First Day Jitters, It’s Potty Time! 10.14.26

0:05 My local coffee shop has started making these very nice sweatshirts.

0:08 They're very nice. Very comfortable.

0:09 It's sweatshirt season.

0:10 Love the color, man.

0:11 Love the color.

0:12 It just became sweatshirt season here in Los Angeles as well.

0:15 It's about to. But it's going to be fucking like 88 tomorrow.

0:18 Yeah. Well, you know.

0:20 It's a short season.

0:21 There's going to be like a month and a half of where every single jacket you own is in rotation and weighing down the coat hanger near the door.

0:31 Can't wait.

0:32 Look at your jacket game. Yeah.

0:34 Oh, my God.

0:35 And then I have, like, two t-shirts and one pair of shorts that I wear, that I rotate.

0:40 Oh, yeah. I hate hot weather clothing. Like, that's why, like, in the summer, I look like a slob. Because I'm just like, I'm wearing running shorts. And an old promotional t-shirt I got at a trade show.

0:53 Yeah.

0:53 It's like my swag in the summer. Then when it gets cool, baby. I think it's again, because I was so obsessed with like New York hip hop as an LA kid. Yeah. Just that aesthetic of like cold New York was like, yeah, that's what I'm fucking, that's what I'm going to be fucking ready for.

1:06 Long jean shorts. Unlaced Timbs.

1:10 Puffy jacket.

1:11 Condom as an eye patch. I was doing it all.

1:15 Slick Rick was your style icon?

1:16 Yeah.

1:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:18 Condoms and eyepatch.

1:20 Lisa Left Eye Lopez.

1:21 Lisa Left Eye Lopez.

1:22 That's who it was for me. The originator of the condom eyepatch.

1:31 Hello, the Internet, and welcome to Season 460, Episode 3 of Der Daily Zeitgeist! It's a production of iHeartRadio. It's a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness through the day's news. We also have a non-news history version of the Daily Zeitgeist dropping each Monday morning called The Iconograph, where we do a deep dive into the Zeitgeist through the lens of a different icon each week. We have recently done Oprah. We have recently done Selina. And then we got into Spooky Season. A little guy by the name of Dracula, who I argue is the main character of Spooky Season. Just based off of Monster Mash and how he gets named in Monster Mash.

2:15 It's not like Wolfman. They call him Dracula.

2:18 Right.

2:19 In addition to the other vampires. And his character has an arc. In Monster Mash, he changes. He goes through some changes. Anyways, we talk about him. We talk about Hannibal Lecter, who I contend is still the most famous serial killer, fictional or non-fictional. Those episodes drop on Monday. They got Icon in the title. But right here, right now, it is Wednesday, October 14th, 2026. Yep.

2:44 Hey, shout out to me. It's Be Bald and Be Free Day. Be bald and be free, y'all. Also, it's National Fossil Day. Also, I am a bald fossil. This is my day. Also, National Take Your Parents to Lunch Day. Will you? Will you take your parents out to lunch?

3:00 They took you to lunch so many times. Let them see the grandkids.

3:06 National Dessert Day. And if you got a big chonker of a dog or cat who's this national pet obesity awareness day uh which i.

3:14 Didn't chonker yeah i think they should just call it national big chonker chonker.

3:18 Day yeah man i remember i used to my friend used to have this uh cat sitting like friend you would cats it for and i would go there every now and then like to kick it up you know like when someone who pets it and you're broke but like you get to go into a new house way nicer like yeah we're drinking it here this week like the the the woman who owned it had a cat who i'm not joking ate four cans of Full four cans of pet food per meal twice a day. So eight fucking cans of cat food. That's so irresponsible. Was a full-on chonker.

3:50 Chonker.

3:51 Lived to be fucking 15, despite what all the doctors said and said, stop feeding this cat.

3:58 Yeah.

3:58 Yeah.

3:59 Big chonkers. If they can't like it for people too, if they can make it through like heart disease, they like being a big chonkers actually can be good for longevity. You know, you got a lot you're working with there.

4:09 Oh, okay. Didn't know that.

4:11 I don't know. I don't know that for a consult a doctor before you decide to be a big chonker consult a doctor. I'm pretty sure I read that at some point.

4:20 It sounds like something you'd read like on the, like the menu at like Cracker Barrel or something just like in the corner. It's all good.

4:27 Most centenarians are actually a little, got a little cushion for the cushion. Chonky fire, as Outkast would say. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Count Jackula, a.k.a. Hannibal Jackter, a.k.a. Jack O'Banterin. Try that one. That's a little treehouse of order. And I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr.

4:50 Miles Gray.

4:51 Hey, it's Miles Gray, the Lord of Lancashire, the Shogun with no gun, a.k.a.

4:55 Thiles Gray.

4:57 Thank you so much for having me.

4:58 The spookiest way to be thick. Thick thighs.

5:03 Let me tell you, the one guy that Dracula doesn't want to have make a toilet at his house.

5:13 For anybody, yeah, just go listen to the episode.

5:15 Just go listen to it, yeah.

5:16 You'll hear us talk about Dracula inviting his guest to make a toilet in Bram Stoker's Dracula for comfortably 20 minutes. Miles, we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a podcaster extraordinaire. Yes. You know from the podcast This Day from Radiotopia.

5:33 Yep.

5:33 He's also hosted a 30 for 30 free SPM 538 politics podcast back in the day. You can see him doing This Day live in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Oh, thank you for the plug. It's Jody Evergan!

5:49 Jody!

5:49 Hello there.

5:51 Hello. Miles, your listing of what today is paints a very bleak picture of a balding old man whose parents are getting old. He never gets his together to take him out to lunch.

6:02 Yeah.

6:02 His pets are getting fat. His bald ass can't get it together to put him on a diet.

6:06 It's a lot going on.

6:07 He treats himself to a sad dessert on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday afternoon.

6:12 Jody, you got me, man, because I made up all those days.

6:15 Yeah.

6:16 Describe yourself. Cry for help. Yeah, I was kind of doing that. Kind of doing a real sad, usual suspects.

6:22 Kind of thing. Yeah, right, right. Just reassociating.

6:25 Jack's coffee mug explains. He looks behind him. It's pictures of you over the years getting bald.

6:32 On coffee mug. Yeah, coffee mug has a mirror on the bottom.

6:36 And I'm the chonker. I'm a cat. What happened?

6:41 Jack, I can't wait till, I have not listened to the Icon series. I'm looking forward to it. But did you know, I will listen to the Oprah one. I did a whole series on Oprah. I produced the whole series on Oprah and then I got sued by Oprah.

6:53 What?

6:54 What?

6:55 I am legally obligated to not say much more beyond that, that you can Google my name and Oprah and TMZ and you'll learn some things. But yes, I have my little run in with Harpo Industries. But what did you learn about Oprah in doing your episode?

7:14 Nothing that I'm allowed to say. Fair enough.

7:16 To you, specifically.

7:18 We were told that I can't speak to you about Oprah. A lot of stuff. What did we learn about Oprah? I mean, we obviously went through the rainbow parties, and I have a loose theory, Kaiser Soze style, that her logo is actually a reference to rainbow parties because it's like a bunch of different rainbow-colored O's that come together into a big... Oh, but that's not something I learned.

7:47 What do we learn about Oprah? What didn't we?

7:49 I mean, the.

7:51 The men that she would introduce people to, not the best.

7:56 No, that's putting it lightly.

7:58 Her kryptonite is a bland white guy.

8:02 Jody, I'll say, we didn't learn anything bad because, look, Oprah, we're trying to get tickets to the AHA event at the Sphere in Vegas. So we love Oprah on mushrooms.

8:14 Yeah.

