.
That's not you know or whateverthe saying is.
You guys know what the sayingis, but I'm so happy about this
and I think it said the May 2023rebrand to max was widely
panned, with critics confused byboth the separation from HBO
and a glitchy tech rollout.
(18:42):
So, you know, fans did not likethis and yeah, that's it.
Okay, my thoughts are this,though, cause I don't know why,
I am like some people don't care.
I am a very like a attachedgirl to this type of stuff where
, like Dunkin' Donuts is the onethat bothered me, where, like
now, it's just Dunkin' and itreally like pains me every time
(19:03):
I remember.
And the same thing with Twitterand X, like I just refuse to.
It will always be Twitter to me.
So I feel like some of therebrands we've had lately have
been for the worse and peoplejust need to stop messing with
stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Oh yeah, and you know , the thing is is that once you
have a popular brand, you'll besurprised at what the fans will
really pay attention to Iremember this show called Ghost
that came on Showtime.
Then it turned into Power Bookor whatever.
The opening theme was a greattheme, everybody loved it.
(19:36):
They wanted to refresh it.
They changed it.
The fans were ballistic, theyhated it.
It was like great theme,everybody loved it, but they
wanted to refresh it.
They changed it and the fanswere ballistic.
They hated it To the pointwhere they were on social media
and all this.
It was just nuts.
To the point where they changedit back to the original song.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
And that's like yeah, I've worked for companies
before that have put in years ofgetting their logo recognized
and then it was kind of some outof touch executives that wanted
to change the logo, and it'slike why are you why?
are you messing with this justto like feel like you need to do
something, or you know you like, so I feel like they need to
stop doing that.
I remember another one too likeweight watchers just became ww
(20:15):
and it's like why, like you'vehad decades of people
recognizing this brand name andnow you're changing it.
I think it's honestly a lot oftimes out of touch people in the
company that are doing this, orshareholders or stockholders.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I think a lot of times and the intent is there,
it's a good intent, but thething is, a lot of times real
successful companies they don'treally sell a product, they sell
a brand.
Yeah, think about it when aperson buys a Rolex, they're not
(20:50):
buying a Rolex, because theyneed to tell time.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Right, they're trying to show their own, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
They're buying a Rolex to say hey look, I have
money.
Yeah, totally, they're like Ispent $100,000 on this, exactly
own.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, yeah, they're buying a rolex to say, hey look,
I have money.
Yeah, totally like.
I spent a hundred thousand onthis exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
And it's the same thing like when people the
starbucks thing you knowstarbucks coffee, you know it's
okay, it's starbucks, yeah, butpeople like the starbucks
experience you know, so that'sreally what they're buying is
the experience.
So really that's the part aboutbranding.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Once you get that portion done, you've hit the
mark and you really don't wantto mess with it at that point I
know it makes me wonder aboutfocus groups, though, because
for something like duncan, Ifeel like if you asked 50 people
which one you like better, likemost norm, most everyday people
would say duncan, donuts,donuts, cause it's just like,
even if you're getting coffeethere, if you're getting an egg
sandwich and not donuts, it'sjust the name like just evokes
(21:45):
way more comfortability andnostalgia and everything.
So I feel like I w I wouldwonder how many focus groups
they're doing, cause same thingwith HBO max.
I feel like most people wouldsay no, we like HBO, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
That's true, that's very true, and you know that's
true, that's very true, and youknow you definitely have to make
sure you listen to the peoplethat's paying your salary so
yeah, damn it, let us run thesemarketing talk about running
marketing stuff and I knew thiswas going to come up.
Um, I know a lot of Americansshop at Walmart.
(22:19):
Walmart has just officiallyannounced that their prices will
be raised because of PresidentTrump's tariffs, and they said
President Trump's tariffs byname.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Really.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, they didn't hit you or anything like that.
I mean they point blank said itand so I know they're getting a
little bit of flack from thewhite house and stuff like this
about them saying this, but it'sreality.
Yeah, I think the big thing is,merrill, is I?
I know a lot of stuff comes outof China.
I think people are going to beshocked at how much stuff comes
(22:57):
out of China.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I know.
So that's what I wonder.
With something like the thingsat Walmart, is it all separately
, like every item there iscoming from a different place?
You know, like the sneakers arecoming from a different place
in China than like maybe, andstuff.
So is it?
Do you think?
