Airbnb Indentured Servitude, GTA Flu 10.23.26

0:05 I just saw your mother, your mother, your mother, your mother. Very good. Hey, I know none of it is a, your mother joke.

0:13 What?

0:14 Wait, I know it's a Mahershala Ali. It's like a, uh, I mean, it's like so close to Blade in the log line, but it's nothing like it. He's just like he's like a sword wielding Muslim assassin. I guess Blade is not Muslim as far as I know. But you know what?

0:31 Canonically, in my head canon, Blade is definitely Muslim. But, you know, it's like all black leather and a sword.

0:39 And that's Blade.

0:40 Isn't he supposed to be playing Blade?

0:44 I believe that has fallen apart.

0:46 Oh, no! He was like, oh, I just did it. I accidentally... Do you think he thought he was doing the Blade movie when he made this one, and that's why it fell apart? He was like, fuck, this isn't the Blade movie?

0:59 On some level, the producers for this had to have mentioned, look, it's basically Muslim Blade. Yeah. But yeah, no, I, I would recommend it just with, with the caveat that it is like truly like an art film with just some insane action, not just with some insane action sequences, but it is not like a, you know, balls to the wall action movie. There's like lots of long conversations about the nature of fatherhood, religion, The responsibility of the community. Yes.

1:35 And your mother.

1:36 Not right up to the wall.

1:38 The balls are.

1:39 Yeah. Honestly, fairly far from the wall.

1:42 Balls are in the middle of the room. Yeah.

1:45 And.

1:46 Is he justifying sword use on a religious grounds? Or is it just like, I gotta make it a fair fight?

1:55 I don't believe so. They don't really talk about it. And he does use a gun at one point. But it's like a guns movie. John Cho plays like an evangelical, like a hard right-wing militia, like Christian leader guy. It's just a really weird movie. I really enjoyed it, but it is... It is not Blade. I just want to make that clear. It's not even close. It's not like a Blade. Like, I can't believe it's not Blade. It just has, like, elements that are.

2:26 Similar to Blade. That is the subtitle of it, though. Your mother, your mother, your mother.

2:30 I can't believe.

2:32 It's not Blade! I know you did last Blade.

2:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:43 Hello, the Internet, and welcome to Season 461, Episode 5 of.

2:47 Der Daily Zeitgeist!

2:49 Yaw! Yaw!

2:51 Season finale. It's a production of iHeartRadio. It's a podcast where you take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness through the day's news specifically. We also have a non-news history version of the Daily Zeitgeist dropping on Monday mornings called The Iconograph. We are in the midst of the Fright Geist season. Spooky season. And we've been doing spooky icons and we got our final spooky icon coming on Monday.

3:16 I am not telling you what it is. I will just tell you we have done Dracula. We've done Mr. Steal Your Face, Hannibal Lecter, and we've done Guga, Guga, Guga, Guga Ghosts. And the last one is a lot of fun. I will say probably the most underrated by me heading into it ingredient in horror movies, but It's a good one. Anyways, right here, right now. It's Friday, October 23rd, 2026. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Jack O'Bantern, a.k.a. Jack O'Nar Brian in Australia. That one courtesy of No Clue New Chris and David Lesser on the Discord. We're coming up with Oh No! Brian. Oh, oh, oh, oh, no. Brian. AKA's.

4:08 Thank you to you all. I love you all very much. I'm thrilled to be joined in our second seat by one of our very favorite guests and co-hosts, a hilarious and brilliant producer and TV writer. He loves every producer in the film industry and the TV industry. You know him from the Yo's This Racist podcast and the new Starter Track podcast. It's Andrew T.

4:31 Hello. This is my formal apology to the Discord, a.k.a. community. I would love to be welcomed back into your arms. No piss. And there was something about balls maxing, and then I shut off my phone.

4:44 Yeah. And you're out.

4:45 That's where I'm at, a.k.a. wise. Yeah. And I'm out.

4:48 And I'm out. Anyways, they're doing fine work. Can you give.

4:55 Me 10 seconds on what the hell the balls maxing thing was? Sure.

4:58 There was a trend where people were injecting the scrotums with saline to make the scrotums as big as possible.

5:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:05 Unclear how much of a trend it was and how much it was just somebody going viral.

5:09 Gotta try it.

5:10 Doing it once.

5:11 Yeah.

5:11 Yeah.

5:11 All right, salty balls.

5:12 You gotta try it at least once. Yep. Andrew? We're thrilled to be joined once again. Getting the gang back together.

5:19 We are.

5:20 Bye.

5:22 Whoa, is this the ODB? Sorry.

5:24 The ODT?

5:26 Yes.

5:26 The old dirty T. Thrilled to be joined. Very funny comedian who viewers may have seen on basically every TV show that has ever featured stand-up comedy ever. He's very popular. Very, very good at stand-up comedy. As you can see in his latest special, Reany, which is truly a delight. You can see him on stages near you in October and November in the Pacific Northwest, in the Northwest, Montana, Washington, all these places. Go check his website. Please welcome back to the show. It's Mike Kaplan.

6:01 Hello. Thank you for having me. I also am a fan of every producer in Hollywood who could help me and not the ones who can't. And I'm just going to brief counterpoint. I don't think you have to inject any part of your body with saline even once unless you want to. Then even then you don't have to. But go for it.

6:25 You don't have to.

6:26 Yeah. Never got to.

