11-29-24 Afternoon Rush - New Bachelor Nation Engagements! & Wicked Backlash Exposed & Taylor Swift Dominates Black Friday!

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Welcome to the Rush Hour. Your daily dose of pop culture for your Rush Hour ride. Buckle up and enjoy the drive with your host, stand up comedian, Dave Neal. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon to you on this Black Friday. It's the laziest day Day of the year, November 29th, 2024. But I'm here for you and I'm going to mail it in with you.

Maybe you're at work, you know, you smell like bourbon or whatever you have. Maybe you're not at work. Maybe you're in line at an old Navy and, uh, you're shopping for things. You just don't need like 5 pajamas. That can't be an ethical thing that was made. How do you make pajamas for 5? Either way I'm here for you.

I got all of your entertainment news in one place. If that's not reason enough to give me a five star review, I don't know what it is. What else do I need to do to prove to you guys that we have the grit and determination to see it through the end of this week. On this episode, we have multiple bachelor engagements from contestants that were on bachelor, bachelorette and bachelor in paradise.

We have it all. We have a, uh, one heterosexual, one non. All right. We're here. It's 2024. Do what you want to do, move it all around. I don't care. We got those announcements for you. Plus we've got Ben Affleck possibly rekindling with his ex Jennifer Gardner. They spent Thanksgiving together. And we've also got a good story.

A hiker found after a, what week and a half in the woods. And we'll have that heroic story. So some feel good stuff. That'll get us into the weekend. I'm here for you. We got it all and more coming up next on The Rush. As you guys know, I've been in Northern Kentucky, AKA Cincinnati, Ohio. It's, you know, in the same, it's the same thing.

Uh, and I've been here at the in laws, uh, recording from my mobile studio setup in the basement. They've got one of those renovated basements as they do. You can check it out. If you join me on Patreon, patreon. com slash Dave Neal, but I took the time this morning to go try some black Friday shopping, not a big black Friday shopper.

In fact, I don't remember ever going before this might've been my first and quite possibly my last time. Uh, but it looks like it's going to be a crazy shopping season as Thanksgiving fell a little late this year. So there's actually five less days of chances to, I don't know, battle it out with strangers at the store.

The holiday shopping season, which is shorter this year. And so far all signs are pointing to shoppers spending more money, even though many are still carrying debt. From last year. More now from ABC's Melissa Adan. Tonight, the holiday shopping season is heating up. And despite widespread economic anxiety, consumer spending is off to a strong start.

All right, this story's a bummer. And by the way, can you even, can you even listen to these people? Tonight, Holiday shopping is off to. It's like, what language are they even talking? Speak like a human. That's why the failed media is not doing well. All right. But either way. Yeah. I mean, look, you know, people are in debt.

Yeah. Times are tough, but you still got to buy a present for your kid. That's what you got to do. If there's anybody out there. Uh, who is a single mom, single dad, or struggling during the holiday season and wants to be part of our single parent wishlist. We have eight submissions, so we're looking for four more.

We're going to have at least a dozen or so that we're going to celebrate this Christmas season. We're going to share your wishlist. We're going to share your story and we're going to get some help for you. So don't rack up the credit card debt, uh, join our single parent Christmas wishlist. And if you would like to do that, uh, I, uh, have a submission link.

It's super easy. It takes literally. Minutes long. And it's in the description of this video. Uh, so you can, uh, or this description of this podcast, I should say, and you can go click on that and, uh, join us. All right. Well, anyway, on Thanksgiving, we talked about this pug who won the national dog show. I didn't get it.

I don't understand the rating system. You know, it's very objective kind of, or subjective, kind of like dancing with the stars. It's like, what's the rating even mean? And the today's show asking the good questions spoke to the owner of the small Doug, Doug. dog, who they call the perfect pug mug. And they asked why was Vito crowned the winner?

What has he got that the other dogs don't? What was it about Vito that really stood out? Well, they always have to be a great specimen of their breed, but he's got this whole personality to him. He owns the ground. He stands over, he's got the perfect pug mug. He's got the great attitude too. And, and a pug is supposed to be in Malta and Parvo means a lot of dog in a small space.