Is it all going up by a certainpercentage, like together at
Walmart, or like each thing islike this one's raised by 17
(23:21):
cents, this one's raised by like15 cents it's gonna be,
depending on where it comes from.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Okay, okay, you know a majority, I don't know and I
saw something that 80% and I wasshocked to see this 80% of all
toys sold in the United Statescome out of China.
Wow, that's a huge, you know.
Yeah, so the thing is is thatwhen you take a look at that,
(23:47):
and then also too, a lot ofagriculture comes out of China
and Singapore and a lot of otherdifferent places too.
Now, they may not have heavytariffs as much as China does,
but to a certain degree,everything's going up.
It's not a matter of if it'sgoing to go up.
It's going to be a matter ofhow much is it going?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
up.
Yeah, and I feel like a lot ofokay, this is going to get me in
trouble, but just stay with me.
People, this is my view thatsometimes I feel like people all
types of different people shopat Walmart, but I feel like a
lot of Walmart shoppers may havevoted for Trump, you know like
that's not good or bad.
(24:29):
We're just going to say how Ifeel, but I think that might be
a store.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
You're trying to pick that hate mail up.
No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
No, and this is my view.
So hate me, hate me, and thisisn't even hate things.
I'm not saying anything bad ormean.
I'm saying that this may be astore, that sometimes people
that may have voted for Trump,they vote for all different
things too.
I'm not saying anythingconcrete.
I'm saying that this may be astore.
I don't know if a lot of hisfan base is like I'm trying to
(24:56):
think of a store where they'renot at Ben and Jerry's or
something I don't know.
Yeah, you feel what I'm pickingup.
I'm sorry everyone if you'remad at me, but just know that I
love you.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
But you know, the real crazy thing about it is and
I think you hit on a greatpoint that no one's pointing out
is that even if you're adiehard Trump fan, you're going
to feel the pain, just likeeveryone else.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yes, exactly and I can see the people now like I
shop at Walmart with my familybecause I can afford it.
You don't know who I voted for,yes, I understand that, I
totally understand that, but nomatter what, just as a whole,
that's annoying for all of us.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, and you know it's not getting as much
coverage in the media, but youkind of hit on a great point.
There's a lot of voters whovoted for Trump that are voicing
their disapproval with theirlocal officials, and it's
happening all over the country.
So I think at some point that'sprobably going to get a little
(25:53):
bit more airplay than it'sgetting right now, but that is a
thing.
There's a lot of people thatare really upset.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yep, and they have a right to be too, so yeah, I'm
with it.
I feel like my number oneWalmart purchase is paper towels
and toilet paper, so I hopeit'll be interesting, because
they are already so expensivenow.
Isn't it crazy that we live ina time where toilet paper and
paper towels are this expensive?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, you know.
The karma thing to this is thatwalmart was one of trump's
biggest supporters yeah, Iremember that, and now they're
like yeah isn't it funny howthat happens, huh I know, I know
, I'm sorry, he can't know.
Crazy um okay.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
This next one is absolutely insane okay, I'm
gonna break it down very easybecause he can't know, crazy.
Okay, this next one isabsolutely insane.
Okay, I'm going to break itdown very easy because it seems
to confuse some people.
Okay, do you know who Tommy Leeis of Motley Crue?
Yes, yes, okay, cool.
So Tommy Lee, he's married to awoman named Brittany Furlan and
(26:59):
she's like she was a Vine star.
She's an internet personality.
She's really funny and cute.
I, like her went out was it wasbecause that Tommy was having a
hard time with alcohol, whichyou know.
(27:20):
He's in Motley Crue for yearsand years.
He's been known to like dabblein that rock star life.
And so at first people were like, oh, that's so sad that you
know he's having time withalcohol, that's really sad,
they're getting a divorce.
Then out comes the news thatthat might not actually be the
case.
And what happened?
Okay, so strap in, because whatactually happened was that,
allegedly, britney was talkingto another guy on Snapchat, this
(27:45):
guy, ronnie Radke, who, likehe's the lead singer of the band
Falling in Reverse, and so youknow she was chatting with this
guy and like they were, you know, going back and forth.
But then the plot twist shefinds out that that guy was
actually just a catfish and nota real.
It was someone impersonatingRonnie.
So I hope everyone understands,because a lot of people are
(28:09):
confused online.
Basically, brittany was likecheating on her husband, but
then found out that she wasgetting catfished and like it
was a Snapchat account ofsomeone that's not Ronnie.
So the real Ronnie, the real,actual Ronnie, came on Facebook
and was making all these storiesand posting all these things
about like here's the proof itwasn't me.