6:27 I'm just saying. You're going to be going, your head's going to hit the pillow tonight. You're going to say, did I do everything I could today to grab life by the balls?

6:38 By the basket balls.

6:40 Yeah.

6:40 By the giant swollen saline enhanced balls. And you're going to have some questions for yourself. But that's between you and your pillow. Mike, we're thrilled to have you here. We're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple of the things that we're talking about today.

6:58 It was a big day for Airbnb guests and a bad day, Black Friday, for Airbnb hosts because Airbnb just changed their rules today. and will now restrict the chores that hosts can require of guests. And I had heard about this tangentially. I had not seen it. But, like, now the New York Times, BBC are all writing these articles about, like, the state of Airbnb, like, host demands.

7:30 And it's pretty wild, like, what they were getting away with there for a while. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the impending GTA flu. Grand Theft Auto 6 is. Being the estimate is that it will cost about $ 1 billion to us productivity. And Pete, people are going to be calling in sick. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the casting of the next James Bond. We will talk. We're going to do a little addition of where aren't they now? We're going to check in with the woke free beer guy. Remember, remember the woke free beer, the guy I put the emphasis wrong. It's definitely not free beer. It's, Woke Free beer, the like, you know, anti-bud light beer where the guy like did an ad

8:20 that was definitely influenced by the $ 1 Shave Club ad. We're going to catch up with him because he, I remember when he first did it, the sales were booming and nobody was getting their beer quite yet. We're going to see how he's doing. All of that, plenty more. But first, Mike, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?

8:47 Yes. I searched through my search history in preparation for this question. And we appreciate that. And one funny thing is, you know, in my Google activity, now the first thing that shows up is searched for my Google history.

9:04 There you go.

9:05 I think is very much in my wheelhouse of, you know, sort of self-referential, recursive, you know, Inception-style parentheses within parentheses. But I'll give you a straight-ahead answer as well. One of the most recent things I Googled for a joke that I have been working on, two relevant Googles. One is how many bacteria cells are in the human body, and then how many bacteria cells Are there on earth?

9:35 Those are a couple of my recent searches.

9:38 Oh no. I feel like I don't want to know, but is it a lot? Is it more than five?

9:44 Is it a lot?

9:45 No, it's only a couple.

9:46 There's like a couple.

9:48 That was the answer. The scientific answer. There's a few.

9:51 No, I'll, I'll tell you on earth. There are five non-alien.

9:55 Five non-alien bacteria.

9:58 And, Exactly. That's the old Hedberg joke of how one time the real world received 40,000... submissions, and he was like, that's incredible, such an even number.

10:12 But yes, the question of, here's the basic concept of the joke about the human body and how many bacteria are in it.

10:23 My understanding is, on average, a human body has 30 trillion human cells, and it has potentially up to 38 trillion cells. bacterial cells. So a human body is more bacterial cells than it is human cells. So just statistically speaking, we are not human. We are bacteria. We're like electoral college. We are human. But popular vote, we are bacteria.

10:52 Thank God that's the only one that matters, baby.

10:55 I like that it's actually a little close. It's really close. We just worked on our human cell count.

11:02 If you concentrate right now and make all your cells divide just one time.

11:07 Just do one division. And finally take things back.

11:11 Just one fucking mitosis. Or meiosis. I don't remember which.

11:16 The monks that can control, you know, make their heart rate go up or down.

11:21 Yeah.

11:23 Split cells immediately create a double, like a Theseus's ship version of yourself?

11:28 Yeah.

11:29 Do we think that there's, like, does anybody argue for the idea that we are just doing, we're like spaceships for bacteria and they're secretly steering us and we just don't realize it?

11:41 It's not so secret. They're in our gut. Where do you make your decisions?

11:45 With your gut.

11:46 Go with your gut.

11:47 That's right, player.

11:48 Dot, dot, dot, bacteria.

11:51 Go with what the nation of bacteria in your gut is telling you via vote. All right. Well, that's deeply upsetting. That's a lot. Is it all in the gut? I do know when people... take antibiotics and like kill too much of the bacteria when the human cells start thinking they're hot shit and taking things back that that can go things can go very very badly for them it.

12:20 Can hurt for their it can be wonky there are there's good bacteria yeah it's like the force the light side and the dark side.

12:28 That's right what is something that you think is underrated.

12:33 So I don't know if we talked about this last time I was here, but one of my special interests, I would say, for simplicity of communicating the idea, now making it more complicated as to how I'm doing it and why I'm doing it. But. Advice columns. Have we talked about advice columns? Do you remember? I don't think so. I love, I read many of them, like multiple a day. There's some that come out once a week. I listen to podcasts, you know. But yeah, so maybe, I don't know, a dozen could be more.

13:08 And I think that probably just by virtue of the fact that most people don't read lots of advice columns, most people don't list, everybody has their own niche, but I'm going to say the advice column podcast that is one of the most underrated, and it's not even happening anymore, but there's four seasons of it. It's called Dear Therapists.

13:31 And it's Lori Gottlieb, who writes a column called, I think, Ask the Therapist in the and people call in and they ask a question, but unlike most advice columns where somebody writes in and then you get an answer, they have an extended therapy length session, like 45 minutes, an hour, where if their question was about work, they'll get into questions of like, oh, is that even the actual root cause of what's impacting your life? And they'll give homework assignments and then they'll check in with them weeks or months or a year later. They're changing lives.

14:23 They do good work.

