At this point, everyone seems to have had enuff of Vladimir Putin. However, all the grievance narratives in the world aren’t enuff to stop Smash Mouth from churning out the hits.
Topics include: Global Propaganda Matrix, online propaganda, Vladimir Putin and his war, Vlad Vexler, decline in acceptance for RT in US alt media, Palantir, vying for global soft power influence, anti socialist propaganda as standard line for US establishment, Silicon Valley capture of government, grievance narratives, China leveraging Iran War, alternative to US, China likely promoted MAGA to destabilize US, obvious Chinese influence ops and international PR across social media, anti data center movement and allegations of Chinese influence, zeitgeist of pessimism, nostalgia for 90s and 2000s decades, Smash Mouth new Single Had Enuff, AI slop artwork
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Transcript of this episode, as transcribed by YouTube.
You are listening to the age of transitions. I’m your host Aaron Fron coming at you live this Friday night July 31st 2026 live every Friday night from the facilities of ochelli.com first hour age of transitions second hour uncle the podcast thank you for listening do consider going to ochelli.com leaving a donation to help the network help Chuck out the age of transitions.com that is my website you can go there to find this podcast and find ways to support the Oh, the book Revolve Man’s Scientific Rise to Godhood paperback ebook copies, it’s still available. It always will be. Um, great way to support the show. Thank you everybody who has purchased a copy of that. Also have the Patreon campaign at the age of transitions.com. I have other products in the store uh including the first 100 episodes of Trans Resistor Radio, which is this show that’s available through the Patreon. Actually, you can buy that separate if you’d like or you can join the Patreon uh and and get it that way. 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Um, and There’s there’s a few different odd little goings on that I wanted to uh mention on the show and I’m going to be mentioning topics that come up again and again but as I say these topics are worth reiterating because don’t see a lot of people talking about them. So, uh, we’re going to be kind of focused on, at least in the first part of the show, on the global propaganda matrix. What is that? Well, it’s internet. That’s where it is. Of course, the idea behind the internet is that we’re a connected world and everybody can contact each other and all the knowledge of the world is there and everybody’s going to be better and smarter. That was the idea from the outset. And now I mean I don’t think anybody even believes that anymore. I will talk more about the general zeitgeist, but it’s definitely not optimist. Optimism is not part of the zeitgeist. Certainly pessimism is. And so it is that that idea of knowledge and all of this being shared through internet and social media that’s not going to fly. But what does fly is criticism, critique, um, anything that is packaged as anti-establishment or generally contrarian, to borrow Peter Teal’s favorite uh, adjective for himself. anything that is presented in that frame as we’re going to tell the truth to you now. We’re going to tear down the uh powers that be by telling you the real story that they don’t want you to hear. A lot of times it’s actually them telling it to you as a covert means of misinformation and propaganda. But hey, that’s the nature of the global propaganda matrix. And it’s hitting us from all sides. There’s not one perpetrator that we need to single out. It’s not the US government. It’s not the evil US corporations have taken over the government. I’m not saying those two things aren’t horrible. I’m not saying that those two things aren’t the same thing. But others that you have to look out for is other international governments. Yes, Russia creates propaganda and misinformation for us, the United States citizens, to consume online. Yes, that happens. China also creates propaganda for us to consume. In the United States, when we are online and when we’re not suspecting it, we will be hit with their propaganda on social media. It happens constantly. And yes, uh I mean, are we to believe the stories of the wonderful presidential regime in charge now and believe that we need to look out for Cuba and their propaganda campaigns to turn us into socialists and uh left-wing terrorists? I mean, I have no doubt that maybe some kind of influence operations or well any influence operations coming from Cuba I wouldn’t be too concerned about and they got so many problems there that any serious sort of uh operation that they could run it’s it’s it’s not going to be at a level of something like the Russian government, the Chinese government, the United States government or a giant corporation within you know the world economic system a global corporation has the resources to create all sorts of influence operations and propaganda and public relations pieces which they do and that’s part of this stew as well. So I is is has something come out of Cuba maybe. Are is it going to spawn a left-wing terror network that’s going to take down the US from within? No, I don’t think so. That’s that’s just a convenient story for the bigger operators in the propaganda sphere. You know, the presidential administration and the government at large is using that to