8:15 Oprah on mushrooms. It's funny because we, as we were recording it, we were like, nobody's really heard from Oprah in a while. And between the time we recorded it and when it came out, Oprah was like, went on the three biggest self-help podcasts and announced that she was doing a sphere residency. And we were like, well, fuck.

8:38 There it is.

8:39 She knows all. She's got our shit tapped.

8:43 My, my tidy theory, and it's very tidy, but for most of these types of people, you know, I've done a bunch of reporting and podcasts and just sort of like thinking about these icons. I'm curious if you'll sort of hit upon this as you do it, but like, you know, you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what makes them tick. You spend a lot of time kind of like looking at their backstory and who they, you know, their worldview. And at some point for almost all of them, the answer to those questions is just, they're really rich. And that, and like, at some point you, no matter where you come from, you just become a very rich person. And that explains kind of like 80%. Oh yeah.

9:17 Like at a certain point.

9:18 Yeah. And I think.

9:19 Oprah like definitely tipped over into that at some point. And I kind of came to think that like almost always look at her, you're like, why is she making this move? What's going on here? And you don't start with her politics. You don't start with her background. You don't start with her identity. You're just like, you're a very rich person. What would a very rich person do in this situation?

9:35 Oh, okay.

9:36 Yeah. At a certain point, she became addicted to success and becoming wealthy. And that, you know, I do think that the best way to understand her now, listening to her on those self-help podcasts is like, oh, she's a person who's so wealthy and has been around only very wealthy people for so long. That she has fully left the planet, Gwyneth Paltrow style. She's just on a different plane of existence. Elysium.

10:04 Mental Elysium.

10:07 But she also, in one of her early jobs, was at a local news station that sounded like it was exactly like the Anchorman local news station, except on drugs. They were all taking acid, doing cocaine, and they had rigged the. Vending machine to dispense weed somehow. So that was.

10:29 A fun thing. Pretty cool.

10:31 We learned. Anyways, Jody, we're not here to talk about Oprah. We're here to talk to you, I guess, a little bit about Oprah. But we're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple of things that we're talking about. We're going to talk about the new White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah. Some people are saying that she represents the decline of in America's ability to read and just literacy generally.

10:59 Oh, yeah.

11:00 But, yeah, we're going to talk about it. She's a fascinating, fascinating figure. New level of, like, kind of incompetence on display. We're going to talk about Baywatch returning. There's a new Baywatch reboot coming for all of our asses. And I want to talk about this fact that got buried in a lot of the stories about it, that Baywatch is the most popular TV show of all time. It had the highest high, apparently, according to Baywatch. And then we are, of course, going to talk about, as Jody already made reference to, America's potty training problem. Does America have a potty training problem? And is it the Libs' fault? Probably.

11:41 Probably.

11:41 No, it's actually a corporation. It's a corporation tricked us all into not potty training our kids. All of that, plenty more. But first, Jody, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?

11:56 Well, I went to a wedding this past weekend for a friend of mine from high school, and it was great and kind of like the last of my friends to get married for the first time. And I found myself playing the usual, like, just like listing some guys and gals from high school and just seeing if those names, you know, recalled anything. And I have a pretty bad memory.

12:21 And so like for half these people, I'll be like, kind of some synapses are sort of coming together, but not really. But then I spent like a solid hour the next day, just like Googling all the names that just popped into my head. So my search history is mostly just like random names.

12:34 It's like, where are they now? Yeah.

12:36 And I mean, well, the remarkable thing is, and I do this all the time. Like I meet someone, I hear about someone, I want to catch up on someone. I'll just like, you know, search them up, often find like some photos or, you know, a little bio or whatever. And just kind of like, I'm situationally aware. There are a couple of people that I ran into who have like zero internet presence. And I think I'm just old enough.

12:58 It's like remarkable, but I think I'm just old enough. And these people probably just somehow like slipped through the cracks that like, I can't find them.

13:07 Yeah.

13:08 Like no Facebook, no LinkedIn, no social media. know nothing and it's like amazing and kind of mind-blowing i think one of my best friends.

13:15 Is like that from from preschool jono he's fuck he's a ghost he's digitally unfindable.

13:22 But on purpose or did he just kind of like never click it it's.

13:25 Weird when you said that your mic just garbled when you said his name.

13:31 Oh yeah man no he was in the illuminati but like uh, it was more just like he culturally, he just was, he's kind of, he marches to his own drum. So like when everyone was doing Facebook, he was like, man, I don't want to sign up for a thing. Then when everyone was on Instagram, he's like, I'll just look on your phone. Like you show him, he's like, you just show me the things anyway. Uh, and so he never got into social media because he wasn't that interested in it and he wasn't missing out because people showed it to him or he was ambiently just using blogs or whatever to find that kind of stuff. And now he's again, and also he like, is his parents have a business that he just has worked in his whole life.

14:07 So his employment history is also like, it's just not there. Like he got out of high school and started working the family business. So he's truly, I feel like you can maybe only find it because he has like a phone number, but other than that, nothing written.

14:20 And the arrest record, but you know.

14:22 Not even that. This guy's an angel. He's a fucking angel, this guy.

14:26 Yeah.

14:27 You can picture like a, Mission Impossible scene where they're trying to track this guy. I'm like, he's nothing. He's clean.

14:35 He's just a stoner with social anxiety.

14:38 It's just the most boring person in the world.

14:43 There was a moment where I remember writing or editing an article at Cracked about celebrities saying things that revealed that they had no idea how technology or the internet worked and just laughing about that. and coming across like Janine Garofalo who was just like proudly like oh yeah I don't go on the internet and it just seemed like so weird at that I was like what do you mean you don't go on the internet and then I feel like those people have, like, come back around to seeming smart now. Oh, yeah. Where it's just like, oh, you were right.

15:15 But that bubble of, like, wealth or celebrity or just, like, you're in your own... Like, that still exists. I have an assistant who does that. Did you see that? Yeah, I have an assistant who does that. I mean, did you see that video of Anne Hathaway having to explain who O.G. Ananobi was to, like, two of her co-stars from a movie? Because they just had, like, never heard the name. Wow. Never realized that the Knicks had, like, on this champion, you know, this magical ride.

15:36 He didn't know the Knicks had won. They live in New York.

15:39 He literally was like, you don't know who this person is? Like the Knicks? They're like, nope, sorry, no idea, no idea.

15:45 New York's so fun and festive these days.

15:48 Yeah.

15:49 Yeah, everyone's wearing blue and orange. I love it. It's like a holiday. Something's going on in the streets.

15:53 Oh.

15:54 Yeah. Anyways, shout out to those people who are either smart and ahead of their time and valuing their privacy or in the CIA. Yeah. What is something, Jody, that you think is underrated?

16:06 Live radio. And I know we're saying this as real podcast people, but I'll put it this way to you. I've been watching, as I'm sure you have too, a kind of re-embrace of a lot of old media, right? Like there's records are coming back. Going to the movies is coming back. People are, you know, reading a little bit again as well. And I feel like the final frontier is live radio. Like is live radio actually going to come back and get re-embraced? And as certainly in my world, it has. And I got my start in live radio, you know, and I'm doing some stuff with WNYC later this fall. But like, I recently bought an alarm clock radio again. And I wake up to just like whatever Z100 wants to play me at that moment.

16:44 Like just straight up FM radio.

16:46 Straight up FM radio, alarm clock radio. My daughter has one too. You know, some days it's just like, Phil Collins, here you go. This is going to happen to you when you wake up. It's great. My daughter did walk in the other day and she was like, It's just a lot of like celebrity gossip and ads.

17:03 And I'm like, yeah, well, welcome to.