14:24 They do great work. I think by virtue of the fact that if I had asked you to give them a rating before I told you anything about them, you wouldn't have even been able to. It wasn't even on your rating radar. I think by definition, it's because it had no rating. It's the most underrated possible.

14:45 What is that to five stars in my book? Uh, just in a brief moment, I will say that this is a blind spot of ours. Um, I think probably that advice columns would be a good thing for us to be monitoring. You know, we're, we're a podcast about the zeitgeist and that's a re a very good unofficial way to be in touch with like what people are actually thinking about and doing on a, regular basis, is there something as a fan of, you know, advice shows, like something that is not properly depicted that you would say, like something that people are talking about, thinking about on a regular basis that comes up in advice columns that you don't see many other places?

15:30 Ooh, that's a, that's an interesting question. I guess the shortest answer is, I don't know. And saying I don't know when I don't know is something that I've really been working on.

15:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:46 Uh a long line of uh people who uh say things whether and i am i'm a person who says things whether or not i have anything to say look the answer was i don't know and i'm still talking.

15:58 It's kind of an amazing job uh by you.

16:00 Yeah i yeah i yeah i think just like there's some real uh i feel like the thing that I see a lot that is like kind of fun to see, but I'm sure you've also, you're familiar with like the, you know, the, am I the asshole Reddit?

16:15 It feels like a lot of people being like, I don't want to get in trouble.

16:19 But a lot of the times people write into advice columns and they don't, they're not even asking, they're not even considering that they might be the asshole. They're like, can you, like, actually just, I had an experience where somebody was, I was, who I didn't really know was on the phone and they were having a negative phone experience.

16:41 But from what I, I was on the other person's side, you know, but they were basically giving me looks like, right. Like, can you believe what I'm dealing with? And I was like, I think I can.

16:54 I can believe it deeply.

16:55 I have a capacity for belief. Yeah.

16:59 Yeah. So people not being good judges of their own situation.

17:04 And that's not, I would say that's not the norm, but it's certainly a frequent enough occurrence that, you know, somebody writes in and they're like, can you, I can't believe that this person did this. It's like, well, you should try to believe it because it's a reasonable thing. Give it a shot. If anyone's here, the villain.

17:24 What is something you think's overrated?

17:26 Sports. And that's it.

17:31 By virtue of the fact that here's the thing. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Gretchen Rubin, who wrote a book called, among many books, one of them is called The Four Tendencies. And the tendencies are regarding how you motivate, whether you're more a motivator from the inside or from the outside. And the four tendencies are there's the people who are motivated more internally, more externally, then there's both, and then there's neither. And so she calls the ones who are neither rebels. And their motto is, you can't make me and neither can I. And I am the kind that is an internal motivator, which is called, that she calls the questioners. The ones who do both are called upholders. And the ones who are more externally

18:15 motivated are what she calls obligers. And that is the largest group of them. She says, of all the people in our society, perhaps in the world, more people than any other type motivate, like, what's the group doing? You know, like, I'll go along with this political party or this religion or this, what we do in our family or in our community or our culture. And we all do these things in many ways. Like, I'll drive approximately the speed limit Not because it's just the rule, but because I think it's a good rule and it's a good law and it's safe to do it. So I internalize that and I'm like, but I question like, is it good?

18:51 I don't follow every law. I follow the laws that I think are, you know, good and reasonable and kind to people and will cause the least harm. And the reason I bring this up is because I think the whole question of what is overrated and what is underrated.

19:07 Oh, shit.

19:09 I'm not trying to take down your whole system.

19:10 No, do it.

19:11 But it involves my, I think the way that I'm interpreting it involves my imagination of what other people think, right? Which based on what I'm seeing, I'm like, oh, a lot of people are talking about this, or a lot of people are complaining about that. But we live in such, you know, unique times now compared to, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years ago, where it used to be, we kind of the monoculture was showing us all approximately the same thing. But now, like, there are people like I'm on threads, I love being on threads, and the discourse on threads might seem like it's everywhere. But then I'll talk to a person who's not on threads. And they'll be like, I actually don't know anything about anything

19:56 that's going on. So even the concept of rating is like more locally situated. And so I think that, for me personally, like, I don't begrudge anyone being what they love, like, if you love sports, like, I'm not saying, like, as an ethical concern, like, people have to stop caring about sports as much as they do and be more like me and not care about it as much. Like, I want the people to be happy. I live in New York City when the Knicks won, people were happy, and I'm happy for anything that makes sense. people happy. I do like that in art, you don't have to have losers for there to be winners. But I get that sports is an arguably different thing than art. But for me, many people, it seems outside of myself that people rate

20:49 sports in a higher fashion than I do. And so I put, I, I have no judgment. I want to play your game. I follow your rules. I tell you what I think is rated higher than I would rate it. And one of those things is sports, but I love you. Sports lover, sports lovers. Look, I don't hate the player. I don't hate the face, all the games. I don't even hate the game. I just, I love, I love the, I love the people and the system is fine.

21:24 I will say, yeah, one of my arguments for sports is like, well, look how great it is when everything comes together and like the biggest city in the country is all happy and you have like dopamine going through everybody's brains at the same time. That hasn't happened in so many years. And like every year there are 29 other cities where they're just like, fuck, it's just a unnecessary dose of whatever the opposite of dopamine is. So, yeah, I do still love it, but I think it's a valid point.