(28:29):
I'm going to get a lawyer.
Supposedly he's like, because alot of people didn't believe
him at first.
They're like we know it's you,you know, we know it's you, you
know, we know.
And then all these people said,oh my god, I have this pretend
ronnie in my dms and, like, mygirlfriend got hit by this
pretend ronnie, and so it becamethis giant thing and it makes
britney look pretty damnembarrassing and foolish, you
(28:52):
know, I mean because not she andshe did cop to the fact that,
like, no matter at the end ofthe day she was messaging a
different man, whether that manwas real or not, you know she
was talking to somebody else.
We don't know the ins and outsof their marriage.
So you know, it's not a goodthing to do ever.
But we also, like it soundslike it was pretty bad.
So I don't know what washappening.
(29:16):
But this guy, ronnie, on hisactual, real, human Instagram is
posting like nonstop, he'sspilling tea, he's making videos
.
It's like it's crazy.
And so it is like this myweekend.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You don't want to you just love to get a story where
I was like refreshing to see ifanyone else was saying anything.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, isn't that crazy that she, she
was like and she didn't cheat.
But I mean, she was definitely,you know, up in there, like you
know, flirting emotionally,whatever, with someone else, but
that person turned out to benot the real guy yeah, and you
know, the interesting thing isthat if a guy did that like a
husband did, oh my god, let meget this exactly, exactly and to
(29:57):
me like it's even someone saidit best where they're like so
you're mad that the guy you werecheating on your husband with
isn't real and I'm like that'sreally at the end of the day,
you know, and I still standcorrected because there's still
time in this case where, likenext week, we may find out that
it really was him and it wasn'ta catfish.
You know what I mean like Iwon't be surprised if anything
(30:18):
happens, but right now theevidence seems pretty damning
that it like wasn't him.
He's been showing receipts andproof of and the person the
Snapchat pretend person doesn'ttalk like the way he does.
He was like messaging a milliondifferent women.
You know, I just think in 2025,it's crazy to like get
catfished and to not want tofacetime the person or just like
(30:40):
ask for proof after a few weeks?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
oh, absolutely, I mean, you know, we talked about
it before a few times on acouple of episodes where you
know these love scams are stillgoing on.
You know somebody online.
You never meet a face-to-face,you know, you don't even do a
FaceTime, but you're sendingthem money.
I don't understand that.
I really don't.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I know Me neither, and the part that gets me as
well is and I don't think, Idon't know.
I would hope that Brittanyseems like a nice enough person
that she wouldn't do this, butif, like, she wanted to get
ahead of the story and she toldPeople magazine or whatever that
the issue was because ofTommy's drinking, that's
horrible to do to someone.
Maybe that's happening.
(31:21):
But someone said that theythought that maybe she sold her
story first to try to makeherself not get in trouble, and
if so, that's terrible.
I hate that.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, that's true.
I mean that is crazy and, likeI said, people do crazy stuff
for crazy reasons.
Sometimes, you know, sometimespeople, celebrities do stuff
where they know it's going tobring their name up.
It's because, you know, somepeople have this crazy idea that
any press is good press.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I don't mean either.
This is like britney wassomeone who I thought of.
I don't think a lot about her,but I thought pretty highly of
her, like she's funny I havesome people that know her that
do comedy shows with her andlike she just seemed pretty
likable.
But now I think a lot of us arelike what the heck is going on?
You know, and even just tolearn that she was messaging
someone else, she even at onepoint messaged the real him and
(32:14):
said like um, um, I'm outside.
And she had driven to his house, thinking that she was about to
meet up.
And the real human is like whyis this person outside of my
house?
So it's just, it's like it'sweird and it's a little alarming
that someone in this day andage could go that long with
getting like scammed by aSnapchat.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
That is so true, that is so so true.
Scammed by a snapchat?
That is so true, that is so sotrue.
But I'm gonna say, if you thinkyou're talking to a person
again, if they don't want tofacetime, you yeah that shit.
And you know what some peoplemay say.
Well, what, if they don't havean iphone, they can't do
facetime.
Okay, there's zoom, there's allkinds of yeah, way that you can
(32:56):
see each other.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Totally, yeah, and this person's Snapchat videos
were like snippets of otherstuff that he had posted in the
past and it was just like soobvious.
It was very, very strange thatsomeone especially like she's an
online personality.
This isn't someone that goes onInstagram like once every six
months or you know, she makesher living with this.