17:04 It is a lot of celebrity gossip.

17:05 But every once in a while you get a random song.

17:08 But I don't know.

17:09 I mean, just, you know, I've kind of fallen back in love with the magic of live radio. But more importantly, I'm very curious to see, as I said, if it will kind of like be re-embraced in some way in the way that a lot of old sort of top-down technology.

17:22 It's good for small talk when you're listening to the radio and you just know shit that's happening. Like, you know, you're just kind of in the same bath with everybody. Yeah.

17:32 Or at least a lot of people.

17:33 If Anne Hathaway's co-stars had listened to the live.

17:36 Radio, they would know who O.J.

17:38 Is.

17:38 Exactly.

17:38 Yeah. Probably listening to some weird, obscure podcast or something.

17:43 Yeah.

17:43 Exactly. Yeah, shout out to live radio. There is something nice about it. The ads are, like, so bad that they can often be entertaining sometimes. Yeah. So, yeah.

17:55 I mean, radio was, like, definitely the way I even got interested in podcasting because I loved the radio as a kid. Like, especially growing up in L.A., like, Big Boy was such a huge, like, presence that I was like, oh, you can be, like, witty and that's a job that isn't necessarily like you're a comedian or an actor or something it's like if you just have like the gift of being able to have good conversation and keep people engaged like that's a whole career yeah i love i i love the idea of of radio being like uh being resurgent but i guess it's like it's i wonder if like the the types of people you hear will change because we're still kind of have like that very polished radio type vibe yeah that's sort of like predominant

18:36 like on adult contemporary radio stations and things like this When are we going to start getting that disinterested Gen Z kind of tone on the air?

18:44 Hopefully it doesn't change for guys who talk like this. I hope not, man, because the bottom falls out. I got three kids in college.

18:52 But even more so, I mean, I do think radio, like a lot of things, has gotten very sort of, there's a whole programmatic side to it and there's a sort of regression to the middle and it all sort of sounds the same. And I do wonder if part of the, things that people are seeking out is something that's a little rougher around the edges and a little, you know, whether they're kind of like free form radio that I grew up loving the, like, I can only hear these two songs back to back because a real human being decided for whatever reason to play them back to back, as opposed to some algorithm. I wonder if that's going to come back. That's like the even next level. But, you know, I do think like, yeah, there's a lot

19:27 of radio stations you listen to right now and they are for all intents and purposes, your Spotify algorithm, right? Some machine has decided that this is the sequence of songs. But then there's other radio where you're like, oh, I'm actually connecting with a real human being in real time here, which I think is a thing that people, I'm being wishful here, but the thing that I think people are starting to crave more and more.

19:46 Yeah, there's a radio station that has that, like the SoCal station. is kind of like this uh you know up and come it's been around but it's like really getting popular because like matt pinfield and like nick harcourt these other like people from like la radio or like mtv have their shows and like they're the ones you know creating their playlists and it really does have that feeling like especially like for as a millennial like when you hear matt pinfield be like yeah all right you're gonna like this next band and i'm like yeah all right matt pinfield like let me know about.

20:13 This and you can say so matt pinfield yeah and he's and he knows his shit so it's like i i definitely appreciate that part too is like it feels like intentional or like well this person's just gonna take me through.

20:23 Some records that yeah feel good today and yeah i enjoy.

20:27 That i was dialed like there was a point in my childhood where i was like so dialed in that like that there was a, like the one station that played rap music at all in Dayton, Ohio, when I was like, you know, 10 or 11. they like got taken over by a different radio station. And so as a form of protest, they played, it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday over and over for 24 hours in a row. And like, I remember being like, that's so bad-ass. So like listening to it over and over again, it actually like gets better as you keep listening to it.

21:03 Yeah.

21:03 I was, I was like up on the local radio gossip, you know? Yeah. So shout out to Z93.

21:09 Yeah.

21:10 Which I do when I check in with people from Dayton. I'm like, you guys still listen to Z93? They're like, nope.

21:17 But it's still out there. It's QAnon stuff now.

21:21 Jody, what's something you think is overrated?

21:23 Well, my real answer... that the two of you will appreciate is that is one, Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers, who I saw.

21:29 I really appreciate that. Shut the fuck up.

21:33 I'm a Sixers fan.

21:35 I went and saw the very first instance of that lineup against the Nets in a preseason game last Friday.

21:40 I caught it.

21:41 Maybe the one of 10 times it's going to exist. And we were sitting there and every time Embiid got the ball, we were like, what? extremely embarrassing thing will he do this time? And he, without fail, did something extremely embarrassing. But no, can I actually tell you the really overrated thing?

21:58 I will say the other thing that really freaked me out about that performance, but besides him looking really bad and out of shape, was that he flopped and rolled over on Jalen Brown's I don't think because he is built somewhat like he's not built like Shaq, right? Like he, you don't look at him and say that guy weighs 400 pounds, but he's like, There are all these moments throughout his career, even when he was in shape, where he would swing his hand and someone's head would come off.

22:27 He's so powerful and heavy. It's a fucking danger to him and others to have him out there. All I needed was one preseason game, and I was like, we can't play this guy with our best players.

22:44 Get him away from LeBron James.

22:46 I kind of felt that way, too. I kind of felt that way, too. It's amazing.

22:50 All right.

22:51 I'm sorry.

22:51 Basketball talkovers.

22:52 Sorry.

22:52 Sorry. Sorry for the sports ball.

22:55 Let me tell you one thing I think is overrated, which is organizing your home. So I recently like tackled that closet that was full of all this stuff. And I spent like, you know, a solid like three, four hours just like pulling everything out, getting rid of everything I didn't need, putting it back in tidy boxes, putting stuff together, you know, labeling stuff, putting it back. And then I was just like, that was a waste of time. Yeah.

23:18 And then I go back to not paying attention to any.

23:20 Of that shit at all.

23:21 Six months is somehow going to be built up again. I'm going to do this as like completely not worth it. I like a tidy home. I like cleaning, but like the organizing project, the temptation of it is so you're like, I'm going to feel so satisfied and accomplished at the end of this. And I think time and time again, at least for me, I'm just like.

23:39 That's fine. That did nothing for me.

23:40 That did nothing for me.

23:42 In my brain, sometimes I think organizing is tidying. I'm like, I don't need to do that. But I've realized I do like things tidy. Organize isn't the same thing in my brain, though, too.

23:51 Very important distinction.

23:52 I have a way things are laid out just based on how my brain works that I'm like... Because it's funny, the second I organize things, I'm like, where the fuck is everything now? And I'm now adding more time being like, wait, I thought maybe I put it with the other things that are for pets, but Then there's pet things that are in a bottle that are in another thing. I'm like, I should have just, you know where things are. Keep it tidy.

24:15 I mean, I can see the apartment that you're recording from in the background there. I mean, it's, you know, it's tidy, but not necessarily organized.

24:22 No, no, no, no.

24:23 Miles is in the middle of remixing the Chronic 3. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:27 I'm just crashing at Rick Rubin's right now. But yeah, he's all right.

24:31 We keep a... closet in our house that is like spring loaded with bowling balls and umbrellas and all the junk that comes out of it.

24:40 You got your tidy closet. You got your back to the door.

24:42 Just to keep us on our toes. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Jody. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about some news. We'll be right back. And we're back. We're back. And Katie Zachariah. Zachariah.

25:11 Zachariah. Making copies. Making copies. Zachariah, press secretary.

25:20 Yeah. She's the new press secretary, and we've never seen a press secretary quite like this one before.