And he's got all those things going for him in addition to being a great showman as well. Could you tell him right away he was the leader of the pack? Oh yeah, he stood out right away, but I mean, it's seven great dogs in there at the end and, and, uh, we all had a great time watching and picking our winners and we all picked different winners.

Listen, I don't know what they're talking about. He just looks like a normal dog. Sometimes I feel like I'm being gaslighted. Oh, no, he's the best pug the way his wrinkles are. No, I don't get it. They all look the same to me. Sure. Is the pug cute? Yeah, but I wouldn't look twice at this pug if it was humping my leg on the street, you know what I mean?

All right. So Thanksgiving is all about here. Here's a new tradition, a relatively new tradition on Thanksgiving on black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. I like my, I like my tick tock feed. To be people blowing up their turkeys. That's what I like. I like I, my Tik TOK feed is all people deep frying their turkeys.

Have you seen this? Well, Robert F. Kennedy jr, uh, who ran as an independent after leaving the democratic party and is now part of, uh, you know, one of the henchmen in the upcoming president elect Trump, uh, I don't know. He's going to be head of the FDA or something. Who knows either way, he went viral for not putting shoes on while he was handling the grease from the deep fried Turkey.

Look, this is what men. We, we do things above our pay grade. We try to deep fry a Turkey because we watched one TikTok video of it. And we think we can do it all by herself. 99 percent of the time, the deep fried Turkey comes out fine. 1 percent of the time. You burn your house down. Guess which video goes viral.

The house burning down one. Now, Robert F. Kennedy ended up being perfectly fine. He didn't burn his house down, but it was viral. Cause people are going, Oh my gosh, how is he not going to, let me tell you something, if you have sandals on and you spill the grease on your toe, it's not going to make a difference.

So he's showing people he's brave enough. He's he he's not, he, he doesn't just not believe in vaccines. He also doesn't believe in socks and shoes. All right. But I'll tell you who believes in rekindling with their exes. Ben Affleck. He's the king of the. And what better time to join forces with an ex than over the Thanksgiving break.

You know, you get a little quiet during the holidays. You want to spend time with someone like, why did it ever go wrong? Well, here he is with Jennifer Gardner doling out food to homeless on Thanksgiving. The former couple and their three kids, Violet, Finn, and Samuel, showed up to L. A. 's Midnight Mission on Thursday and distributed food for the homeless.

Also, sadly, Jennifer recently lost her dog. Which, you know, of course, having lost our dog this year, uh, it is a very sad time. To lose an animal that, you know, is part of your family. And in some ways, obviously not more sad or less sad than losing a family member, just a different type of sad, right. And a pal that loves you unconditionally.

And, um, you know, of course dogs lifespan, 10, 14 years, eight years, you know, not long and, um, Jen, I guess, lost her dog, posted about that on social media. And, uh, Ben wanted to be there for her. So say the sources. And I think that's a good thing. Is that enough to rekindle things? I mean, look, at this point, it's like he tried to rekindle with his other Gen X, uh, not, not Gen X, Jennifer X, uh, that being Lopez.

And now of course he's hanging out with. The mother of his kids, Jennifer Gardner, at the very least, if they can maintain friendships, I think that's very powerful of them, you know, for, you know, for the sake of the kids, right? Well, someone who's got a boyfriend, not yet engaged is Taylor Swift. Uh, if there's ever a time to get down on a knee, it'll be this holiday season.

They've been together now for a good while. Maybe they'll give it another year. Who knows? I'm not putting pressure on them, but if Taylor and Travis do get engaged, it will make it. The news, everything Taylor does makes the news. Heck, her Black Friday sale is making the news. Massive crowds line up to buy all things Taylor Swift at Target.

You thought Target was already an insufferable place. Imagine it with a bunch of Swifties running around. Taylor Swift is on Target to clean up this Christmas because her merch is flying off the shelves. Yeah. By the time you're listening to this, you're probably not going to get any of it. But, um, she has a Black Friday eras spectacular, uh, eras tour, I guess what They're buying CDs, vinyl, whatever else the hell she has.

Who knows? Either way, they were lining up outside the target in Queens in the wee hours of Friday, uh, and in the frigid weather. I mean, who wants something bad enough to do this? No, I will not raise a child who will go out doing midnight shopping Thursday night. In fact, it appears that most places aren't even doing the midnight shopping thing anymore.