So very weird.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
That is extremely weird.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I guess that 15 minutes of fame is important to
some people, huh.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Exactly yeah.
Or just like having an escapefrom your relationship, which
it's like okay, if it's so bad,then like please get divorced
immediately and then you canstart talking to catfishes.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
True, Very true, Talk about escaping relationships.
Next subject is we're going totalk about Cassie Ventura just
finished testifying in the Diddytrial.
So Cassie testified.
I want to say it was four days,I believe it was Tuesday
(33:57):
through Friday, and you know thejudge wanted Friday to be her
last day of testifying becauseshe is pregnant and she's
literally expecting, I believe.
Oh my gosh, that's so stressful.
Yes, so the judge purposelysaid you know all questioning
for her has to end by the end ofthe week because he's afraid
(34:17):
that she may end up having ababy there oh my gosh so I could
just imagine how stressful thathad to be, reliving what you
went through, having to, youknow, play video of freak offs
going on.
Video of freak-offs going on.
Yep, and from what I heard, shecan see it, the jury can see it
(34:41):
and the judge, but I think thespectators in the stands, you
know, in the audience there orwhatever, they couldn't see it.
Oh, somewhat, protect her, youknow some protect the people
there, but I don't know, I meanshe was a star witness.
So protect the people there,but I don't know, I mean she was
a star witness.
So all the witnesses coming upafter this are basically going
(35:03):
to be supporting what she saysand what happened to her and how
it ties into the sextrafficking.
I don't know.
I mean, obviously it's kind ofhard to really say if it's going
good or bad, because you knowthere's no cameras in there, but
what do you exactly?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
um, well, I saw, like I think they were talking about
some of her texts that theywere showing, and her texts were
like I love freak offs and it'slike, like, and she said so
many times it's like, okay,maybe she was just in a mood
that day, and it's like she islike freak offs are the best
thing I've ever been.
You know, like.
So I'm like, oh my god, but Ithink she was 19 and it's like
she probably was under the spellof what diddy was promising her
(35:41):
and we you know people thathave been, we've all been in
relationships not to this extent, but where it's like, once
you're out of that haze, you'rekind of like what, you know, who
was I?
Type of thing.
Um, I just feel like this isprobably especially if she is
about to give birth, like it'sprobably best that she focuses
on that and comes back.
But I don't know, this is just.
(36:02):
I don't have the most faith thatwe're going to hear like the
truth from a lot of witnesses.
You don't think so.
I don't know.
It just seems like eitherpeople are going to get
pressured or nothing will happen, or I don't know.
I just I'll have to believe itto see it.
But it just seems like a lot ofthe hollywood people I feel
like are going to be too scaredto speak up or if they do,
(36:23):
they'll like find they'll pokeholes in their story yeah, and
you know, the interesting thingis, um and we don't know, this
or not, is, are any of thosecelebrities going to be called
to the stand?
we don't know that yet I know II just feel like we've been
through this before with theHarvey Weinstein and Epstein,
and it's like all these peopleare named and then things happen
(36:44):
and then nothing really seemsto actually happen.
The one person ends up gettingin trouble, but then it's not
really like I don't know, theoffshoot doesn't happen as much.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
It seems like the prosecution and this is just my
interpretation is they want togo after Diddy, but they may,
like in the Harvey Weinsteincases, they're going to be a
little bit sensitive about whosome of these people are.
That someone involved?
They may not have done anythingillegal, but in that perception
(37:16):
like oh my gosh, so-and-so wasdoing freak-outs too, you know
what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, someone involved.
They may not have done anythingillegal, right, and that
perception like oh my gosh,so-and-so was doing freak-outs
too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's true, exactly.
This is why, going back to theBlake Lively and Taylor Swift
thing too, it's like please donot text anything that you don't
want.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I feel like between this and the Tommy Lee story
it's like the whole thing istoday, like just stay off your
text messages.
Oh yeah, and you know, thething is, I don't know if those
people doing the freak offs knewthat they were being taped,
because supposedly did he tapedall the time yeah, no, exactly,
and I think a lot of celebritiesmay have gone to his parties
because they always said thatthe freak offs happened way
later.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
We would have maybe been at 7 pm to 9 pm, where it's
like, okay, this party is likeit might be weird, but I go home
by 9 pm and then if you'renamed in it, you may not have
been part of the crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Oh yeah, I mean, it's like this open joke where
people will go to daily partiesand they'll be like, all right,
it's about that time yeah,wasn't it like denzel or
something?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I heard that there was like one celebrity that was
like everyone leave now.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, yeah, and it's like it's sad.