25:27 No, we haven't. Some quick background before we get to the tape. is she was obviously plucked from Fox News because that's all Trump watches. We know that. She was also very intentional about getting this job. Like when she found out Levitt was out, she fucking had a plan. This is from the Daily Beast quote. Zachariah looked at Trump's public schedule every day and monitored his truth social and made sure she was on air when she assumed he might be watching. So she was like, I'll have to do it. Look, I just got to get in front of this fucking spider and all I do is got to get caught, baby.

26:05 And I'm there.

26:06 I got a new gig as propaganda minister. Oh, no, I'm in the web. I can't get out.

26:09 It's so sticky.

26:10 Oh, no, I love QAnon. So also, she's a great fit because she has tweeted and reposted all kinds of next level bat shittery. But again, nothing out of the ordinary for like a QAnon person. So the usual like Pizzagate, Obama gay, Putin good, Hollywood elite, dot, dot, dot, dot. Um, also this is my, this is something I really love about her. She claims to be a lawyer and constantly, consistently self IDs as a lawyer. When she's on Fox, she's like, well, as a lawyer, blah, blah, blah. She goes, I'm a lawyer. So D D D D D.

26:44 She's one of the two jobs. You can't do that on.

26:47 Yeah. You can't do doctor. People are going to fucking call you. It's so easy to fact check. And there's legal problems too, to present yourself as such.

26:57 Anyway.

26:57 So she said, you would know that if you were a lawyer, she said, she went to Pepperdine, went to Pepperdine law. Judd Legum from Popular Information did some digging. You'll never guess what he couldn't find any record of. Yet there is no evidence that Zachariah ever passed a bar exam or has been admitted to practice law in any state. She's not listed as a member of the State Bar of California, the state where she lives. She's also not listed as a member of the State Bar of Texas or as a member of the D.C. Bar to other places where she's worked. Popular information searched for evidence in all 50 states plus D.C. that Zachariah was admitted to practice law anywhere and none were found. So, yeah.

27:38 Did she go to Any law school?

27:40 She says she went to Pepperdine Law School.

27:42 That's the next barrier. We need to find out if she actually went to law school. What we know is that no passing of the bar. There was a fun moment after the press conference we're about to talk about where Trump is taking questions and she's behind him. I guess he was like, let's get her out there. You know that that was an L. Let's I'm going to be there with her and talk about how good she did.

28:04 And he's doing that. He's like, I thought she did tremendous. She did great. And then the press is like, where did you go to law school? Where'd you pass the bar, Katie? And she's just trying to be like, saying a thing. Katie who? Me? Yeah. She's looking behind her.

28:21 She's looking behind her, yeah.

28:22 Yeah. And they said, what state?

28:25 Where'd you?

28:25 And Trump fucking, to his credit, stops and turns around, gives her the chance to answer. And I'm pretty sure she says, when I moved to China.

28:38 Yeah, here it is.

28:40 My God.

28:41 When did she pass the bar exam?

28:42 What state?

28:43 She's an attorney.

28:44 Where did she pass the bar exam?

28:46 Which state?

28:47 What state? When I moved to China. Yep. God, that is sweet sauce.

28:59 And then he's like, well, that couldn't have been your answer. Where did you pass the bar exam? And then she just waved her hand.

29:05 Like, oh, oh, shucks.

29:07 Come on.

29:08 When I moved to China, I mean, that is something that is in her LinkedIn. She did go work at a Chinese law firm after she got out of college.

29:15 Is that how the bar works?

29:16 No.

29:16 But again, anyone who's been writing about this, even if you've done that, the distinction is You have actually passed, you are accredited, you are accredited so you are able to practice law. That is what a lawyer is. It's not a person who went to law school, which I think she's trying to have it both ways. She's like, well, I went to law school.

29:34 Yeah, Pepperdine. 46th ranked law school. It'd just be weird, Stolen Valor, to just go for Pepperdine if she's completely making this up.

29:42 Yeah, like a very good law school.

29:44 Yeah, not a very good law school. I'm 46th.

29:47 I don't know.

29:48 46th.

29:49 Yeah. Good for best.

29:50 Law school in the Metro LA area, according to some rankings I was just looking at. So she must have just, yeah, she must have had a cup of coffee. As they say at law school. And that's enough for her.

30:00 This is the thing. My wife is a physician and there's a lot of people who will either say, yeah, I actually like went to medical school or they'll say I was going to go to medical school. And like they're basically saying they're doctors at that point or could.

30:16 Be like using that to sort of like as their bonus.

30:19 Oh, yeah. Could she go on Fox News and say, I have a law background? And then just say whatever insane thing she wants to say.

30:25 That's the easiest way to do it. But she's not so good with the words.

30:28 The words are a problem for her.

30:30 The words escape her.

30:31 And I think that's where this gets a little bit tricky, right? Because this is a position. To be press secretary in the Trump administration, you need to be a level 10 sociopath to be able to get up there and lie through your fucking teeth. I just want to think about the people that preceded her. There was Sean Spicer, the largest crowd you have ever seen. There was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also fully fucking nothing behind the eyes. Huckabee Sanders. Then there was Stephanie Grisham, who didn't last long because once COVID began, she was like way out of her depth.

31:08 Yeah.

31:08 Then we had Kaylee McEnany, who was fully also able to have the mask on. And Caroline Levitt.

31:18 Next level bullshit artists like next level like they they all what about.

31:22 Chaelan Cross wasn't Chaelan Cross in there for a while I just made that up.

31:26 No, I was going to say no. I was like, no.

31:30 They have an ability to answer your questions about like a shameless lie or a shamelessly like evil thing they've done in a way that implies that you are the asshole like so well. Like it's just that character, like you just need to practice that over and over and over again in the mirror and then you have it.

31:50 But like this, so her performance in her first press conference was, Like I have this thing, I've talked about this on our basketball podcast. Like I have a nightmare where like I body switch with somebody who's about to like shoot, who's like in the middle of the NBA finals.

32:07 Classic quantum leap.

32:09 Yeah, like a quantum leap into their body. I think what did it to me is rookie of the year when he like loses the power to pitch the ball fast. And then it's just, he's a normal 12 year old having to get an out at the end of the world series this feels like if i as a 12 year old had body switched with somebody right before they were like going into going up to be the white house press secretary like it really has the energy of somebody who's just like oh okay like oh and where these are my notes okay you know like yeah zero preparation and honestly i Okay, you're on. Spun her around five times and pushed her out there.

32:49 I would rather attempt a game-winning three in game seven of the NBA finals than have to be press secretary right now. The amount of eyes on her is wild. But again, let's see how she handles the pressure.

33:02 Good morning.

33:03 Good morning.

33:07 Okay.

33:07 I am so honored to work for President Trump and the American people. as the new White House Press Secretary. I want to thank President Trump for his trust that he has placed in me. I have wanted to work for him for a very long time. I'm looking forward to working with each of you as well, especially as we are in the middle of the midterm blitz. With energy and excitement, Never seen before in the history of midterms, thanks to President Trump.

33:46 Okay.

33:47 All right.

33:48 That was slowed down by half. Is that right?

33:51 No. Those were dramatic pauses.

33:53 There were some dramatic pauses.

33:55 To add to the drama of how unprepared she is.

33:56 One of you said nervous. She's clearly extremely. Very nervous. I know what that. sounds and looks and feels like when your voice gets a little tight and you pause and you shake a little bit between words. So she's extremely nervous.

34:09 I'm not excusing it.

34:10 I would be so nervous if I was in that position and completely unprepared for it. That's how probably I would seem if you, again, just like, I was transported there and told like, okay, go out there and deliver these remarks. The level of confidence being displayed there Would freak me out if that was somebody giving the like pre-flight address to like all they were doing was being like a flight attendant. Like if that was that person, I would be like, I feel like I should get off this plane.