The way people shop. Is changing drastically. Gary Vaynerchuk actually explains this on CNBC. It's a, it's an interesting story, especially on black Friday, because today is the day of, you know, late stage capitalism. This is the day where people trade all of the nice things they said on Thanksgiving to stampede and literally kill people to save 10 bucks on a TV.

I mean, sadly that's the world we live in. Uh, but either way, times are a changing and I'll have that story for you next. All right. Yeah. When it comes down to Gary V a. k. a. Gary Vaynerchuk, look, this guy is on the forefront of what's happening in the world of media. He's, he really is like a Nostradamus. He knows all of the upcoming apps and where to invest your time and strategies.

Uh, a lot of people, I think, balk at him because of his style. You know, he swears a lot. He's really loud, but like the dude knows how to motivate people and tell them exactly what they need to do to get success online. And he also knows most people aren't going to take his advice because it's hard, but here he's talking about the boom of social media influencers selling products.

The reason I'm so excited to be here is every retail, every CPG. This is, this is going to be over the next decade, a consumer packaged good. So if you're Procter, if you're PepsiCo, I mean, this is going to be a major deal. Because don't forget, we have major channel conflict wars between the packaged good companies and the retailers.

And the Amazons and the Walmarts are taking media dollars now away from social. It's going to affect the overall impact to consumable products and to retail of this dynamic and social shopping. And now the social networks taking an 8 percent rake on every transaction. I heard 6 in some cases. Some, but 8 percent and then a 3 percent process fee.

But again, this is also going to hit Main Street. If you're a normal store in a small town in Jersey or California, on Wednesday at 3pm, there is nothing going on. To your point, the retail traffic is changing. The fact that you can turn your little boutique into a studio now and go live shopping.

Entrepreneurials, entrepreneurs can do this too. If you're a small business owner, you can get right out there. Ten years ago, I used to go on this program and others and talk about influencers are going to make money. And I got a little, huh. And now it's a multi billion dollar economy shopping retailers.

Does it undermine that? Yeah, this is, I would argue that live social shopping is the only potential thing that Amazon should be working, worrying about in their domination. So look, he's, he's absolutely right. Um, if you've ever watched something on Tik TOK and you see somebody using a product that's way more valuable.

Especially because it's sort of grassroots in a way, you know, you know, sometimes it's paid sponsorship, but it's way more believable than seeing an ad. Uh, I've been telling this to my wife, you know, we have, we have, we have such strong opinions about some of the toys and things we have for the baby that we love.

You know, there's certain things we love or hate depending on our own experience. Like I'm surprised how perfectly happy I am with the, you know, Heated, uh, a baby, um, uh, what's it called? The wipes warmer, not because of the wipes, not because I want the wipes to be warm, but because when you wave your hand over it, it automatically opens up.

And when you're changing a baby's diaper in the middle of the night, that 20 purchase is actually amazing. You know, like, so those little things that make life a little bit easier. The suction cups that our friend Stephanie just bought us. Thank you from Stephanie and the Patreon that hold the baby's toys to the tray so that he can play with them and not throw everything out of the ground.

These little things make such a difference. We just found, um, a, a heated, uh, it's a weighted toy. It's like a weighted, a plush teddy bear, uh, that you can throw in the microwave and there's like sandbags in it. That'll warm it up. So your baby has a little bit of something warm to hug. Are you kidding me?

Now, these things, you know, like there's obviously a lot of junk out there, but when you find a product you need on social media, it's like, where can I buy this thing? So I told Tasha, she needs to be going live once a week and sharing all of the items that she's loved as a new mom. Uh, but, uh, but anyway, that's the way the world's going to be going for me.

I don't know what items I would share. I mean, I'm a, I'm a geek with some of this, uh, technology, but I don't really feel like the itch to get into this world, but Hey, it might, this might be the new world we live in, you know? Um, so anyhow. Okay, let's go to a happy story. All this like consumerism is kind of bleak.

I personally, you know, to be quite honest, like this year, I haven't bought anything really new for the podcast as far as cameras or sound equipment. Everything just works fine. My laptop's two years old, but it's been a beast. I don't really buy much new. For those watching me on Patreon, I've been wearing the same blue jumpsuit from Costco.