21:59 I mean, I'll just say, on X, the everything app, obviously loving sports is a core pillar of the economy, the world economy, because how else are you going to gamble your house on sports betting? So you've got to think about both sides.

22:15 Oh, sports betting, I'm way on board, obviously. That's the greatest thing. That's the only good thing about sports.

22:21 Yeah.

22:23 You got to check your Bayesian priors. Oh, Jesus Christ.

22:29 That's the best. It's like people who shouldn't be doing anything with like one week of economics class or statistics class betting all of their money. Yes, exactly. It's fine.

22:41 Yeah.

22:43 My future self and my children, my future college age children will be fine with this.

22:49 Yeah. Hell yeah. Amazing.

22:52 Well, thank you, Mike. We, you know, have our work cut out finding new questions to ask every guest because underrated and overrated clearly.

23:00 Oh, yeah. You know, what's overrated is asking people what's overrated. People love doing it.

23:05 Yeah. Also, you said, like, maybe it made sense 10 years ago. That's when we started this podcast. So maybe we do need to take another look at this. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back to talk about Airbnb. We'll be right back. And we're back!

23:33 And.

23:34 When was the last time you guys stayed? I haven't stayed in an Airbnb in a while.

23:37 I was just going to ask. Cut this if it's inappropriate, but Mike, you're on the road, right? Are you in an Airbnb?

23:44 Currently, I am in a man's home, but it is the producer of comedy shows that I'm doing this weekend. He has a large house. And so I have I think it's like the best case where for an Airbnb or like, who are these? Who are these people?

24:03 Who are these people? But I know this person. So, yeah, I mean, this is a nice, comfortable home. The promise of Airbnb is like you get the best of both worlds. You know, it's like staying in a hotel, but it's like more homey and like you get to be more in the community. It's like staying at a person's house, except You don't annoy the people or, like, step on each other's toes. This is the beautiful promise of Airbnb.

24:28 But what the problem is that, like, the people who put their houses up on the market, like, just have decided to treat... There are many problems, by the way, with Airbnb. There's also safety concerns where, like, they're just like, oh, yeah.

24:44 Privatized hotels.

24:46 Yes, exactly. Cool. They've decided to treat the guests badly, according to people who've been staying at Airbnb is pretty regularly. And so new rules have just come into effect where they will now Airbnb will now restrict the chores that hosts can require of guests, meaning the guests can't be asked to wash and put away clothes, remove sheets or start a load of laundry or take out the garbage.

25:15 And then so that's like, OK, I mean, that's kind of in the realm of stuff that I've done before that I'm like, that all kind of seems okay to me, to be honest.

25:27 I mean, there were airbnb hosts asking guests to wash the host's clothes.

25:35 Yes oh no i i think wash the sheets.

25:40 That makes more sense that would be you gotta if they ask it's on the i mean like i i do think like it's sort of like do you know that the heap paradox i talk about in my comedy a little bit but it's just a philosophical idea that like How many grains of sand does it take to make a heap?

25:56 It's not one.

25:57 It's probably not two. But at some point, you're like, when does it go from not a heap to yes, a heap? I feel like in this situation... it's reasonable for them to like, you know, if they're like, hey, would you ball up, you know, take the sheets off the bed? I don't mind that. If you're like, take the sheets off the bed and throw it into the washing machine, that's one step. Throw it into the washing machine, put soap in it, hit yes, you know, okay, maybe, but then wait an hour and then put it in the dryer.

26:25 Like at a certain point, it becomes- At that point, it becomes you're working for them. Yeah, like, you're spending a significant amount of time doing chores for them that, like, they should probably just be doing themselves or, like, having a service do it for them. And, yeah, like, they were... Some people were having people mow the lawn. What?

26:49 Hell yes.

26:50 Here's my pitch.

26:50 I don't know.

26:51 I'm not involved in the conversation and I'm only just learning about it. But you know how some airlines, you get one checked bag for free or one, obviously, your overhead. But then some airlines are like the bare bones. If you're not flying with any bags- like it's like 25 bucks to bring a bag even on there's like everything is like little by little and so you're like oh yeah if you're only flying for like a day you don't need anything like it's easy so what if Airbnb had like a checklist where they're like look if you wash the sheets then it costs however much less like and basically it is like you are it's like combo task rabbit and Airbnb, you're like, who's working for who?

27:34 You kind of negotiate it. Yeah. You just got to like, okay, all right. You know what? I'm going to watch. I'm going to mom. Yeah.

27:41 I think it was like that, except the tasks that you had to do were hidden in the fine print. And instead of getting a deal for doing them, You got charged extra for not doing that. Yes, that's what it was.

27:55 That, yeah, I like, I mean, obviously just the framing of it, it has to be transparent. It has to be upfront about it. But yeah, I mean, also psychologically, I don't know if you guys read, there's a book, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

28:08 Yeah, I read that one.

28:09 And I think I think it's in there or a book like that where they talk about losing money. If you think about you have money and then you lose some, that feels worse than if you have the lower amount or and you could gain like gaining feels good. Losing feels bad, even though both the options are like, if you do this, it's fine. But if you don't, it'll cost you. But if you or if you don't do it, do it the opposite.

28:36 Yeah, you don't do it.

28:37 Then you'll get something. So just framing it like that and everybody can be happy.

28:43 And you install a little ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding thing that makes that sound when you do the thing. Makes a money sound.

28:50 Yes.