34:46 Like they are so scared.

34:48 And like not up to it. I would be freaking out.

34:52 Yeah, right. In the event of an emergence, there's one part where she hit every single word in a way that felt so intense. It's like, oh, you're not even reading anymore. You're reading. You're not actually just reminding yourself of what you're going to say by the remarks you have prepared. You are reading. There was another moment where she had a bit of a maybe Freudian slip where she thought her president, my husband, whatever you call him.

35:17 My kid's art is completely unacceptable. So my president, excuse me, my husband- uh that's a that's a good one my husband is out.

35:25 Here okay well look sure i i think again i think it's funny because we're so used to seeing the sort of like duplicity of like these press secretaries and how casual they are with like really going up there to just be like and i am going to tow the official party line uh that to see someone who's kind of like kind of uh wobbly with it somehow is like unsettling like i'm nervous we're like oh come on you'd You got to know this gig better than that.

35:53 But maybe that's the strength.

35:54 By watching them fail, you're kind of rooting for her a little bit.

36:00 When I first watched that, I actually almost thought maybe the opposite of what you're saying, Jack, which was I kind of felt like a bit. But not exactly a bit, but like a test. I think Donald Trump would love to just get rid of this, right? And not have a press secretary, not have to bother with you know, going before the press and doing press conferences. And he's tried to kick out all the outlets he doesn't like.

36:25 And I wonder if at some level, this was like a dare. It was like, okay, you want to be here and you want to do this? Like, this is what you get.

36:33 You want to pretend like this is a serious thing. Okay. This is what it's going.

36:38 To be like ball bags, like deal with it. And like, I don't know, but I also, I do. I do also absolutely think there's this, the logic or like the absurd progression of the way that, I think Trump watches TV and I think it was like a sort of old adage that like you could watch a press secretary with the sound off, right, and tell whether it's going well or not. And I think absolutely Trump like fell in love with this person on Fox News with the sound off and only cares about, you know, do they have a good smile?

37:07 Are they blonde?

37:07 Do they cut a good figure? And like maybe with the sound off, this did the same thing for him that she did when she was on Fox News.

37:14 Yeah. I think aside from the sort of nerves at the beginning, the one bit of news was that we did find out because we were talking about Kimberly Guilfoyle, Don Jr. 's former fiance, who got to be the ambassador to Greece. And then we were talking about how she was begging a donor for $ 100, 000 for her American Express bill, but then also chastising them for papering all the evidence. Please don't bring up our arrangement. We have an update. Take it away. I have two questions for you, if I can.

37:48 First of all, on Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Daily Mail has been reporting on her since last year. The president said yesterday to reporters that he is considering firing her. Do you know a timeline for that?

37:59 And also, potentially, who could be on the short list to replace her? Read your paper.

38:04 We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign. She has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.

38:11 All right. All right. Way to read that one, Cole.

38:14 Nailed it.

38:14 Done.

38:15 Done.

38:15 Done and dusted there we go so yeah got that one out of the way we'll see what else what happens when i mean i can only imagine when something come as complex as like real geopolitics comes into the question how this is all going to be talked about because it's feels very vibey right now yeah what may be.

38:35 First day jitters we're hoping it's first day jitters folks.

38:39 The the the logic it is worth taking a slight step back and just thinking about like how we got to this point and just like the devolution of what this role is because i mean there's always been an element of like combativeness and and like the role of the press secretary is a little bit to shield and explain on behalf of the administration but like i do think the difference between press secretary and spokesperson is like worth distinguishing and trump probably thinks of her as this is my spokesperson yeah and a press secretary i think traditionally has a sometimes had a role as like working with the press and sometimes working on behalf of the press.

39:15 You know, like you ask a question, I don't know the answer to that. Let me go find it for you. Let's work through this together. Like I, even I remember times when like that was the vibe for a press secretary. And we are so far from that right now, both in terms of presentation and in terms of competency that like the idea that a press secretary would be like a liaison and sort of like we're all working towards more information and a better media environment together. And I think that that is largely the Fox Newsification of this whole thing where it's like all that matters is. What are the clips that get played on Fox News and the feedback loop between Fox News and the White House and the press secretary? And, you know, it just is

39:51 like the.

39:52 Specificity of knowing when he's watching Fox News and just like pushing to get that. It's really I mean, she's playing the game in the show Survivor. Like people are like, yeah, no, they're just playing the game. You know, what's her name? Natalie Harp.

40:05 Natalie Harp's sitting there going, that's a good one.

40:07 Oh, yeah. That was actually pretty fucking good. Or she's like, who the.

40:12 Fuck do you think you are coming in here?

40:14 When I first saw her picture, I thought it was Natalie Harp. He has a type, I will say.

40:19 Yeah, I can't quite put my finger on it.

40:21 Yeah, we've talked about the idea of designed incompetence and that you have really incompetent people in positions of power, and therefore they have to be loyal because they know that there's no other way. Like, no other path for them. I don't think that's quite where we're... I think we're at a place where it's just, like, kind of accidental mixed with designed incompetence. But, like, both... All arrows are pointing in the direction of incompetence. Because all he wants is loyalty. And his method for evaluating people has nothing to do with, like, how good they're.

40:54 Going to be at their job. Yeah. All right.

40:57 Well, best of luck to... Katie Zechariah.

41:01 Do you want to do the, like, how long will she last thing? You want to put out of that? What did they do in the UK? They put out that head of lettuce and said, well, will that last longer than this head of lettuce? What do you think?

41:11 I mean, I don't like that. If he, if she makes it past the, when I went to China and then like silently waving to be like, stop, stop fucking asking questions. If she makes it past that, then he's probably just willing to let it ride for a little while. So I'd say she's probably here for.

41:29 I think it's going to take like two big stories where he needed someone to believably convince the public of like what was being said up there that she's going to completely fail over. So I feel like the first one will probably be around the midterms. Yeah, because that's going to be sticky depending on. Obviously, I think most people are preparing for Trump to not accept any results or find ways to cast dispersions over the results. So if she's going to have to be up there while she's making those claims.

41:59 If she's the tip of the spear for that argument, it's going to be very interesting.

42:02 I do like that for us. For those people who are not part of the Trump administration, I like that for us.

42:07 I do like that because she does seem like she can get frazzled when she's not able to summon the facts or the talking points immediately. And then, again, probably something with geopolitics when it gets to something happening because Iran is just this ever-present issue that does not go away because Trump refuses to actually accept that he's completely lost.

42:27 I think there we're going to see some moments that are probably going to be the kinds of things that become the soundbite that Trump doesn't want. to be sort of like the focal point of media coverage. So I think I definitely see the possibility for things to not go well.

42:44 I mean, it's worth noting, didn't she only call on like five people and they were all five, like three, right?

42:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

42:52 She didn't call on any legacy news organizations. So, you know, that may just be the way it goes.

42:56 Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail.

42:58 Right.

42:59 Yeah, yeah. He is willing to fire women. That is something that he's always happy to do. I'm always amazed by how long people like Kat Patel and Pete Hegseth are able to stick around. But women get a quick hook for some reason.

43:14 Yeah.

43:15 Let's take a quick break. And we're going to come back. We're going to talk about Baywatch. We're going to talk about potty training. Not in the same story.

43:22 We'll be right back.

43:33 And we're back. We're back. And Baywatch is not a show that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. It was massive when I was in, I'd say, like, middle to high school. And it kind of, like, I knew it was popular. I didn't realize that it had become the most widely viewed TV series in the world ever, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, with an estimated weekly audience of of more than 1.1 billion people in 142 countries in the year 1996. What the fuck?

44:06 1.1 billion?