It's sad that we're saying this, but it was like this open
thing that no one knew.
But everyone knew, right, maybe?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
maybe people just knew.
Okay, people get weirdafterwards.
Like you know, there's drugs,there's girls, there's whatever.
I don't know if who knows towhat extent.
But like Hollywood is weird andI hate to say it, but it's like
people get warped or you justkind of turn a blind eye and
it's just you know it's notright, so I don't know I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
The crazy thing is there have been actors and
actresses at these parties.
Um, they have been people offaith at those parties.
Yeah, I'm not gonna mention anynames, but if you google it you
can probably figure them out.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
And again it doesn't look anything wrong, but the
optics don't look good yeah,lots of politicians at the,
maybe some royal members of theparty.
Exactly, and you know it goesback to you know you got to be
careful who you hang around,yeah exactly, and in this day
and age too, just know, I thinkmaybe more and more people are
(39:29):
like, ok, is this going to turnout in a few years to be a thing
, you know?
Because I think maybe at thattime people were just like it's
happening.
You know, right now we didn'treally think about like the
world of cancellation so much.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
That is so true.
I know one thing I am glad thatwhen I was young there was no
such thing as the internet, soMe too.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
We had like, right when I was in college, we would
have Facebook, but like peoplewere.
It was so funny because I waslistening to some comedy thing
about saying how you would like,for one night you'd upload like
37 photos of Facebook of justlike you by a pool table and
it's true, like a whole onenight would just be a whole
album of photos.
But but luckily there's neveranything like incriminating,
(40:09):
it's just a bunch of kidsstanding around, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
I don't know.
In fact, I remember when theinternet first came out.
You remember the annoying sound.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Oh yeah, the dial-up.
I love that.
I kind of wish we still hadthat.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
You have mail.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, see, I honestly love that.
I feel like I would go back tothat tomorrow if I could.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Really.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, I would.
I feel like I could havestopped easily at MySpace, aol
and a handheld BlackBerry phoneor something.
I would be happier with a Nokiaor whatever.
That would be my technologypinnacle.
I'd stop right there.
Well, someone else that may bein the court is this man, demery
(40:55):
Demery Ardell Wilson, who issuing Whataburger for nearly $1
million.
I thought this was so crazy.
He suffered an allergicreaction after staff at a
Whataburger location gave him ameal that included onions.
He filed a petition seekingmonetary relief of over $250,000
, but less than $1 millionaccording to the lawsuit seen by
(41:17):
multiple outlets andWhataburger denied the
allegations in a separate courtdocument, which demanded strict
proof of Wilson's assertions.
Per USA Today, where I firstread about it.
So he had an allergic reactionafter eating a fast food meal
containing onions.
He said that he requested thathe doesn't have onions.
(41:41):
I don't know.
To me this is like I understandthat sucks, but it's also.
This is the price you pay whenyou kind of eat fast food.
Like I understand that, like Idon't know if you're a fast food
chain, you're also not.
You're moving so fast and likethings might be contaminated
with other things and I justthink like to expect absolute
perfection is a little bit sillyto me.
(42:01):
So yeah, I mean people that arelike very allergic to dairy and
gluten and all these thingslike that.
It sucks to say, but I'm likeeating at a fast food place just
may not be like you don't want,you might not want to tempt it.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of questions there, like
one did he really tell him noonions?
That's the first thing I know.
And then the second thing aboutit too is, even if they don't
put onions on the burger,there's onions there in the
building, exactly.
So, like you said, there'scross-contamination going.
In fact, some of the packagesthat you you get will have on
(42:39):
there tree nuts are made in thesame facility as this product.
They would put that to let youknow.
So I don't know.
It's kind of an iffy thingthere.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
It really is no, I know.
It sounds a little bit like apayday is trying to happen and I
also like if, if you get sickthat I don't know, I would write
to corporate and maybe they'dgive you like a $300 gift card
or something.
Getting $250,000 or maybe morebecause of this sounds like I
don't know, a little bitridiculous.
Did you suffer that much damage?
(43:10):
Or like you need to buy a housenow because you had onions once
you know it's a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
And here's the crazy thing about it if you know that
they because typically anytimeyou buy a burger or cheeseburger
, nine times out of ten hasonions on there- yeah you know,
it would have took a few secondsto just open the burger up and
see if there's onions on there Iknow, I know or it might just
be an overly simplistic, I don'tknow exactly.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
No, no, no, I think so too and I definitely think,
like food allergies are totallya real thing, but it sucks.