It's got baby throw up all over it. I smell like I work at the dairy, uh, you know, dairy cream. Uh, but anyhow, uh, dairy cream, dairy queen, whatever the dairy queen. cream. I am the dairy cream just covered in, uh, breast milk. Uh, what a life, what a life either way. You know, everyone has a different itch and people, you know, have a different demand for different things.

But we, what we have to remember is like, you know, we're going to try to introduce this to our son for Christmas. It's like, let's not buy much. Let's not set the bar high that Santa has to buy you 50 things. You know what I mean? Like a couple great. And let's spend that time doing art and singing and having fun.

You know, I just don't want, you know, I don't want to have one of those kids that's like, Oh my gosh, Christmas, and they rip through all their toys and there's no like appreciation for it. You know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe that's just the poor kid in me that was raised lower middle income. All right.

Well, let's go to a happy story here in the Canadian wilderness. Oh, a missing hiker found after six weeks. Have a listen. appears to be an extraordinary tale of survival. 20 year old Sam Benistick went camping in the Canadian Rockies in early October. His family then reported him missing when he did not return home after what was supposed to be just a 10 day trip.

On Tuesday, authorities say two men were walking through the backcountry when they spotted Benistick more than five weeks after he had last been seen. He's recovering in a local hospital. Recent temperatures in that area had dipped to below minus four degrees. Fahrenheit. Ah, officials say they want to know exactly what happened.

We don't have any details ourselves about exactly what happened. The good news is he's expected to be okay. Alright, so yeah, no details. When the story comes out, I'll share it. What a good ending to an otherwise horrifying story. Great for the holidays to get reunited. Well, Tom Brady, he's a announcer now, uh, but he's very critical of quarterbacks as he, of course is the greatest of all time here.

He gives his thoughts on Daniel Jones requesting a release from. Yeah, I, I don't know how the whole situation went down, but to think that you would ask for a release from a team that committed a lot to you is maybe different than I would have handled that. I always felt I wanted to get the trust and respect of my teammates, regardless situation, knowing that I was trying to do the best I could for the team, because that was the most important thing.

There's just some different things that happen in the NFL and everyone makes mistakes. individual choices. And I think we're all at points in our career, face different challenges and I faced them in college and some things didn't go the way I wanted, but the people that mattered the most to me were the guys in the locker room.

I showed up every day. I don't care if they asked me to be scout team safety, be scout team quarterback. I was going to do whatever I could to help the team win. All right. Look, I love Tom Brady, but chill out, man. You're the greatest of all time. I would have done it a different way. He feels like the guy on Friday in class.

Who's like a teacher. You didn't assign the homework for the week. Well, from my favorite sport of football to my other favorite sport of dance, we've got the reaction from Jenna Johnson, Joey's dance partner, to the rough criticism they received from Carrie Ann Inaba. Here's what they had to say after winning the Mirrorball trophy.

How was it teaching her a little bit of tennis? And I, and how was it getting the judges reaction too? Because, you know, The reason why we wanted to do this freestyle, um, and do a tennis themed is because Joey is exquisite at it. And he looks so athletic and fast and sharp when he plays. So I wanted to incorporate that.

Um, and you know what? To each their own with the comments. I was grateful that Derek mentioned the creativity, um, So, so that means a lot. I'll hold on to that. Yeah, look, I thought there was creativity with their dance, but I also, when I watched that dance with Tasha, we were both like, eh. I mean, look, Stephen Nadorozik had this amazing pommel horse routine.

They incorporated the pommel horse with the gymnastics and the sheer athleticism. I don't really think Uh, tennis athleticism translates into the ballroom. Now the footwork does, but like showcasing a serve. I don't know. It just, it just didn't do it for me. When I said that I saw comments from people going, Oh, Dave, you're just parroting what Carrie Ann Anaba said.

It's like, no, chill out. I give my own opinions here. And it was just underwhelming. I mean, look, he was the best dancer that wasn't, uh, you know, Chandler Kinney. Chandler Kinney was a better dancer. She should have won for a number of reasons. She didn't. Those which we discussed, but I think she should have won.