28:51 Yeah, I mean, some of the things. My favorite was, I mean, mandatory lawn mowing is the wildest one. I guess the person was staying there for a couple weeks and they were like, yeah, I mean, if you want the lawn mowed, and then I think some people were actually making people do it, One funny one was that there's, like, an influencer couple that are, like, the go-to hosts on Airbnb, and they were complaining about how, like, these guests left our TV remote out of place, like, not where we told them to leave it. And, like, they were like, can you believe it? And everyone was like, no, you're, to Mike's point, you are the asshole in this situation where you are coming to the internet for validation.

29:33 Yeah.

29:33 Airbnb hosts complaining is like, I mean, you know, it's off the genre of landlords being like.

29:40 Yeah, microdosing being a landlord.

29:42 Oh, everyone's mad at landlords. You don't understand how hard we have it. And it's like, oh, your brain has been fried by money, I think.

29:52 Yeah, yeah. And power. I think it's like the power of doing it. Because a lot of the money is going to Airbnb.

29:58 Well, the remote goes... In the remote place.

30:02 Don't leave it in.

30:04 A remote location. Leave it in the remote location.

30:06 That's right. Oh, man. They left it out on the lawn, to be fair.

30:12 They did it alone. Made it into a little Easter egg hunt.

30:17 It feels like the corporation's just responding to this overall feeling that Airbnb is now worse than a hotel.

30:23 Yeah.

30:23 They're trying to at least get you back to like, OK, all you have to do is what you would do in a hotel. Right. Which is a little mostly nothing.

30:30 Yeah. Yeah.

30:31 Yeah.

30:32 Yeah.

30:32 I mean, this it's just it's fun when the teacher comes in and is like, OK, I have made an official ruling and those guys are. Yeah, that is kind of nice. And shout out to.

30:46 Uh, our corporate overlords.

30:49 On this one, another, uh, something that is going to not help our corporate overlords is the release of grand theft auto six, unless we're talking about rockstar, I guess it will help one corporate overlord a lot, but as, as for what the cost will be to the rest of the economy. It's being reportedly estimated at $ 1 billion, a $ 1 billion blow to U.S. productivity. If you estimate, I think every employer is estimated to, on average, put out about $ 70, 000 worth of productivity. I love being viewed this way, by the way. This makes me feel good.

31:30 And that it will, like by taking off a couple of days, the number of people who will be doing that will increase. cause $ 1 billion, which that makes me very ambivalent. I don't give a fuck at all. I'm so sorry.

31:48 I mean, it's so interesting because obviously money is a construct. It's in some ways imaginary. Obviously, it has real world consequences. But when we're talking about imagined or average productivity, I mean, are they even... Here's the thing. I feel like there's studies that show businesses that encourage or allow like a nap in the afternoon actually end up you.

32:14 Know more productivity yeah.

32:17 I mean it's obviously four day work week same thing overall productivity to companies this is this is like a thing that people looked at we're like yeah no this actually helps productivity and then companies were like nope No, we're actually not going to let that in.

32:32 That's not entering into how we think about things at all.

32:36 No, but it's good for the human and good for the company.

32:39 They're like, I'm good for the.

32:42 Human and I'm out. For that reason, I'm out.

32:45 I mean, I feel like there's two sides to this coin also, which is like, Sick days should already be built in to your quote unquote productivity for the year. So if you're taking a sick day, this isn't losing something. This should already be part of how they calculate how quote unquote productive you got to be. And then my other side of the coin is how valuable is the time of any employee who is the dude who called in sick cause GT, cause they got to finish GTA six. Yeah.

33:17 I think you got to advertise that amount a little bit. Yeah.

33:20 Well, let me say these two things to what you just said about those two coins, uh, coin size one, one coin.

33:29 Okay. Uh, here, one of my favorite porno.

33:33 Coin with two sides that coincide, uh, on both sides of the coin. One is, obviously to your first point, people aren't supposed to be taking their sick days. You're supposed to love your family company so much that you would sacrifice your own health and body for the good of the collective. And number two, look how insidious capitalism is that you couldn't even make an anti-capitalist point without referencing coins.

34:03 That's right. And using the phrase amortized.

34:09 Gambling, gambling. Well, my other side was the boss side of things.

34:15 Yeah, you were speaking in the language of the bosses.

34:19 Yeah.

34:20 Yeah.

34:20 Of the hustlers.

34:22 That's right.

34:22 Of the grind set.

34:23 Hustlers. People have also pointed out that some companies have already anticipated this and built the date into their end-of-year compensation packages. So, like, they're doing across-the-board pay cuts because they know that people are going to be working less.

34:39 Jesus Christ.

34:41 I'm actually planning on faking my own death so that I can play Grand Theft Auto 6.

34:46 Oh, my God.

34:47 I think that's really the only way to get out of.

34:50 Honestly, that's the day to rob some places with a rocket launcher. If you're going to do it, not in a video game, but if, don't take my advice.

35:00 Yeah. It's the only way. So one of the best times. Top three days to rob a place with a rocket launcher.

35:08 Rocket launcher. Yeah.

35:10 Are you guys interested at all in who's going to play James Bond next? The casting of James Bond? You know, I.