run, you know, to push their pet projects. I mean, particularly little Marco Rubio and his um crusade against Cuba that he he does want to invade, you know, Bay of Pigs 2 or a new war or whatever. He doesn’t care. He just wants to get in there. He wants to you. That’s a real thing. He definitely desires that. And so this propaganda is part of trying to soften us up for that. Okay, pretty obvious, pretty straightforward stuff from analyzing the propaganda from our stupid government right now. But uh back to Russia. Yes, Russia uh once again it is a sin to even mention that any Russia does propaganda on us and it works that uh they definitely didn’t haven’t ever tried to influence our elections at all be that even by creating propaganda to influence the uh uh election because that’s a simple way you can do it is create propaganda to try to influence voters in the United states and of course you can do that by doing all sorts of posts on the social media sites. So what as me as an alternative person, a conspiracy culture guy or whatever I am a contrarian, I’m not supposed to believe that Russia does that simple thing that obviously they’re doing that they they have done probably every single election that they’ve been online running uh ops. Of course they do that. Of course they do that. Now we can sit here and ask the question how effective were those operations? uh you know and beyond that what have did they really you know go the next step and do all sorts of uh you know hacking or doing some sort of espionage where they uh get intelligence assets within you know the companies voting uh voting booth companies and things like this you know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t have all of the answers on that But to to say that the desire would not be there on the part of the Russian government would be idiotic. So this is again a thing that I get mad about. I I bring up all the time because it’s stupid. We need to stop acting like idiots in this realm. We need to just be able to admit obvious basic things about what’s going on. Everybody’s running influence operations all the time against us to for their own uh agendas and there’s a lot of different agendas. There’s a lot of different players. Um do even opposed players with their own self-interests involved. Do they sometimes work together? Yeah, sure. And there is such a thing as the global economy and and you know famously China and the US have to they’re forced to be cordial with one another when they need to be but that doesn’t mean that they’re not opposed to one another at the same time but whatever. Not going to get into the ins and outs of that. What I did want to mention was an interesting thing to do with everybody’s favorite uh mass murdering maniac and uh despot Vladimir Putin. We we love that guy. I mean, right? And that’s an interesting question. Do do you now? Maybe you don’t now, but have you ever and be honest when you answer this. Have you ever thought about Vladimir Putin and been like, you know, he’s not that bad. He’s better than what we have here in the United States. He’s better than that. Look at Look at him. He’s trying to do the best for his country. And I should see through the petty United States propaganda against him because, you know, he’s not that bad. Have you ever, you know, entertained those sorts of ideas? I mean, it’s okay if you have because there’s been no shortage of garbage flooding social media scenes for social media feeds for years and years and years to get us to think that way. Again, Russian influence operations, completely transparent is what they had ought to be. Let’s just, you know, call a spade a spade and say, “Yes, this is they’ve been doing this crap to us for years.” He’s always been uh yeah, a murdering scumbag. He’s evil. He’s an evil sick man with too much power and he’s remained in power and he’s doing everything in his power to stay where he’s at and not let anybody take his position from him. He’s that much is clear. And yes, the war with Ukraine is his war. It is him that made that happen. It’s him who’s perpetuating it. It’s him that keeps it going. It is his pet project. That’s how it is. It’s Putin’s war. All right? And we can sit here and uh be like, “Well, it’s okay because Ukraine is filled with a bunch of Nazis, right? So, it’s not that bad. He’s going after Nazis. Another obvious piece of propaganda from somewhere, right? He invaded a country. He invaded a sovereign country. And he does all the usual crap where he’s like, “Well, it’s not really it’s not really a separate country. It’s part of Russia. They just need to remember that. And I’m just going in there to, you know, reunify blah blah blah.” Yeah. Blah blah blah blah blah. All the same garbage. all and same same as always from from these guys guys like him go invade a country and and give a bunch of stupid excuses as to why it’s okay. Um but now uh Russia has is kind of reeling through the years of this prolonged war which what do they call it? The special military operation. That’s their little term to make it seem better. That’s their little propaganda term that they use over there. Some BS like that. It’s a war. This war has been going on for years with no end in sight. And things are not looking too good for Russia. I’m not talking about the casualties. The casualties are just obvious. It’s it’s it’s you can’t even I mean, what do you say on all the people that