44:14 The monoculture was a hell of a thing.

44:16 Yeah, I know. God.

44:17 It's also like when American culture was like kind of first being exported. And so they were like, okay, what's the one that is going to translate without language? Yeah. And like hard body beach.

44:31 Yeah.

44:32 Having it dubbed it like the, the original performances and like dialogue sounds like it was translated from another language. So like you can, you're not losing much in the dub, you know, right.

44:46 Right.

44:46 Right. Other language.

44:47 Yeah. But I mean, I just remember too, because like that whole thing, just the opening that it sort of became a meme of they're like, yeah, watch the show where you'll watch women in bathing suits run along the beach. And that was like, I remember like even like bits and like comedic, like, you know, sketches or like movies, like just doing kind of like lampooning the opening.

45:06 Yeah.

45:07 But yeah, I mean, it was so, it's funny too, because even at that time I was like a little kid, you'd be like, yeah, of course you want to see this salacious beat show. I just thought it was so fucking boring.

45:15 Right. Like you as a seven year old is like, oh, we're so fucking idiots. In 96, I'm 12 and I'm like, what the fuck, man? Like, no, for whatever reason, I was not part of the 1.1 billion set.

45:28 Yeah.

45:29 I mean, yeah, this is probably one of the reasons other countries think Americans are stupid, in addition to Americans being stupid.

45:36 Sure, sure, sure, sure.

45:37 But yeah, anyways, there's a reboot coming, not a rewatch. That would be the podcast. I'm sure they've done a couple of those. And the number of drum solos in the trailer, it's like... Then something will happen, and then.

45:56 Perfect. Slow motion. It's got it all.

45:59 It's got, it's got a really, like this one got me right away. So we've all been to the beach. Go ahead.

46:07 Well, no, how long did it, it was about 30 seconds of me being like, is this fully AI generated? Watching that thing. And I mean, you know, I think it really sits right in that spot of like, there's some movies that just look super slick. and pristine, and that's exactly what the AI models are trained on, and, you know, for.

46:27 All intents and purposes. Yeah, this is perfect for AI. Yeah, the types of performances you're already getting for Baywatch are probably not, again, yeah, this is a strength. It's going to be hard to distinguish from AI. Yeah, so we've all been to the beach and seen the people doing the, like, being dragged behind a boat in a parachute. We've all been to the beach and seen a low flying plane dragging like an ad behind it. And what this trailer asks is what if those two came together?

47:02 Those fuckers collided, man.

47:03 Those fuckers literally collided.

47:05 And then what if a guy with great abs with one of those little floaty things was there to watch it?

47:10 Was there to save the day.

47:11 Oh, a plane crashed in the open sea. Get my little flotation device. I'm going to fucking swim out of like a half mile into the open sea.

47:18 To your point about AI, like none of it makes that like one of the guys. So they like all sprint over. They have to like save a guy who's like in the plane and drowning. They have to save like the people who are on the parachutes. And then one of the guys who was on the beach when this happens is suddenly in a speedboat. He's, like, kind of torn off and pulled up in a speedboat that was apparently, like, just right around the corner.

47:41 Rapid response.

47:42 But they do appear to save the day.

47:44 Yeah.

47:45 I like, though, too, when they show, like, clearly a meeting, like, where they're in their office. They're all in bathing suits.

47:50 They're all in their bathing suits.

47:52 Like, as if they're on the sand. Like, all right. They're, like, around a conference table. And, like, you're either in a bikini or you're shirtless in your swim trunks. Like, yeah, guys. Freezing in the air in this meeting. Baywatch meeting.

48:03 Get in here.

48:03 I did... When watching the original Baywatch and watching this, I'm like, God, the makers of this just don't acknowledge the reality of how cold Southern California can be and how frigid the Pacific waters are. Yeah, right. They're just all constantly oiled up and half nude at a time when... More than that, even with the erosion we've seen from the storms. The beaches in Orange County are completely unrecognizable.

48:30 Yeah, I think there's a big climate change subplot.

48:32 Where they go, what do we do?

48:34 It's just really dumb.

48:35 It's like, what do we do when we have no beach to watch?

48:37 Grab the floaty thing. Fellas, I'm going to read you five names.

48:42 Yes.

48:43 Three of them are actual actors in the Baywatch reboot, and two of them are names that I've made up.

48:48 Okay.

48:49 I'm going to let Miles play this because I did look at some of the names. They're fucking awesome.

48:54 You could have looked at some of the names. You still won't remember them. Steven Amell, Dex Alvarado, Hassy Harrison, Shay Mitchell, and Tatum Wilde. Three of those people are in Baywatch. Two of them I made up 20 minutes ago.

49:09 What was the second one?

49:11 Dex Alvarado.

49:12 Is Dex Alvarado a fake one?

49:14 Dex Alvarado is a fake one. You want to hear the backstory I made for him?

49:17 Yeah.

49:18 He starred in that Netflix ensemble. saltwater kings.

49:22 Oh dex he's one of the saltwater kings right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's a left-handed.

49:29 One yeah yeah cassie harrison shay mitchell tatum wilde Yeah, what about Hasse Harrison?

49:37 That's a little too alliterative.

49:38 Real person.

49:39 She's in there.

49:41 Okay, Hasse Harrison. Tatum Wilde?

49:44 Tatum Wilde, fake person. He starred in that Hulu series, Pine Ridge Academy, which was that boarding school mystery.

49:51 Everything's got so many academies. Umbrella Academy, Coven Academy. Yeah, everything is algorithmic.

49:57 My favorite, which is Thaddeus Legrone.

50:00 Yeah.

50:02 That's real? God damn, sir. Thaddeus Legrone. Bad Legrone.

50:07 All right, Legrone.

50:08 Anyways, that's a real person.

50:10 Real person. Amazing.

50:12 Thaddeus Legrone. Wasn't there, what was the last thing we saw?

50:14 It was like a film, right? When they rebooted it with The Rock?

50:17 Yeah, and it was comedic. It was like one of those 21 Jump Street style reboots.

50:22 But is this going to work? I mean, where are we at on the IP thing?

50:26 I don't know how it travels on social.

50:29 It feels like it could have some of the same success as like a 911 series. You know what I mean? Like it's 911, what's your emergency? But what if everybody was half naked and hot all the time, constantly? I could see it. I could see it working just fine.

50:46 Yeah. I think it's going to be either or. Like it'll be one of these like dumb, fun shows that people watch and have some legs or people are just going to be completely off of it. I don't think it, I think it's either like one and done or it gets like fucking six seasons or something.

51:00 Right. It is our new religion. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. I hadn't really thought about like the old Norm Macdonald joke about how David Hasselhoff was like so popular in Germany. I hadn't really thought about like where that came from, but presumably like Baywatch launched him hard in other countries, you know?

51:19 Oh, yeah. Germans love Hasselhoff.

51:21 The Germans love, which once again proves my theory, Germans love David Hasselhoff. That was a running Norm MacDonald weekend update joke.

51:31 That's right.

51:31 All right.

51:31 Let's talk potty training. You guys all trained up? You guys all potty trained up? Yep.

51:36 Yep.

51:37 My kids are wearing diapers, or not diapers, underwears.

51:40 Underwears. Big boy. Big boy shit over here.

51:44 And I tell him he inspires me every day. I'm trying to get up these diapers.

51:49 One day you're going to get there.

51:50 Did you do the, like lock them in or in a room for, or lock them in the house for a weekend and just fucking get it done.

51:56 Yeah.

51:56 Chain them, chain them to a radiator bucket. One of those Jim Baker apocalypse food buckets. So he had the nutrients left on the conjuring for on. Yeah. No, he was so easy. Actually. He, he like very quick. The first time he had like an accident, he just did not like the feeling of being in wet clothing. Yeah.