35:19 Feel like that what takes my place in my mind of where other people probably have sports is like, ooh, I'm excited about like, you know, obviously, I'd love it if everyone was just happy. But if everyone's not going to be happy, the discourse where people are like, is it going to be Idris Elba? And then people are like, no, because this fictional man must be white. And they're like, okay, I'm like... And it's juicy. It's, you know, it's the gossip thing that we have evolved to. I think it's about really connecting with other human beings and you find your tribe and your people. And so, you know, for some people it comes out in sports and for other people, I'm like, ooh. the people who are mad, I get

36:09 to judge them and feel better than, than them. And then I, then I'm like, but no, I don't want to be like that either. I just want to love everyone because everyone's doing their best, but I'm still using this tone.

36:21 So to me, I gotta keep going with it.

36:24 It doesn't matter who plays James Bond, but the question of who plays James Bond is something that I'm always interested in when, when people, you know, when, racists are like but the norse gods should all be these fictional beings they're they're from the norse area come on please.

36:47 They're so racist about it that they actually were mad that it was a blonde guy last time for the first time we've invented a new kind of racism against blonde people yeah Yeah, but this is what secular people have instead of the Pope's election. I do think they should do something with white and black smoke with regards to the selection of a new James Bond.

37:11 Whoa, why only those colors smoke?

37:14 Interesting.

37:15 You know why, Mike. Of course, the only thing I care about for James Bond is what shitty watch is going to be 5,000 times more expensive because James Bond, because that company won the marketing deal for this movie.

37:32 Yeah.

37:32 Anyways, they're doing a it's like a game of like an episode of The Bachelorette, but they don't have cameras present because it just feels like, OK, we've brought like these three actors to the island, to the suite. And we're like, so we now know that Jack O'Connell and Jacob O'Lourde, who were potential candidates, are not testing this weekend.

37:54 But Calum Turner and Jack Loden are testing this weekend. So we're, you know, we're down to the wire here, folks. A lot of Jacks.

38:04 Are you excited, Jack?

38:05 This is huge for us. Jack is the new James.

38:10 You know, I heard a thing once that, you know, Josh Johnson, the comedian.

38:15 Yeah.

38:16 If I remember correctly, I just heard this, that some years ago, He was going to be invited to do Adam Devine's house party stand-up show on Comedy Central. And there's another comedian named Josh Johnson who was accidentally invited instead and so got to go do it. Because he they invited him. And so I feel like you could sneak in there. You think you're Jack O'Brien?

38:47 Yeah, it's kind of a combination. Like they've got Jack O'Connell, Jack Loden. So I've got like half of Jack O'Connell's name. if there's somebody named Brian that we could get in the mix, I feel like just people's brain, like, and then we just like put AI in charge of it.

39:05 You just get them to say Jack or Brian. The choice is only Jack or Brian. Someone mishears it and we're in business, baby. Yeah.

39:18 And I think he should be called James Obond.

39:21 James O'Bond. Boyo.

39:25 Yeah. Jack O'Brien, the James Bond who hates England.

39:31 And he's also just single 07, but he's 007. Yeah, 007.

39:38 Yeah.

39:40 I do want to say if it ends up being Jack Loden, that is a step down for him. He's already playing James Bond in Slow Horses, just in a funnier context. Right. Yeah.

39:51 It's I mean, the first the most iconic James Bond was Scottish. So, yeah, you know, the hating England is kind of built into the DNA. I feel like we might we might be all right here. Let's let's take a quick break. We'll come back and we're going to check in real quick with somebody that's been not far from any of our minds for a while. Seth Weathers, the conservative dad who launched woke free beer.

40:17 I didn't see that was his name.

40:19 Seth Weathers.

40:22 Incredible.

40:22 We'll be right back. And we're back. And this is, we're going to take a little trip in the time machine. Back to a different time, 2023, when right-wing transphobes were freaking out over Bud Light. and conservative dad, I'll put those in quotes, Seth Weathers launched a line of woke-free beer called Ultra Right Beer. And it made quite the splash online. He put a Bud Light on a T-ball tee and hit it with a baseball bat.

41:07 Yeah.

41:08 I was going to say, this is very distinctly the beer of the dad who has a restraining order from his kids' T-ball games. Right.

41:15 Dad, you're not allowed to be here. What are you doing here? T-ball also the man, the ultimate man's man sport, a sport that they stopped letting you play at four years old. If I sound mad about that, it is because that was the last version of baseball that I was good at.

41:32 Jack, I got to tell you, adult T-ball league. That's not nothing.

41:36 That's not nothing. I have done adult softball leagues. Not up to the task.

41:42 One step down. Or one step more fun.

41:45 Just let that fucker sit there. He was selling his beer for $ 20 per six pack, which seems like a lot. Oh no. It seems like a lot as well. As well. When you find out that it has a lower alcohol by volume than a Smirnoff ice, much lower than a Bud Light. He eventually, so the beer came, the beer came out and was like selling out to, you know, cops across the country. even though he had yet to find a brewery. So that was an initial problem that he overcame. He found Big Kettle Brewing, claimed he was closing in on $ 1 million in sales thanks to, you know, charging $ 20 per six-pack. In 2024, they expanded, releasing a line of anti-Mexican-themed tequila called Border Wall T-E-E-K-E-E-L-A-A. I'm not

42:38 sure how. Tequila? Wow.

42:40 Tequila.

42:42 And because cues are leftist, I guess. As demonstrated by your name, Mike.

42:48 That works for me.

42:49 Fair enough.

42:50 I'll also say, with the limited amount of alcohol in it, woke-free beer. More like beer-free beer. It's like the Garfield minus Garfield of beer.

43:01 Yeah.