have been killed in this nonsense? But beyond that, the other the thing that I want to look at here is what is when is it going to end? When’s it going to end is the question. It could go on and on and on and it’s it’s definitely an interesting case in terms of the new face of war with the drones and the asymmetric warfare in the age of transitions. And there’s been lots of, you know, articles that have discussed this and that’s all worthy of analysis and looking at. But this past week, um Putin had a a crazy comment about uh the whole war and he was confronted by a world leader who I not quite sure who it was right now, but I I got this uh piece from a Twitter ex user who Vlad Vexler is the guy’s name. And he’s an interesting guy that I I mean I I’ll say that I trust him. He seems legit to me. And again, anytime you see anybody’s content online, you have to be discerning about. But to me, Vlad Vexler seems like a legit guy. I think he was grew up in Soviet Russia and so he is Russian but he’s been living in the states and now he’s he’s he does a lot of kind of like in highly intellectual criticism of Putin in particular but uh Russia and what’s going on in Russia and all that. So he does a lot of sort of intellectual quasi academic analysis online, does a lot of videos about it and the video this past week he was mentioning Putin getting confronted and and being uh kind of caught off guard legitimately because he typically he is not confronted. He’s you know nobody’s allowed to do that but he was by this leader from another country. That’s why somebody domestically would have got in serious trouble for that. But basically, the guy’s like, “Look, what the heck are you doing? Well, what’s when is this war over? What what is wrong with you?” This that’s paraphrasing for sure, but uh the retort uh Vexler was saying was insane, and it is. Putin basically said, “Well, the war, if we didn’t have the war, people wouldn’t know what to do. people are so used to it uh they like uh living uh under this war and people wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if it was over. And that’s the level that he’s at where that’s like the best he can do to excuse this thing is just say well nobody would know what to do with themselves without this war. I mean what is it I think it’s is it millions of people have died in this thing. It’s an insane amount of people. People are dying. They’re just throwing Russian men on the front lines, just going into the meat grinder here. And he’s saying these insane things that we wouldn’t know what to do if it were over. We just love it so much. It’s crazy. Absolutely crazy. So, that was I mean, that was a good video. Vlad Vexler, I like him. Um, wild. So interesting to see what’s going on there in Russia. I and I don’t know. I’m no expert. I don’t know if Putin’s going to stay in power, if he’s going to be challenged by somebody and taken out. I don’t know. I mean, if he does stay in power, presumably he’s just going to keep this thing going for as long as he it’ll just keep going. It’ll be their forever war. That he ain’t going to stop it. No way. and he’s just making up any garbage just and he’s throwing out lame excuses now. And that’s where you see chips and cracks in the facade of this mighty propaganda giant, which Russia is on the global stage. Certainly domestically. And I when it comes to Russian domestic propaganda, we don’t know what they’re getting hit with. We can only imagine all the crap that they have to deal with over there. But you know, you know, it’s it’s constant, everpresent, just like the war is great. Oh, we’re so patriotic. Oh, we’re going to get Ukraine back and they’re just going to love it when they’re back and oh boy, we we just have to stop them. They’re being Why did Ukraine have to go and and be so horrible and be this evil aggressor against us, but well, we’re going to fix it. Don’t worry. Um, you know, don’t look at all, you know, and we know that your father and your brother and your cousin and we know that they’re all dead from this, but you know, that’s okay. We’re we’re going to it’s going to be worth it. Russia’s going to restore it to great glory. and the they will um the Russian Empire will rise again and blah blah blah blah blah. So I’m you know that they’re dealing with that. So you know I feel for them. I I do. I really do. Would be horrible to be there. It would be awful. It sucks to be in the US in a lot of ways but it’s not like that. There’s not a war like that that we have to deal with. We have to deal with the war. We do know that. And it is horrendous and it’s stupid and it shouldn’t be happening, but it’s not it’s not as the scale of the actual casualties aren’t aren’t at that level. So, we’re comparing these horrendous wars of these different countries. But anyway, the global propaganda matrix is a real thing. every country vying for soft power influence. We’re talking about soft power last week on this show and how the United States is attempting their global government takeover new world order western US style the US imperial style. The plan with us at the moment is to use software as our soft power brought to you by Palanteer, right? Just embed that into every single government you can throughout the world and we will by default that government is ours, right? We got it. So that’s the way that the US is going to gain its new soft power influence. It’s not with the evil woke