It totally sucks.
But you just have to avoid likeplaces where you're not in
control.
Like I have a friend that'svery allergic to peanut oil and
him and I just can't do for themost part, he just like doesn't
go to a lot of Asian restaurantsand that's just like a no cause
.
He's not going to be like letme put it in their hands to see
(43:57):
if we could do that.
So that totally sucks, thatyou're excluded from a lot of
options, but it just is what itis.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Talk about options.
I can't even believe this is athing.
But there's a new challenge outthere.
Don't know what idiot came upwith this challenge.
What they're doing is it's theChromebook challenge.
Yay.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
No, not yet.
I do have a Chromebook, but Ihope it's not to like.
Throw your Chromebook on thefloor.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
You might as well, oh no, but what these idiots and
I'm not mincing my words, theseidiots decided to, whoever came
up with this decided hey, I'mgoing to take something and push
it into the port, you know, Ithink into the power port or
maybe one of the other ports onthe side.
Okay, and cause it to catchfire.
What Somebody thought this wasa great idea.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And Kids are doing it all over the place.
What?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
How many people have all this money to like get?
I'm still holding onto myChromebook from like 2011.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
You know the crazy thing, meryl, is a lot of
schools do their curriculum onChromebooks.
Now you know they very rarelyuse books now in school.
It's pretty much everything onChrome and nine times out of 10,
that Chromebook that you'recatching on fire.
You know your parents arepaying for that.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Not only that, you put yourself at harm and you can
harm someone else trying to doa Facebook or YouTube challenge
or whatever challenge it is.
I think it's all over TikTok, Ibelieve it is, but I don't know
.
What do you think it is withkids wanting to do these stupid
challenges?
I mean?
Speaker 2 (45:44):
if you're one of these kids and I don't want to
see you posting any like eat therich content, or like don't
waste food, or that you can't beupset about anything or be like
a crybaby about anything um, Ithink that's ridiculous.
I feel like there's so manypeople that would love to get a
laptop and, and especially Imean the Chromebooks are so
sweet, they're one of myfavorites, I mean it could be
any computer.
(46:04):
But to me that's such a greatthing and there's so many people
wanting for a computer that forsomeone just to set something
on fire is really stupid.
And it's also not impressive.
For like a three minute threeseconds of watching a computer
go on fire, it doesn't reallymove the needle of how cool you
are or anything.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
I don't know.
I mean, if you need that muchattention, there's something
going on inside of you.
Exactly.
That's stupid.
That's almost as bad as do youremember the crate challenge,
the which one Crate challenge,where they stacked up crates and
they would run up the crate andthen back down the crate?
Speaker 2 (46:45):
See, like what are the ages?
I wonder, because these arealso the people that are upset
about that are making fun ofmillennials, but maybe it is
millennials also.
Sometimes I talk some smackabout Apple products.
I'm like, if you want to breaka computer, just get just like,
buy an Apple and it will breakon its own, so they get so hot
anyway.
Anyway, I feel like a lot of myfriends apples have just
(47:05):
basically like caught on firejust trying to edit something.
Really, yeah, the ones I've,some of my friends, like the
ones they have, have gotten likeso, so, so hot like the bottoms
of it.
I'm not I'm not an apple fan.
Everyone I know that has anapple is always like having to
fix them and stuff.
I have this janky littleChromebook that I've had for
years and it's like I love it.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I will not be participating in that challenge.
I will be loving my baby Chrome.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
I'm just shocked that not only someone was dumb
enough to do it, but how much ofa viral sensation this stupid
thing is that thing is stupid.
That's really surprising.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Yes, okay, speaking of trends, I'm so excited to get
your honest take on thissomewhat layered, somewhat
nuanced thing that has sweepingTikTok Okay.
So basically, I don't know ifyou've seen this, but a lot of
people are saying that redheadsare now the quote black people
of white people, according toTikTok.
Now, I can already tell by youreyes that you might not love
(48:05):
this, so I wanted to get yourtake because, as like an
annoying white woman, I had myfirst thoughts about this and
then I wanted to be sensitive tohow everyone may feel about it.
So what started as one woman'shot take has taken over
everyone's algorithm, sparkingsolidarity across a newfound
community.