52:16 So the next time it was actually, I'm, I wish I had like a secret. I'm like, no, this kid just, he knows what he wants and doesn't want and very quickly adapted. And also shout out his like nursery school. Cause they're also like really good about helping. And like when other, I think the other thing too, is when other kids are going, like learning to use the bathroom and you see them, they're like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm doing that. I'm fitting in with everybody else.

52:37 Basically everyone I know who's had a fairly easy time of it. the daycare did it for them.

52:44 Yeah.

52:46 Yeah. Like they got the kid over the finish line, but really it was like someone else kind of did this.

52:50 Yeah.

52:50 It's that. And it's like, I think just that social group sort of like when you're with your peers and you observe like, Oh, the other kids that are my friends aren't in diapers too. You're sort of like, Oh, why aren't, why aren't I wearing underwears?

53:03 It's a journey, you know? And at the end you ask really who potty trained to, you know what I mean? Anyways, this is a, this is a thing. That people are pretending is a problem.

53:15 Including on this podcast.

53:16 Yeah. We're going to pretend it's a problem here for a second by asking, does America have a potty training problem? What? There's an August article about how the U.S. has a potty training problem that went semi-viral recently. I believe it was in The Atlantic. Yep.

53:32 Sounds about right. Yep.

53:34 And then the BBC said, was like two can play that game. They published an article about the same alleged problem.

53:41 Wait, what is the problem that like all the kids are shitting themselves at school?

53:44 The problem is that the Atlantic and the BBC are publishing these.

53:47 On outside school at kindergarten. And the kindergarten schools are saying some of these kids aren't even fucking potty trained, man. What is going on? This is what is this? Is this soft liberal parenting? That's what I would have to guess. And so some states are even introducing bills saying that for you to go to public school, you need to be potty trained. And yeah, people are like, what the fuck is going on? You'll never guess who they're blaming.

54:21 It's millennials. Millennials are too soft. They're too conflict avoidant. And so they're not potty training their kids on time.

54:31 What?

54:32 The fuck? Wait, so this is kind of like some smokescreen to just kind of go after liberal millennial parenting or something?

54:40 I think it's a smokescreen to have a story, have something to write about that people will pass around.

54:46 But the idea is that millennials are not confrontational. First off, most millennials kids are probably pretty far out of this age group at this point. But millennials are conflict avoidant and so they won't sort of Crack the whip, so to speak, and teach their kids how to use the potty. And then they're just sending them off to school and saying someone else will take care of this problem. Right.

55:10 Oh, man. Yeah.

55:11 No, I just had the Uber driver that takes my kids to school potty training. You know what I'm saying?

55:19 I mean, I definitely see that because when I've been to the park, I see a lot of like gentle parenting gone wild where it's like, I don't know, your kid just broke a beer bottle and is like swinging it at you. Like, I don't know if we need to like be like, okay, can we play with something else?

55:32 It's like, get that damn knife out your hand.

55:36 I mean, I'm not, I think you have plenty of evidence that you're going to roll out for us that this is kind of a BS trend. But I think, you know, I do wonder if there are somewhere in this or in the anxieties around this, some indicators of like, Yeah, the swing away from helicopter parenting, right? Which I think is probably pretty healthy. But also, like, I just see in here, I'm not saying that this is necessarily a real trend, but there's definitely around this that what you were just describing, Miles, of like, it's very, parenting is very isolated, right? And it's kind of like, I'm the only one who's going to get my kid to, to do this thing or learn this thing or whatever. And generally speaking, I think parenting should be more of a

56:15 community effort.

56:15 Used to not be. That is a big change.

56:18 And I love that like my daycare helped my kid learn, get potty trained. I love at the playground when like another parent will step in and like parent a bunch of kids for a moment. And I do think we're living in a moment where it's very much like, yeah, You parent your kid, I parent my kid, everyone just goes it alone, and like, good luck to you.

56:36 I think there's that too, and also there's, I see this a lot because, you know, I'm an older millennial, and I have like friends who are, you know, in their like late 30s, early 40s, who are having their first kid. And the thing I see a lot too, and this is happening with myself, there's just too much fucking information about child rearing, especially on social media, that people will take as the gospel truth and completely warps your, innate ability instinct, you know, built on millions of years of evolution on how to keep thing alive and bring it up. And I think I see so many people like sharing all these things that completely throw off their own instincts that, yeah, like I, I also totally see

57:14 how people can be like, well, I read this can happen or they, they sort of, they reflect on their own experiences and try and see like a direct line of, okay, well, if I do this, then this won't happen to my kid. And yeah, I think there's just like information overload, like, along with people being pretty hypervigilant about their own behavior, too, and I think that can turn into you becoming inert.

57:35 Instead of going off of gut and passed down wisdom and community wisdom, you're going off of an internet that is corporate-owned and driven by counterintuitive, interesting facts.

57:48 Right.

57:48 Esoteric parenting.

57:51 Give me the esoteric knowledge.

57:52 Mm-hmm.

57:53 Two things that are happening here. One, children are coming to school at younger ages because pre-K has become more and more of a thing. So they're just the schools are seeing younger and younger kids. The other thing is that parents are potty training later than they once did. It's not a trend with just millennials. It's been going older and older since the 1940s. And in the 40s, toilet training generally started before children were 18 months old.

58:21 And then A thing started happening. There's this guy, John B. Watson, who conditioned a nine-month-old to fear rodents by clanging a metal rod behind his head every time a white rat appeared. And that's just a story. He was also in charge of, he was somebody that people consulted, like parents consulted.

58:44 Because he was like someone who's like, you can toilet train your baby after a few weeks of being born. Right. And he was like, how do I know?

58:51 Just dangle your baby over the toilet when they're young and they'll eventually get it.

58:56 How do you know? Oh, I bang rods behind toddlers' heads to make them afraid of rats. So in reaction to that guy, which, yeah, maybe not the best thing. I'm tired of this soft parenting. We just bang loud noises behind our kid. to get them to fear the correct things. So a more.

59:13 Child-oriented approach started taking hold in the 40s. And that happened once Procter & Gamble started test marketing the first disposable diaper. And so that created a pressure on They started partnering with a pediatrician named T. Barry Brazelton.

59:32 All right.

59:33 Damn, what a name. What a name. T.

59:35 Barry Brazelton.

59:38 He should be the grizzled old guy in the new Baywatch series.

59:41 Yeah, yeah. T. Barry Brazelton. Tell you one goddamn thing. He began extolling the merits of the company's products and recommending that parents not begin potty training before children are physically, mentally, and emotionally ready. So just like kind of let the kids take charge. Again, this is not happening in to millennial parents. This is happening to the ones who are like accusing millennial parents of being soft.

1:00:05 Right. Yeah, sure.

1:00:07 And they like fell for it. You know, the Pampers funded this guy. He had he had his own foundation in the 90s. He served as chairman of the Pampers Parenting Institute. And even Dr. Benjamin Spock, who was like one of the most famous 20th century parenting influencers slash authors, was like, yeah, no, I always recommend that they you start.

1:00:33 potty training younger 14 months is kind of late for training. So start getting it in before that. And then he started quoting Brazelton, which like it, that started in 1961, which was the year Brazelton signed with Procter and Gamble. So it was like, you can see a direct link with Procter and Gamble being like, we have this product that we're trying to move units of, and we're going to infiltrate the parent, uh, Advice industrial complex.

1:01:05 Right.

1:01:06 He literally appeared in a Pampers commercials telling parents, don't rush your toddler into toilet training or let anyone else tell you it's time. It's got to be his choice.