us a podcast network that’s is is making everybody a Marxist socialist uh left-wing terrorist. No, we’re we need to go about just putting palunteer all over the world. And it’s not going to be global government because that’s what the Marxist leftists are doing and want to do and would do if they were in power. and they’re going to be, but they’re not because we’re in power. But if they were, it’d be really scary. So, we have to make sure they’re not. So, make sure you vote for anybody who claims to be on the right side of political spectrum. It’ll keep you safe from the Marxist socialist nightmare that could overtake us at any given moment. That’s the uh domestic propaganda line from the presidential regime and the federal government at large which has been taken over by Silicon Valley big tech. That’s what we have to deal with. We know what’s going on here. We live here. We have to deal with it directly. We’re not in Russia. We don’t know what they’re dealing with. I surely a nightmare. But this is our nightmare here. Okay. So, we better get a good grip on what is actually happening and not what we want to believe, which is difficult. And we’re all going to struggle and we’re going to get things wrong, but that’s okay. But remember, don’t get ahead of yourselves. Don’t see one enemy and get stuck in that and think that somebody else isn’t trying to get one over on you because they are. But anyway, what else? What else do we need to uh the global propaganda matrix? Russia seems now what’s interesting with Russia and talking about propaganda talking about social media here the global propaganda matrix in the United States on our social media what we the average consumer of digital media media are generally what what the uh consensus reality there tends to be and if my feelers are accurate and if if I’m gauging this correctly, it seems like Russia, and I know to a degree this is true. It’s just what degree Russia has fallen out of favor in the states and online. As I was saying previously, there’s a so much material over the years propping up Putin. He’s a great guy. He’s not as bad as he seems. Uh Russia, they Russia gate is a hoax. It’s hor all that stuff. And RT was huge for a while. Huge. RT was a major player in the alternative media space, conspiracy culture. They were taken seriously by most people. Most people took them seriously. you were an oddball if you didn’t think RT was good just generally speaking because they were speaking truth to the US imperial system and everything that we’re doing bad here in the United States because we are the sole uh target of of if if we are confronting the powers that be we’re looking at the US we’re not looking at Russia and they’re making anti-Russian propaganda therefore we like Putin that was the old reality that has gone by the wayside. RT is falling out of favor. Putin’s fallen out of favor and I see that in on social media now. So that’s interesting. Make that be make make it that what you will. I’m not going to say okay that means this. I’m just making an observation. And presumably that’s the case because this war is wearing down the country. They probably don’t have the resources that they can focus on the influence the the global influence operations as much as they previously would have, right? Because the war is just taking so much out of them. That’s an educated guess on my part. I don’t know. So, Russia is kind of reeling now. Interesting. Down but not out. I don’t know. Whatever. Now, China. Let’s talk about China because they’re the big three are the US, China, and Russia. They’re not the only ones, but they’re the big ones. Uh China is riding high right now when it comes to this space, the global propaganda matrix. They’re doing good and they’re riding high on the Iran war. Iran, Iran. Um now, this war is horrendous. It’s terrible. we should not be doing it. And it’s so obviously in your face, stupid blunder, just the same stuff that even this presidential administration carrying it out came to power criticizing the foreign policy decisions that got us to do the same things in the past. all the all the Middle East wars. It was promised that that sort of thing would not happen with these guys in charge and now it is. So that is insane and and really does a number on us psychologically trying to make sense of that. I mean, the easy answer to that, which we should Aam’s razor really, it’s it was just a line of BS to to get them uh in charge for you to vote for them and to get them in power. And once they’re there, they’re going to do whatever they want, whatever they think they need to, and and that’s everybody, anybody, all the time. Okay? So, if you actually believed them from the start, you shouldn’t have. But be that as it may, China can easily point out everything that we are doing wrong and they can position themselves as the global alternative to other countries out there. And certainly they’re doing that. There’s lots of articles about this which are that saying that is correct. They can do that. They are doing that and surely it’s working because what we’re doing is all wrong. So it’s made it easy for China to step in and take advantage of this situation. Now a deeper look at this would be to go back in the past and see how China influence operations in China. let’s say even in 2016, but certainly as more recently the uh the last presidential election we had, I would say that would have