So good on Joey for winning. Uh, he did his best, but you know, look, the judges are there not so that they can just give everyone tens. They're going to give their opinion and whether people like it or not. And plenty of people don't, I'm glad she does give her opinion. Well, we've got some bachelor engagements to get to.

Brooklyn said yes. She said yes to her partner. Brooklyn was on bachelor in paradise and I believe Zach shall cross this season. Oh, I could be wrong. I'm getting live fact checked from the Patriot. I apparently earlier I pronounced Ben Affleck's ex wife as Jennifer Gardner. It's Gardner. I'm so sorry. I got that wrong.

Okay. Let's move on. I don't take criticism well. Gardener, not Gardener. Well, anyway, this is Brooklyn. She's the one who is like the rodeo girl. I don't know, rides horses. Uh, but unlike other people that ride horses, as far as we know, Brooklyn has not faked multiple pregnancies, but here she is, her partner, a cowboy with a cowboy hat, got down on a knee, proposed.

She said, yes, the rock is huge. I mean, can you even get engaged with a, Uh, ring smaller than five carats at this point. No, you should listen. Don't, don't make it an arms race, or I should say a fingers race. Uh, get married with whatever size engagement or non engagement ring that you want, but either way, everyone's commenting charity loss and said, congrats, brookie.

So happy you found your person and endless happiness. She's going to be a wifey. So all the ladies of her season are congratulating her and good on her. She wasn't the only lady to get engaged. Jasmine from Nick's season and bachelor in paradise is engaged. engaged to her long term girlfriend. That's right.

Jasmine is engaged. I don't know if I have her girlfriend's name on this. Her girlfriend's not from bachelor, the bachelor world, but either way. So good to see that they have found love, uh, lots of love in the air on this weekend. Of course, we already reported Cassie Randolph and Brighton got engaged. So again, it's the holidays.

This is the time you want to batch up your, I mean, by the way, genius, if you can get your engagement to be in the Christmas season, because then you can sort of package together your, uh, anniversary presents along with your Christmas presents. You know, my wife, she speckled them across. Like we had a baby in may, we got engaged in whatever, you know, whatever.

When are we going to get October? We're all over the place. Every month. There's a reason to buy a gift. It's like, can we just afford to pay the utility bill place? Isn't that a gift? Can I package up a utility bill? I don't think it works that way. All right. More content coming your way. We'll wrap this thing up with a bow.

We'll be back with that right after this. And by the way, I'm not trying to say I'm financially manipulating my wife, but now that she's a stay at home mom, which is a full time job, you know, she's at home taking care of the baby breastfeeding, I'm changing diaper. I mean, it's a full time job. Absolutely.

But I'm, you know, uh, I'm, I'm paying the bills now. And, uh, with that, That like today we went black Friday shopping at Burlington coat factory, a place you just don't need to go into. And as a joke, I told my wife, I go, look at this stupid green jacket. You should wear this. Well, she tried it on, turns out she looks great in the jacket and I bought it for her.

And I was like, do I get to wrap this up as a Christmas present? Does this count as Christmas season? You know? And, um, anyway, I don't know. Maybe it does. Uh, but I do remember, I mean, I am wounded from having a single mom one year. This is the saddest story I'm going to tell you. My mom, my mom claims it was a joke, but I was only like 10 years old one year.

My mom wrapped up a small present and I opened it up and it was the bill. It was the receipt for a bill for the dentist. Yes. I know. Did that hurt you guys to hear that about old poor Dave over here? You're all like, now we understand why Dave works so hard because when he was being raised as a child, his mom tried to pass off a dentist bill.

I mean, it really is sad now, but, uh, we've come so far since then. It's like, I'm sorry, I had cavities. You fed me fish sticks and sugar, and now you got to take me to the dentist. That's on you, mom. You know what I mean? Anyhow, uh, move on to some other stories. I clearly have some. Uh, therapy I need. Okay. So we've got Lala speaking of therapy, how about Vanderpump rules?

Here's what Lala had to say about what she would have done differently in this last season. Of course, the new season of Vanderpump is going to have none of the past members. They've all essentially gotten fired and replaced. And now they're thinking, boy, what could I have done differently? Here's what she had to say.