1:01:17 Oh.

1:01:17 His. It's got to be a boy.

1:01:19 Let's see this one. A house call with Dr. T.

1:01:23 Barry Braselton.

1:01:24 Don't rush your toddler into toilet training or let anyone else tell you it's time. No. It's got to be his choice. So I'm glad there's finally a bigger diaper for growing toddlers. What a big help and a terrific idea. Now he can decide for himself when the time is right.

1:01:44 Wow.

1:01:45 I mean, yeah, I just love that.

1:01:46 Pampers just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

1:01:49 They just created an entirely new market for five, six-year-olds.

1:01:54 That ad was introducing a new, larger size of Pampers for older kids. It used to only be for one to two-year-olds, and then Pampers came through and was like, no, we're... They also say that a lot of The incontinence that happens to kids who are older has nothing to do with potty training, and it has to do with either constipation or anxiety. They interviewed somebody who's an expert.

1:02:24 The radiator being rattled behind them.

1:02:26 Right, yeah.

1:02:26 The clanging of steel pipes. I like that they're basically like, all of this comes from Pampers being like, hey, man, we just need somebody out there to be like, let him keep pooping and peeing, man. Just, like, let it rip. That's better for them. And I get it, too. Like, I mean, there's nothing worse than, like, trying to, like, get a kid to do something when they're not ready to learn it. So I totally understand that part. But, like, it's also really cynical to be like, yeah, now they make him in size 10-year-old.

1:02:54 All right? Right.

1:02:56 It's fine. It's fine.

1:02:58 He's not going to be pissing and shitting his pants in high school.

1:03:02 Okay?

1:03:03 He'll be fine.

1:03:03 Yeah.

1:03:05 I wonder if maybe if food has sort of taken a similar path. Like, I wonder if there was a whole market created of like kid only food because we've been told that kids won't eat real food or adult food.

1:03:16 Oh, yeah.

1:03:17 I sure did when I was a kid. man i did.

1:03:20 What yeah i just ate what other people.

1:03:22 Yeah i just ate what was around i think like i don't think there was a lot as much specificity as like the the feeding pattern of like and now we're introducing avocado because it is seven months and slowly the next food that gets introduced you know like what one at a time sort of thing i think it was just like men's This fucker loves pizza.

1:03:44 Yeah.

1:03:45 He's putting it away.

1:03:46 This kid's eating whole spaghetti. I mean, like that's, yeah, you eat what's around.

1:03:50 Mom's spaghetti.

1:03:51 Can I tell you the other thing that jumped out at me at this article when I was reading it and just thinking about kind of this generation of kids that purportedly has a sort of skewed or parents that purportedly has a skewed experience with potty training. And my first instinct was to sort of say, well, you know, this is a pandemic era story. There must be some element there. And it was kind of one of the first times I realized that like, actually, this is, we're already post-pandemic.

1:04:17 Like, you know, these kids were born in 22 or 23. I'm like, you can't really pin this on the skewing effect of the pandemic. I mean, maybe it's a long tail of kind of how it re-or, but it was like a little wake-up call for me that like, we're pretty far past that and you can't just lay everything at the feet of lockdown anymore.

1:04:32 Right. Man, look at us. We're post-pandemic. Look at us, mom.

1:04:38 Post-pampers.

1:04:39 Jody, such a pleasure having you, as always, on the podcast. Where can people find you, follow you, see you, all that good stuff?

1:04:46 Well, it was nice of you to mention that I am doing a live show on Monday, October 19th, in Washington, D.C., and that's for my history show, This Day, which is doing a big, year-long, America 250, kind of how did we get here series of conversations. So I would love for people to go and listen to that, This Day.

1:05:04 It's a show from Radiotopia.

1:05:06 There you go. Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? Oh yes.

1:05:10 I wanted to flag this for you guys. I'm not on X anymore, but a friend of mine sent me a link to a thread that someone posted on X where he made, and maybe this counts as like few, you know, good use of AI, but he took the Radiohead album. Have you seen this Hank Hill sings in rainbows?

1:05:26 Yeah.

1:05:27 Has that been going around for a while?

1:05:29 We haven't, we haven't recommended it as a work.

1:05:31 Okay. Well, someone, someone made a version of Radiohead in, in rainbows, but the vocals are replaced entirely by Hank Hill from King of the Hill singing it. And it is song by song and it is quite something.

1:05:44 Amazing.

1:05:45 Go ahead and check that out.

1:05:46 Miles, where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying?

1:05:49 Yeah, find me everywhere at Miles of Grey. I'm talking about 90 Day Fiancé on 420 Day Fiancé. Uh, also talking about English football, European football, the champions league on ain't it footy with Jamel Johnson and Chris Martin. That's a new show. So check that out. Please subscribe and check it out. If that's a, if you're into the sport, cause it's a really good time. Uh, working media, like it's from the onion. It's cause there's so much GTA stuff coming out. It says rockstar announces GTA six soundtrack contains 10,000 songs by Randy Newman. Um, I think the funniest way to play that game. Uh, uh, Can't wait.

1:06:27 Can't wait to be cruising to the sounds of Randy Newman.

1:06:30 All right. Work of media I've been enjoying. We did, we went and found, I was actually Googling this late last night. I sent it to everybody. So I had recommended the clip of the singing, dancing, Quebecois, Quebecois boy, because Superdiscord Catherine thought it might be AI because of how smooth this motherfucker was. Turns out, no. It was from an old show that aired for years.

1:06:59 Do we know what happened? What came of that young man?

1:07:02 I don't know. They put his name in the article, so you can go down a rabbit hole, but it is just one of the smoothest ass performances that you'll ever see. It is completely not AI-assisted. And yeah, we'll link off to the Toronto Sun article. But it's got real local news being like local clip makes good. It's like old clip of singing, dancing. Quebecois boy goes viral.

1:07:32 Clip of boy performing Quebec folk song becomes global hit on social media.

1:07:38 Global hit.

1:07:39 That's very cute. Anyways, so we will link off to that. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien, Blue Sky, Jack OB, the number one Instagram, Jack underscore O underscore Brian. 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.

1:08:06 We link off to the works of media we've been enjoying today. and we link off to a song that we think you might enjoy. Myles, is there a song that you think people might enjoy?

1:08:17 Yeah, this is a song called bang, bang, bang by the Lambrini girls, uh, which is like a rock band from Brighton. Uh, if you like, you know, they, they, they mentioned bikini kill and like litigre is like some of their, uh, inspiration. Um, They fucking rock. They're fucking tight. I've been listening to some of their other music. Really fun shit. So check out the Lambrini Girls. L-A-M-B-R-I-N-I Girls.

1:08:42 That'll be in the footnote.

1:08:44 Their number one song on Apple Music is called Cuntology 101.

1:08:47 Cuntology 101 is also a fantastic song. I want to let people let Bang Bang Bang be your entry point. oh bang and then when you start then when you start vibing and contology 101 is also a very fun song too uh and that's actually that's from their album who let the dogs out which is also just um so check out the lambrini girls bang bang bang or contology 101 they're like i'm saying they're fucking dope is that a shortening of lamborghini lambrini Not that I know.

1:09:17 Who knows?

1:09:17 Lambeau. Yeah. Because I just don't want them stepping on our plan to come out as a rock band called the Lambeau Boys.

1:09:25 Lambeau Boys.

1:09:25 No, yeah, no.

1:09:26 They're going to be much more successful than we will.

1:09:29 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 morning. We're back this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we will talk to you all then. Bye. Bye.

1:09:42 The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Long.

1:09:45 Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M.

1:09:48 McNabb. Edited and engineered by Justin Conner.