been in China’s favor, we’re talking about propaganda wise now, to promote this mega Trump regime to us, the United States population, via their Chinese influence operations. It would have been in their favor to do that because of the destabilizing effect of these maniacs, these nuts who it’s just openly corrupt um bunch of guys that do not know what they’re doing. They’re total puppets on the string for again the real powers here in the States that are the problem. But my opinion is that China, it would have been in their interest to promote this regime because of how insane it is and how stupid it makes us look and the dumb decisions it makes. And certainly it has led to this and it shouldn’t be a surprise that it has. And now you can see now we see how China is obviously taking advantage of the current situation. But if you go back and look and kind of think of it a little deeper beyond just the what seems to make sense on the surface is that Trump was bad for China because, you know, he was the one that kicked off the whole um United States and China cold war, the tariff war thing going on, the all the global economic tensions between the two. uh he kicked that off. But again, might that not have been in China’s favor all along? I’m not answering that question. I’m just throwing it out there, okay? To maybe take a different point of view on these things than what has been thrown at us for so long. Now, that’s China’s propaganda that they’re using on us for the Iran war. Obvious. But what you really need to notice, and I’m sure people do because it’s it seems obvious, is the other social media posts that are just generally pro-China and they’re everpresent. They’re all over the place. Uh, currently current ones that I’ve noticed um I’ve seen a lot of things across social media platforms like all of them. There’s these videos that show automobiles, vehicles, and it shows a Chinese one competing alongside usually other other automakers of the world, certainly the United States, but then other this uh image I’m using on the the video version of the show shows German cars BMW and I think another one Audi BMW and it shows the suspension of a Chinese vehicle. And it shows you how much better it is than these, you know, high class German topofthe-line uh cars that are supposed to be so great. Well, obviously they’re not as good as these cheap alternatives from China. BYD and other things. BYD is huge. All sorts of videos you’ll see about them. I saw another video I think on Tic Tac of uh the suspension of a truck under a full load like a work truck under full load. Like look at the suspension of the BYD truck is so much better than these other two. The Ford sucks. So that my friends is a Chinese influence operation for sure. that’s, you know, it’s being put out there to to make us go, “Oh, look, Chinese stuff is great and it’s better and look at how awesome they are.” And, you know, that might not seem like much, but it’s I mean, that’s what that is. And so, so I’m just pointing that out as something that I’ve noticed lately. So, that’s something that’s making the rounds. What else? Uh oh. And then a story that’s interesting is this one about the data centers and um the uh the anti-data center movement or sentiment online. There’s been talk of that that that is a Chinese influence operation and we’re being told that by the American establishment, right? You’ve heard about this. I know Kevin Olirri who isn’t even American. He’s a Canadian. Get out of here. But anyway, he’s gone on there saying insinuating that he has evidence that’s a Chinese propaganda operation to get us against data centers and don’t believe them. We got to put data centers everywhere. Um, so you’ve heard that, which is interesting because now we’re looking at what is obviously US establishment counternarrative to what is supposedly a Chinese operation. They’re telling us it’s a Chinese operation, the anti-data center information on social media. Now, this one is tough be and it definitely falls square in the category of something I want to believe that is anti-data center uh rhetoric of all sorts because the hell are the data centers? Um I they’re horrible and all the anti-data center information. Yeah, I I’m on board with that and I want to believe that yes, it’s horrible. Everything about it like I’m against the data centers now. Are we going to ask the question is China running and this is an influence operation? I don’t know. But the point I think I’m trying to make is that even though I am fully opposed to the data centers and in line with that whole thing, I’m also willing to accept the idea that maybe China is like using this in some way like yeah, get them against the data centers and they’ll throw their AI development out of whack and yeah, let’s promote this and let’s make videos about maybe I don’t maybe I don’t know. So you know this this is the nuance here in this space that we got to deal with. We got to take things we like I think take things we don’t like and you know just consider other ideas at least just consider ideas and it it it may be that China is somewhat it seems like they’d have to be involved in this to one extent or another. But um does that mean we shouldn’t be opposed to data centers? No, we should be opposed to data centers. So, crazy time. So, you got you got to be on your toes. Okay. There’s a lot going on here. Can you keep up? Is is this too much? Let’s