Basically, a TikTok creatorposted a now viral video
(48:28):
declaring everyone who's gingerhas red hair, those are black
people.
All gingers are black people.
If they have red hair, they areblack.
The clip quickly took off onTikTok, opening the viral
floodgates to a creation ofconfused community.
Now, the thing that Iemotionally liked about this at
first is seeing a lot ofredheads that I feel like have
(48:50):
been made fun of in the pastfeel like they're very excited.
I think it's also a generalfeeling that a lot of people are
like oh my God, I'm suddenlycooler and, like you know, I'm
sure there's many, many, manylayers to this, but I think like
a lot, I got emotional when Isaw some redheads being like on
TikTok, crying, be like this hasbeen the best week ever.
(49:11):
I feel so accepted.
And then people are commentingunder, like black men and women
are commenting under, sayinglike welcome.
You know just the power ofpeople being connected.
But then I kind of got to thenext layer and I saw a lot of
black people not being veryenthused about it and saying you
know, this is taking away froma lot of stuff and just
generally feeling that this wasvery kind of silly and frivolous
(49:32):
.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Um, so I wanted to get your thoughts on it well, I
guess for me personally, I thinkit's a silly statement.
But there are, and I guess itdepends on the generation You're
looking at.
Younger generation willprobably look at this as being
(49:53):
Silly.
Ha ha ha, whatever.
Older generation's not so much.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
They're gonna look at it as so basically you're
saying they're the Black people.
White people mean that alsothey're the subhumans.
That's how some of us will takethat.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Really Okay, and that's good for me to consider,
because I feel like all I saw atfirst was almost like okay,
because they're cool and theyaren't.
They're like like.
I almost took it a differentway where they're like, they're
cool, I don't know, but it'salso probably on some level like
some level of like inunconscious racism, or even even
(50:34):
the cool part, or like they candance well, or some some
stereotype that is likeultimately hurtful to people.
Um, the part that I liked isjust the general connection of
like a man showed his littleredhead daughter getting ready
for school and then I saw a lotof black women commenting like
you have fun, baby, you know,like we love you and stuff, and
that's the part that I like theconnection of.
(50:57):
And I feel like people not notone, everyone could feel a
certain way about it.
Someone could love it, someonecould hate it.
You know that's.
The other thing is no one needsthere, doesn't need to be like
a blanket feeling about this.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Yeah, I mean, I guess a great example of this would
be and unfortunately thishappens sometimes within the
Black community where someonewould say, ooh, you know, you
sound white, oh yeah, and somepeople you know outside of our
community would be like, well,why is that so offensive?
Well, basically it's sayingthat if a Black person has great
(51:34):
grammar, they don't stutter,they're very articulate with
their words, then they soundwhite, white like black.
People can't be this type ofperson, oh my goodness.
So sometimes you know there'sdifferent layers.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
And I guess this is where the communication and
talking is.
And sometimes, when youunderstand why it's offensive to
some people, you look at it adifferent way, totally, and you
can't see it through their eyesExactly.
People you you look at it adifferent way, totally see it
through their eyes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
In your eyes it may not be something that you're
being offensive to, but thenwhen someone explains it to you,
you go oh, now I get itabsolutely, absolutely, yeah,
and I'm, I'm, yeah, definitelythat's good to know, that's good
to know, like that's it's goodto talk about, because I think I
think a lot of these thingswere just made innocently of
like redheads just being likelike.
I really started crying becauseI saw a bunch of redhead and it
(52:26):
might sound ridiculous, but Ithink maybe a lot of redhead
people might have have enduredlike being made fun of or you
know this or that, and I thinkthey just like seeing them feel
like they have wrong or right.
They felt like they werefinally part of like a fun,
awesome community.
But I think a lot of peoplesome people were like yeah, like
welcome, you know.
And some people were like notso fast, this is, this has
(52:48):
layers.
So I think it's it's good toacknowledge that like people
feel differently about it and tome, if it brings, if people
feel joyous about it, there's noneed to like we don't have to
deflate them, but's also we haveto acknowledge that people
might be not so happy.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
I think it boils down to just conversations.
You know, it's amazing.
When people sit down and starttalking, you'll be amazed at how
much that you have in commonthan not in common.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Regardless of your politics or anything else, most
people have more common thanthey don't and they don't
realize it until they have thatconversation.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Exactly, yep, totally , and I think like, yeah, I just
I love seeing all differenttypes of people and everything
commenting like on each other,and I think that's one thing I
love about Tik TOK is like Ithink sometimes it's like it's
so nice because I think, likethe media and politics tried to
divide us so much, and I just Ilove when, like, any type of
(53:45):
people come together, so likethat is a power that I like.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
I agree.