43:01 It's like LaCroix beer. Bud Light LaCroix. So, according to Wired, it seems like this whole thing may have been a bit of a scam. It received an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, which they, Better Business Bureau, not exactly a left-wing organization. The Antifa-run Better Business Bureau.

43:27 Exactly.

43:29 Due to the company's failure to respond to nearly 200 complaints over missing six-packs and virtually non-existent customer service.

43:38 Yeah.

43:39 One angry customer complained that their special edition revenge cans featuring Trump's mugshot took... I'm going to give you guys an over-under on... We've all ordered things online that took a long time to get there. How long do you think it took them to get these beers to their customers?

44:00 I'm going to go with... Even three weeks would be a crime.

44:04 A year and a half.

44:05 I was going to say a year.

44:06 Yeah.

44:07 A year and a half.

44:09 Hell yeah.

44:10 Like, definitely many, many people being like, I did not order, like, not remembering ordering this. So then they had so much success, you know, with the revenge-themed cans. They did Trump fight-themed cans with his little ear wound. And... Those were shipped out never at all. They never came at all to anybody.

44:36 There is a whole Facebook group for people still waiting for ultra-right fight beer. So that was a long time ago, Trump's attempted assassination. If you go to the website right now, you get a big black page that says this store is currently unavailable and the company operating the brewery shut down.

44:59 And Weathers blamed his inability to fulfill orders on Anheuser-Busch, who filed trademark opposition against ultra-right beer in 2024. But a lot of the comments on his social media pages are from people demanding refunds or updates on beer orders. He has stopped posting on Facebook or Instagram anymore, although one of his last Instagram posts was a video in which he responded to the backlash by calling the irate customer's who think that beer was a scam, a bunch of Karens.

45:31 That's true, actually.

45:32 They are a bunch of Karens, every single one of them. What a man's man.

45:36 Oh, my God. I do like the idea of Anheuser-Busch suing over the idea of ultra right-wing beer because... They're like, that's our thing. Yeah, we already are that, guys.

45:46 Is it the word ultra?

45:48 I guess it's ultra.

45:49 Maybe they own in some fashion.

45:51 Yeah, fine.

45:53 Fine. I mean, sorry to spoil your fun with some accuracy that might or... I'm just making this up.

46:00 I don't know.

46:01 It could be. You know, but what were you actually paying for? You were paying for the idea of feeling like you said fuck you to the libs, which you did. You got the thing you actually paid for.

46:14 Yeah. You did.

46:16 You got to feel like you've done it. Yeah. You're dumb if you think the physical can was what mattered. And that's what makes you a Karen.

46:25 Speaking of cops, one cop complained that he spent more than $ 60 on two sixers of fight beer. Wow, the price has gone up.

46:33 Oh, my God.

46:34 Shipping.

46:34 I love this.

46:35 He says he never got Blasting Weathers as a fraud and a scammer who took advantage of Trump supporters.

46:41 Aww.

46:42 If only there had been a sign that the beer predicated purely on hatred may not have been 100% legal.

46:48 If only.

46:53 You didn't really want the beer. What are you complaining about? I'm on this guy's side.

46:57 Yeah. So you should. I mean, he's going to be looking for people to be on his side because the Georgia's attorney general has now opened an investigation into Ultra Right Beer after receiving multiple complaints about the company.

47:10 Yeah.

47:11 I'll write in. I would write in an amicus brief. Is that just a legal equivalent of a shout-out? I think stealing money from people who think that they want a transphobic beer, I think that's a net societal good. Right.

47:27 Yeah.

47:29 It's like the... I had a book of Aesop's Fables when I was a kid, and there was one about the miser and his gold. And it was like this miser who had just a big like a big stone, a big chunk of gold that he had buried in his backyard and he never spent it, never used it. He would just like go out there and like dig it up every night and look at it and then bury it again. And then one day somebody noticed him doing that. So they came and they stole it. And then he was so sad. And somebody was like, what are you sad about? And they're like, somebody stole my gold that was just buried in my backyard that I never spent and was never going to spend. And they're like, well, great news. We could just put a rock of any

48:16 kind in that hole and you can dig it up and look at it as if and it'll be worth as much to you as it is to as that gold would have been because you weren't using the gold properly. For its purpose. And yeah, if you want beer, you can get cheap beer. But if you want to be angry, that's for free. Yeah.

48:37 Well, it's 30 bucks, but yeah. I mean, yeah, you should.

48:41 I think you could just be angry for free if you want to. But yeah, if you want to be angry with this can in mind, then it will cost you.

48:49 A label has never looked more easy to print on your printer. I'll say. Yeah.

48:55 For these people, for 28 bucks, you've owned the libs. Just send it my way.

49:01 You know, it's like when I was like 15 or 16, I went to this summer camp and we were, we took a, it was in Connecticut and we took like a day trip or a two day trip to Boston. And I remember going into this store in Harvard Square that was like a hippy dippy kind of, you know, like fun, you know, like sparkly things and like, I don't know, tarot cards. and what have you. And then there was like this series of like little smooth rocks that all had like a word on them that said like hope or love or compassion. And, you know, I don't know how much they cost, but something. And I was like, oh, maybe I'll get a rock that says hope.

49:36 And a friend of mine was like, I have rocks like that in my backyard. You can write hope on.

49:40 It for anything you want. But these are official hope rocks.

49:44 Yeah.

49:45 It's the branding. You're paying for branding, which is the only thing that matters in this world.