lighten things up and talk about popular music. This ought to, you know, lighten the mood a bit. Enough about global propaganda and China and Russia and all this other stuff. Let’s talk about everybody’s favorite 1990s uh pop music sensation group, Smashmouth. Everybody knows Smashmouth. We’ve heard the songs on the radio, Rockstar. Um that cover that they did of the um Well, I see I I’m saying I remember it, but I can’t What’s that? I can’t. Anyway, a bunch of radio hits, right? We know we know them. We know Smashmouth. Um, big hits. I did a I was actually on what was it? Apple Music. I listen to my music through that app. And it shows you suggestions on the main page when you’re on there and it suggested to me the new single by Smashmouth. They have a new song now in 2026. They’re released a new single. I I know this because the app told me, you know, that’s all that’s how we know anything is because the apps tell us. So, I’m no different. Okay. I learned that Smashmouth’s new hit single, well, I don’t know if it’s a hit yet, but they want it to be. You know, they do. their new single being suggested to me and I’m sure millions of other people on the same apps. The title of the song is Had enough. And I thought it was hilarious and I I made a tweet, a post on X, whatever you call it these days, um saying that uh Smashmouth has literally changed their tune from can’t get enough of you baby to had enough of you baby. because the the title is had enough. That’s the title of the song, but in it he says babies like I’ve had enough of you babies. So I I just thought it was hilarious that the exact opposite of one of their biggest hit songs from their heyday. Can’t get enough of you baby. That was one of their biggest songs. Walking on the sun, that was a big one. Um but Can’t Get Enough You Baby is one of their biggest hits. I’m sure they made tons of money off of it. This is one of those bands that uh was so big that the certainly the members like the singer, whoever’s getting the songwriter uh credits on this, I’m sure they’re living comfortably off of this, which is unusual in the music industry, but I think this band is one of a tiny minority where they probably were able to do that. So, Can’t Get Enough of You Baby was part of their bread and butter and they’ve lived off of that and they’ve done well on it. So now it’s ironic and downright hilarious that they just made a song that’s the opposite. Had enough. I I just think it was funny. But taking a closer look at this, I believe there might be some deeper stuff going on. Uh I think it might be an indicator of the zeitgeist. When I was mentioning I want to talk about that. Well, it’s through Smashmouth. the zeitgeist that generally is pessimistic. We’re all We’ve all been um made aware of how horrible everything is. It’s all been made super obvious how terrible the uh powers that be are, how terrible the establishment is. We all know that we’re we’re we’ve all been and once again the presidential administration that currently sits there actually was put into power on this grievance narrative. That’s how deeply entrenched this is in ingrained within the US psyche at large. Consensus reality the zeitgeist is that we’re horrible. We need to fix everything. Everything needs to change. Uh we’ll do anything. Anything that’s thrown our way that seems like it’s going to change everything. Yes, we’re going with it. And it was one of those things was electing Donald Trump in company under the guise that he was going to do that. Now, you know, we’re seeing the Iran war and all this. Maybe people are starting to second guess that is approval ratings going down. But that’s not to say that that general sentiment isn’t there, which is interesting and something that can be exploited by other people in the propaganda space. Other players in the global propaganda matrix can leverage that, can leverage the zeitgeist against us. But we’re not talking about that now. We’re talking about cool popular music, pop rocks. Smashmouth is like the epitome of that Sirius XM channel, Pop Rocks. It’s pop. It’s rock. It’s poppy rock that we play. Smashmouth is like the band that defines that channel. They’re they’re like a pop rock. Their their music sounds like it’s got like this hard rock edge, but it’s also completely poppy and gum gumball and uh candy colored and and you know, so that’s them. And we all know that. Everybody knows that. Nobody’s denying that. That’s just what Smashmouth is. But had enough I I think that this song I mean in the title you can kind of see it uh reflecting that zeitgeist of pessimism and we’ve all had enough. We’ve had enough with everything, right? This song is saying that. So it’s it’s it’s capitalizing on that. Um, but also beyond just that general sentiment, general feelings, there’s details here which are interesting as well. Like had enough is spelled intentionally wrong. Enough is spelled E N U FF. I think we all know that that’s not how you spell the word enough. that’s purposely misspelled in a comical way, but it’s kind of I mean that kind of feels newaky to me, you know? It’s like, yeah, we we spelled everything correctly and it was a longer actual phrase with can’t get enough of you, baby. Now it’s just had enough and we’re spelling it wrong. You know, that’s the way we like it. You know, it also is it’s cyclical because if I don’t know if you ever you might be a bit too young, but there was a