I agree and, like I said, Ithink we're in a point right now
where more conversation isdefinitely something that's
needed, because, you know, we'vebeen going through, as a
country, a lot of craziness.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkit's going to end anytime soon,
and the only way we're going toget through it whether we like
it or not, we're all in thistogether exactly a lot of people
(54:13):
too.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
I really was like in bed crying and I'm like I had to
explain to my boyfriend likeI'm crying about redheads and
people are commenting on that.
He's like you're crying aboutredheads and black people Don't
even ask me.
But then someone even said God,redheads, have you been ignored
for so long?
It's just ridiculous.
Everyone be nice to each other,I feel like, is the moral of
(54:36):
the story.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
Well, you know what?
We've got a couple of minutes.
Do you have any story you wantto sneak in?
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Ooh, oh yeah, I have a quick one.
I saw this.
I thought it was very likewhatever they were saying.
Another viral TikTok video Amillennial woman made a bold
prediction that Gen Z is goingto be the last generation that
has tattoos.
So basically they were sayingGen Alpha and everyone younger
(55:08):
than them.
They're going to look up and belike, oh God, tattoos are
cringy, tattoos are kind of, youknow, embarrassing or whatever.
And so it just started aconversation about like maybe
tattoos will be expensive orlike represent capitalism or
whatever.
I don't.
I don't think this is going tobe true.
I feel like just the way thatwe've seen, like skinny jeans
(55:29):
and stuff from the 90s.
I feel like tattoos are alwaysgoing to be around at some level
, but I think gone are the dayswhere we're going to have like a
like divine across your arm orlike kind of cringy tattoos.
I think people will be morediscerning about what they get,
and maybe that also goes forlike getting your eyebrows
pierced and getting your tonguepierced, you know yeah, I mean
(55:50):
like me.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
Personally, I would never get a tattoo because I'm
I'm dark-skinned, so if I got atattoo, you probably couldn't
even see it.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
So it'd be just a waste of money for me I know, if
anything I bet in the futurethey'll like, they'll create
tattoos.
They already have it now, whereit's like you can, it's like
invisible ink for a day.
You know, they'll probably getreally creative with the
technology.
I don't know if it will besomeone a tattoo artist, it
might be more of like a robotdoing it and you're able to peel
it off after like eight days orwhatever.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
But um yeah, nice, well, I got a really quick one
too.
Yeah, and actually I'm gonna doa fun one.
This gentleman his name iscorian evans.
Um, this young man is a hero,and I mean that literally.
(56:39):
He basically saw, I guess, someteenagers that drove
accidentally into a body ofwater, so he jumped in and he
saved three teenagers.
And also there was a policeofficer that went in too to help
them and he was struggling.
He helped pull him out as well.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
Whoa.
I love that.
See, he's someone that deserveslike $250,000, not someone that
ate onions Like I.
Feel like that person shouldmake the money that, like
baseball players and everything,make.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
That is true, that is true.
Speaker 2 (57:12):
That's so cute.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
I love that.
Yes, I have a lot of otherstuff, but I'm like you know
what?
Let me pick a nice.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
Oh, I love that.
I wonder if any of your stuffwill be available.
Hopefully it will stand thetest of time For next week.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Most of these probably will, but something
tells me we'll have even morenews.
There you go.
Talk about news.
What do you have coming up,meryl?
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Yay, I have a show May 28th At the La Jolla Comedy
Store.
So if you're in the SanDiego-ish area, I will be part
of a wonderful, wonderful showat the Comedy Store.
And yeah, that's, excuse me, mynext exciting one.
Oh, and then, randomly, I'mgoing to be in Minneapolis at a
show.
It's a comedy festival calledLakes on the Loon or Lons on the
(57:59):
Lake, which is really fun inMinneapolis.
And then that's June 6th.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Nice.
Well, everyone, make sure youguys go out and support Meryl,
if you're in the air.
You can stop by and see her.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, I would so love that you can tell me your
thoughts on Redheads and Walmart.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
This has been a very, very fun episode.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
It has.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Everyone, thank you for watching.
We really appreciate yoursupport.
Please continue to support us.
I am Lawrence Elrod, and I'mMeryl Clemo.
Have a great day everyone.
Bye.
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