There's one thing that I would have changed and it wasn't on camera. I wish that after the finale, after I lost my mind. That I would have called Ariana and said I want to let you know that I said some really really hurtful things It'll probably be friendship ending. It was not my style I can't even believe that I didn't do that because i'm i'm so adamant about when I say things behind your back I'm gonna say it to your face.

I still went to her show. I still supported her All the while knowing that I said what I said because I think in my mind I compartmentalized I was like But that had to do with the show I was angry at her for the show and I wasn't even angry at her. I don't regret saying what I said, I regret not giving her the heads up and saying, I said this because of X, Y, and Z.

I probably should have told you sooner on camera, but just giving you the heads up, this is going to come out. Damn. I mean, look, interesting, uh, way to think about it. If you didn't watch that season, it was wild. Essentially. Ariana got. So famous from her breakup that everyone else was like, Hey, man up and be a part of this.

You know, and it, and um, you know, when you go to these private confessionals, it's like, that's where you hear what really people really have to say. And look, Lala, say what you want about her. I mean, she, she makes for great TV. You know what I mean? She makes for great TV. And, uh, Ariana is just at the point in her life where she's like, I don't need this stupid TV.

You know, like you're hurting me. And she felt hurt. So she didn't want to work with anyone else. And she, you know, didn't want to work with her ex Tom Sandoval, all reasonable things. And because of that, they're like, how do we even make this show? We can't even get these people in the same room together.

So the show, and Hey, you know what? Maybe they come back in a couple of years and have a spinoff. I mean, there's so much drama. That when the dust settles on other things going on in their world, if they do want to come back on the show, I think people would watch it. All right. Well, speaking of crazy drama, here is a host from real America's voice, uh, explaining why they found the movie wicked to be racist and offensive to white people.

Now, hold on. As it turns out, they're completely wrong. Have a listen. The idea of seeing, uh, the interpretation of this, but I should have known it's Holly weird. I should have known they'd try to make it woke in the ways that they could think of. Um, let's just start with the fact that they have Ariana Grande, who is obviously a Hispanic woman, playing the part of a ditzy, blonde, white, really villain when it comes right down to it, for this particular movie.

The racism and the racial appropriation I just thought was offensive, frankly. Uh, all white people aren't dumb and evil. And I just get kind of sick of that storyline, and I feel like that's where it starts. Yikes. This is like when people didn't like Barbie for whatever. It's like, it was a great movie.

You know, it wasn't meant for you if you didn't like it. But here's this white, blonde, female host saying it was, uh, I guess reverse racist to white people since Ariana Grande is obviously Hispanic and of course we already covered this story, but we didn't have the audio to share now But we find out that Ariana Grande is actually Italian American So that's the dumbest take is look if you're gonna go strong on a take about racism have your fucking facts You know what I mean?

What a what an idiot and look this is the world We live in where people are almost mining for victimhood. They're looking how can I be offended look? All this goes away if you practice the four agreements and don't take offense to things, you know what I mean? Ariana Grande is Italian American, and she played a role in Wicked.

Not everything's about race. Get over it. So these fake culture wars just need to go. Alright, well, you know, I imagine most people have the day off today and aren't working like your boy Dave is. But if you're out there doing your thing, I don't care if you're in line at a Target, getting Taylor Swift's items, or stuck at a Best Buy, or hanging out at an Old Navy, wherever you are on this Black Friday, just know I'm here for ya, and uh, the thing you're about to purchase probably isn't worth it, so go ahead and put it down and walk out of there, but tell everybody Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, or whatever, whatever, Culturally relevant holiday.

You want to share with them? I don't really care and have a good weekend. And Oh, don't forget if you are stuck at work, get out of there. Middle fingers raised to the sky and tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm Dave Neal. This is the rush. The rush hour is a twice daily pop culture and entertainment news podcast hosted by standup comedian, Dave Neal lives too short for a boring ride.

So join Dave as he covers the top news stories of the day. Don't be caught clueless at the water cooler. The rush hour with Dave Neal features all the viral tick tocks and podcast clips you need to hear. Plus feel good stories and some motivational stuff too. A perfect compliment for your commute featured in time magazine, Washington post and us weekly, get your rush hour on today.