band called Enough’s Enough. Yes. Yes, I know that. And it was spelled like that. Enough. And then the letter Z, enough. So, you know, that happened in the 80s during our great stages of apathy when I was a teenager. Right. Yeah. And enough’s enough was a hair band, which is hilarious also. Yeah. Um cuz believe me, I had enough of that crap the second it hit. Uh enough was enough. I think enough was enough. Um, and you know, it it’s amazing to me that Smashmouth is literally though the the consumate generator for the Zeitgeist cuz you know, hey, now you’re a rockstar, right? You know, all that stuff that the Shrek movie that it was tied to, okay, the the absolutely ridiculous amount of residuals they’ve gotten from being tied to the movie, from being played, from being kidfriendly. Y Smashmouth was um although if you’ve seen them in recent years, it’s funny. I’m surprised that a new single came out. Did you see the the concert footage where the the singer is like totally blitzed and starts like really berating the audience and getting angry? No, this is recent like just like this year or something. This is like maybe a year ago. Yeah. And he’s like at a fair. He’s like at some stupid like I mean it’s hilarious. He’s like at one of those state fairs, you know, where usually a band who is way way on the way down ends up playing. You know, it’s like, “What do you mean there’s two members left? A foreigner. Oh, they’re at the state fair.” Yeah. Uh, you know, the the other guys from Leonard Skard. Um, you know, stuff like that. You know, the the original bass player for the Sex Missiles, uh, you know, so on and so forth. Yeah. Um, you know, the these guys end up playing these weird gigs for, you know, a little bit of pay and Smashmouth was doing one of those and like he was just so clearly intoxicated and so clearly berating the audience and all this stuff and then he winds up like falling off the stage. It’s really funny. I I’m surprised you never seen it. No, no, that sounds great though. And I have heard about the singer that he is like it’s it sounds like he has depression first of all and that Yeah. Yeah. I’ I’ve heard people say that he’s like mad about the band Smashmouth and how corny they are and he’s kind of embarrassed by that. Right. That was the whole thing that that’s how he got into it with the audience. It was like, you know, all the little kids are sitting there requesting the Shrek song. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And the guy’s pissed because it’s like, you know, I’m a serious artist, you know. Even the one where Donkey sings along, you know, like, yeah, dude, you know, get used to it. You’re in Smashmouth. Okay. Yeah. I mean, seriously. But it’s just so funny to me. They They are the perfect though. They’re exactly perfect for releasing a single right now. Yeah. And you know, enough. Yeah. It’s pretty funny. Hey, it’s just full circle. Smashmouth full circle. I love it. I I’m so glad you’re doing this. Anyway, you only got a little bit of time left, but I had to jump in and at least comment on that. And oh my god, there was a couple other times I was tempted to pop open the mic, but I wasn’t going to do it, and I said, “Oh, I got to, man. The Smashmouth thing is too funny.” Oh, it’s good. Yeah, good times. I mean, everybody has a memory of a Smashmouth song. I mean, it’s it’s they’re I mean, for what it’s worth, they’re iconic. They made their mark on American pop culture. They are the pop rocks band. That’s them. And yeah, it’s it’s interesting to think about the singer being genuinely upset with his identity and what he became because I actually I remember the their early record that got huge. They had a couple tracks on there that were kind of punk rocky, you know, had like an angsty teen angst edge to them was saying I remember there was one that’s uh titled I have a whiny neighbor. It’s about you know playing music loud and their neighbor was complaining about it. You know there’s stuff like that where clearly they want to be these rockers and you know everything that comes with that but they became the ultimate like uh you know Disney Disneyized sort of band. But they’ve had enough now. They’ve had enough of all of it. The other thing to take a look at literally with this is the there’s cover art for the single and it’s a doozy, it’s something else. Not only is it featuring Had enough in this weird sort of terrible font that looks kind of like a old Batman comic in this like explosion red graphic. It says had enough with this drop shadow on it. Looks awful. But the image behind that is what looks like a photo realalistic illustration of a dolphin slapping a fish out of its trainer’s hand. It’s a dolphin presumably at SeaWorld or something. It looks like it’s in actually like a large public swimming pool. It’s got palm trees in the background slapping the fish that was supposed to be its food out of its trainer’s hand. And the trainer is kind of like rocking backward. Kind of looks like Steve Irwin kind of, but like the SeaWorld version of Steve Irwin. And the dolphin is strange looking, almost muscular, kind of like too thick to be a dolphin. Even though it’s a weird image that I believe is AI generated because it’s got the look, we all know the look of the AI slop now. And I gotta say this, this looks to be an AI slop cover on this thing that they slap on. AI an AI slop roided up dolphin. Yes. Is the image