49:50 I do kind of like the idea of just like a liberal tears fund or something like that, where you could just send money. I will weep openly. I think there's a.

50:01 High number of like cryptocurrencies that are like the own the libs versions that are essentially that. Yeah.

50:08 All the way to the bank. Yeah, exactly.

50:09 Yeah.

50:11 Mike, such a pleasure having you back on the show.

50:13 Oh, always.

50:14 Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff?

50:17 Thanks for asking. Thanks for having me. Mike Kaplan is my name, and the way that I spell it will help you find me. It is M-Y-Q-K-A-P-L-A-N. just remember the leftist spelling of Mike, uh, NYQ Kaplan, uh, at all the, that's all the social media. You can find me there. You can find my albums on your various streaming platforms.

50:42 You can find my special Rini on my YouTube, which is Mike Kaplan. That's the YouTube. And I've got other specials on there. I've got my own podcast called broccoli and ice cream and another one called The Faucet, and I have a newsletter on Substack that goes out every week or so, and you can subscribe for free or more.

51:04 There are options, and that's mikekaplan.substack.com or mikekaplan.com. You know, put Mike Kaplan in somewhere on the internet that you want to find stuff, and come see my live shows. If you sign up for my mailing list with your zip code, I'll tell you when I'm going to be, where you are, for example, Montana and Idaho or Yeah.

51:22 November of this big sky country.

51:25 Cowboys come out.

51:26 Yeah.

51:28 Cow anyone's cows. Cows come out.

51:31 Oh, I'd love it. Non-binary cow. Yeah.

51:34 Of all, of all, of all. Uh, is there a work of media media that you've been enjoying?

51:40 Uh, this is a tough question for me just because there's been so many. So I'm going to name a couple quick, uh, so, uh, This week, I saw the George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo opera. I don't know if you are... George Saunders is one of my favorite authors. All of his stories and books are incredible. And the opera.

52:03 I don't go to the opera frequently, but it was really cool.

52:07 Nice.

52:08 And then, of course, I can't imagine that anyone in the this chronological orbit that you talk to won't be naming. You can see everything, but I certainly love both. You can see everything itself and then all the, you know, ancillary, you know, offshoots of, you know. think pieces and all the discourse of it and all the the threads and tweets and it's just and videos commenting and it's I love Nathan Fielder I think he's brilliant he is I mean he's very highly rated but also still might be underrated, and I think his rating could go higher and higher.

52:47 Also loved the Norm documentary, and I'm looking forward to the Maria Bamford documentary that comes out momentarily. And I also just finished the most recent season of The Diplomats, which is awesome. Nice. And I'm listening to the audiobook of Watership Down, so take your pick. Those are all recommended. Wow.

53:10 A wealth of media that you've been enjoying.

53:14 And it's so many formats.

53:16 I know. Incredible.

53:17 See, when you don't, when you don't engage with that much sports, you can engage with five different things in one week.

53:24 I think you, or you can see everything. Discourse has been just like a spontaneous Superbowl, like an unexpected Superbowl of like culture and yeah, collective experience for everybody just out of the blue. And that is one of the nice things. about pop culture as opposed to sports is that like it doesn't happen on a schedule it's just one weekend it's like oh we all have to go see this because everybody we've all decided it's something that we have to see and it's nice it's nice to be part of something Andrew, where can people find you?

53:56 Is there a work media you're going to enjoy?

53:58 Social media, Andrew T, podcast, Starter Track. We just transitioned fully into Starter Track, actually. So I'm going to ask you, Jack, on my intro, can you take out Yos is Racist now? We're just full Starter Track.

54:10 Just keep it.

54:11 Keep all this in. Keep all this in. But most importantly, what have I been? I just got, I haven't read the whole thing yet, but a comic, like graphic novel book thing by Lisa Hanawalt. I can't stop thinking about horses and sex. And I just watched, uh, your mother, your mother, your mother. Uh, I've been talking about it.

54:30 It's really good. I'll just, just watch it. It might be out of theaters now. So watch it when you can. It's so good.

54:35 Go watch it. Go do it. Um, you can find me on Twitter, Jack underscore O'Brien, blue sky, Jack OB, the number one Instagram, Jack underscore O underscore Brian. Uh, I like to tweet from Harrison wine rep who tweeted, I love watching people get on the bus. I'm already on Facebook. Feels like just yesterday I was boarding this bus just like you. You can find us on Twitter and Blue Sky at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. You can go to the description of this episode wherever you're listening to it. And there at the bottom, you will find the footnotes, which is where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. And when Miles is out, we

55:15 do like to ask super producer Justin Conner Justin, is there a song that you think the people might enjoy?

55:21 Yeah, so this is a song that just instantly makes me feel happy. It's called Back Outside by Benson, spelled B-N-X-N. This is a chill Afrobeat banger that has a light flourish of modern R & B. It has purely positive vibes with lyrics mostly about enjoying life and chasing rainbows.

55:40 It's just a great time.

55:41 So This song, again, is called Back Outside by Benson, spelled B-N-X-N, and you can find that in the footnotes.

55:47 Footnotes?

55:48 Footnotes.

55:49 The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this week. We're back on Monday morning with the final spooktacular right conograph. And, yeah, with all this bullshit that we normally do. Hope everybody has a great weekend and we'll talk to you all on Monday morning.

56:13 Bye.

56:14 Bye.

56:15 The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Long.

56:18 Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb.

56:23 Edited and engineered by Justin Connery.