basically. Yeah. And what’s funny is like the even the trainer is all like kind of muscular too. Like he’s like, you know, really like super like kind of buff guy. He looks like he’s been taking all the testosterone boosting supplements to be an alpha male and all this. But, uh, it’s it’s a weird image. AI slop. Again, if we’re talking about the zeitgeist, that fits right in. This is a song for this moment in time. We’ve had enough. Uh, it’s it’s a weird call back to the better times in that everybodyizes online. The ‘9s were this great time where everything was perfect. And boy, why can’t we just go back to everything that was happening 90s and even early 2000s are held up on this pedestal where people will post things about like Limp Biscuit was the best thing that ever happened to American pop culture and why can’t we have stuff like you know things like this and certainly I’m sure people have said the same thing about Smashmouth but at this point we’ve all had enough. It’s got to go. Uh even the familyfriendly uh Smashmouth band and band members are trying to regain their edge and take the power back by releasing this new single telling everybody what their new message is. They’ve had enough. You know, they’re in there with us. They want they don’t want to go back to the 90s. They want to go back to something else probably because the 90s was when they were too commercial and they don’t want you to think that that’s what they are. I think I don’t know. But Zeitgeist And yeah, AI slop is part of the Z case. And I think when the future comes, it will look be looked back on like, oh, when you look back on like commercial art style of the time that sucks and that’s like purposely goddy and weird looking. This will be our version of that currently that gets looked back on in like a decade or two. Sort of like haircuts in the 70s where people look at it and go, “What in the hell was wrong with you?” Yeah, there’s all sorts of weird like artistic styles that you look back on like Trapper Keeper art from the 9090s. Anything that was on one of them, that’s kind of like an example of this weird like commercial art styles that get super dated. Uh kind of campy, you know, and so this will be I I think I just got a million-dollar idea, though, Aaron. And you know what it is? Smashmouth. Their next single should actually be a cover of Eye of the Tiger. That would be just I mean so completely incestuous artistically that it’ll be perfect. I mean, remember when that started coming back around and you’re like I mean, for me, I I don’t know what it was like for you cuz again, you’re a little younger, but for me, I’m like, why are they resurrecting the movie that was like I mean, the the the song, excuse me, that really drove interest in Rocky 3. Yeah. Like that’s really what it was. Eye of the Tiger was like Rocky 3. That’s what it was. Um, you know, Mr. T was super popular. Yeah, I’m just saying like that’s another example of pop culture at the time. You just throw in all the popular elements. Mr. T is the big actor that everybody likes. Uh this style of rock music that Survivor is playing is the style that is in everything. And so here’s the Rocky song for that. And so, you know, and they they put Hulk Hogan in the movie. I mean, I’m just saying, you know, it’s just Rocky 3 was let’s throw everything into it and see what happens. And it worked. Yeah. But it but when people go to resurrect that it’s the funniest thing. It’s like, you know, everybody thinking that somebody’s a manly man, but they’re playing YMCA, you know, like it’s just really funny to me. I I don’t know why. I just can’t stop laughing at it. But anyway, it is the age of transitions. That’s the way it is. Yeah, it is. Oh, man. Yeah, that’s I I love this kind of stuff. I mean, just a podcast goofing on this would be good, but uh you we can do it every here and there, and I think it’s pretty good. And there’s some depth to look at here with this new Smashmouth song. I think I haven’t even listened to the whole thing. I started listening to it and turned it off. Maybe I’ll listen to the whole thing sometime, but uh you know, we’ll see. But uh the album cover, or not album, but single cover looks BAI generated. fits right in with the zeitgeist. The sentiment of the main theme of the song definitely fits in. Um, and the hearkening back to a better time making America great again. You know, in the 90s when everything was perfect, everything was just great back then. I Why did anybody even complain? All those losers that were of age, coming of age in the 90s were all bunch of lameos that should have just taken advantage of the perfect situation, live the pent ultimate existence. uh you know in their ‘9s heaven that existed in our minds now. And so you know there’s there’s a lot of weird psychological tricks we play on ourselves and it happens in the same space as the global propaganda matrix where all this is floating around. The more light-hearted not necessarily propaganda influence operation stuff can also take advantage of us. So just remember that for what it’s worth. the age of transitions. I hope you enjoyed the show tonight. Once again, ochelli.com. Every Friday night we’re live. We will be live with Uncle the Broadcast coming right up. So stay tuned. Everybody gonna be doing that show next. The age of transitions is my website. My name is Aaron Fron. As always, I will leave you by saying seeker seek on