June 4, 2025 • 37 mins
In this eye-opening episode, we dive into the brand-new HBO Max original film Mountainhead — a chilling tale with a high-tech twist. Is its tech bro terror warning pure fiction, or does it reflect what we just watched with horror break out in Boulder, Colorado? Host Christian Toto breaks down the eerie parallels and what the movie gets right — and wrong — about our culture's obsession with power, innovation, and control.
Then, we’re joined by bestselling author and political commentator Kurt Schlichter, who discusses his latest genre-bending novel, "Lost Angeles: Silver Bullets on the Sunset Strip." It's classic noir meets dark fantasy, complete with demigods, mythic intrigue, and gritty detective tropes — all set against the backdrop of the City of Angels. Schlichter offers no-holds-barred commentary on Hollywood, woke culture, and what storytelling means in 2025’s polarized media landscape.
Kurt Schlichter and Irina Moises' "Lost Angeles" - https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Angeles-Silver-Bullets-Sunset-ebook/dp/B0F3V8BRMK
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
Then, we’re joined by bestselling author and political commentator Kurt Schlichter, who discusses his latest genre-bending novel, "Lost Angeles: Silver Bullets on the Sunset Strip." It's classic noir meets dark fantasy, complete with demigods, mythic intrigue, and gritty detective tropes — all set against the backdrop of the City of Angels. Schlichter offers no-holds-barred commentary on Hollywood, woke culture, and what storytelling means in 2025’s polarized media landscape.
Kurt Schlichter and Irina Moises' "Lost Angeles" - https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Angeles-Silver-Bullets-Sunset-ebook/dp/B0F3V8BRMK
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week in the Hollywood and Toto Podcast, Life Imitates
Art sort of. A new HBO Max movie named Mountainhead
does dissect some current headlines and gives us a peek
into the future, but turns out the future is already here.
And we talked to the great Kurch Schlicker about his
new book Los Angeles. It is not what you expect
(00:20):
from Kurt schlickter. I say that it's a good thing,
but I want to share the curveball he throws our
way and his interesting partner in crime this time around.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to the Hollywood and Toto Podcast. Entertainment news and
reviews without doubt, woke Hollywood narrative, free speech, free expression.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Now that's entertainment.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And here's your host, Oh Lord winning film critic Courtian Toto.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
The new movie Mountainhead is one of those rip from
the headline movie that says a lot more than you expect.
This is an HBO Max presentation created by the same
person to succession, and it's a story about four tech
bros who gather at this posh winter resort to bond
and bicker and tease each other a little bit and
discuss the work they do. Often involving social media. Well,
(01:18):
turns out one of the four key players here has
made this AI improvement to his platform and it's causing chaos.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
The President wants to speak to us, the pros, like
what could he possibly kind of.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Set that your platform has been flamed a model situation
circulating unfalsifiable deep fakes, massive fraud, market instability because when you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Flood the zone with AI, well, someone can make a
fake AI video that causes real world harm. Violence ensues,
and now we had to figure out what to do
about it. That's one of the key elements of the
story here. Wasn't fully satisfied with Mountainhead. I thought the
characters were a bit one dimensional. There's so much hate
towards this quartet. You can tell that the creator of
(02:03):
this particular film, Jesse Armstrong, lows Elon Musk and wanted
to use this as a vehicle to get that out.
That's fine, but got to tell a good story first
and foremost. But what I wanted to focus on is
the AI element. The movie's theme is that what if
an AI video came out and cause real world consequences.
We are so close to that happening, you know, when
(02:25):
it comes to electoral politics, I've often wondered, imagine if
it was two days before election day. Let's just say
it's twenty twenty four and there's a new video and
it chose Kamala Harris swatting an eight year old child.
Or there's a video of Donald Trump saying the N
word in private conversation. Now we know both would be fake,
(02:46):
but would we be able to determine that in time?
Would enough voters say, hey, wait a minute, I'm not
going to vote for a guy who's using the N word?
Or I thought Harris was nice, why would she swat
that poor little boy? That's what I worry about. I
think I'm not alone there. These are real world situations
that could be happening pretty soon. But I think the
twist to Mountainhead, which they don't realize I don't think
(03:07):
at all, is that, in a way, this is happening
right now.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Welcome to the future.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Bron Let me backtrack of Bake. This is not about
AI yet. It is about fake news.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
A day or two ago, there were a whole bunch
of reports from legacy media saying that Israel forces had
shot and killed multiple Palestinians for the crime of gathering
to collect food and supplies. Obviously, people of Gaza are struggling,
some are starving. There's an issue there. We'll go into
that in detail.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
We know the context.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But how ghastly for Israeli forces to do that. What
could they be thinking? It's unconscionable, It's unacceptable and it
didn't happen. Fake news, But we didn't learn that right away.
The mainstream media just picked up that hamas narrative straight
from the source the terrorists. Wasn't true. And then after
(03:58):
this had circulated on social media a lot of people
had heard about it from seemingly legitimate sources. A man
in Boulder attacked some people gathering to help release the
Israeli hostages in Gaza. This alleged terrorist threw flammable liquid
on them, burned some of them, sent several people to
(04:19):
the hospital, and screamed free Palestine. Now did that person
see those headlines about Israel allegedly shooting the Palestinians and
act or were they reacting to other fake news headlines
we've seen week after week after week attacking Israel. Or
(04:41):
was he crazy or was it all the above?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Journalism is dead.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
We just don't know. But the more fake stories being
pushed out by the media that cast a group in
a very, very very negative light, the more chances there
are that incidents like what happened in Bolder, Colorado will
keep on happening. And that's what really chilled me about
Mountainhead after I saw the movie. Yes, that AI threat
is real, Yes it could be happening sooner than to think. Yes,
(05:08):
as a society, we've got to deal with that. And yes,
good for this movie, albeit flawed for pointing that out.
That is what satire does. It examines things, It gives
us a fresh perspective, and it also offers a cautionary
tale a time or two. It's exactly the case the Mountainhead.
I really can't recommend it as a movie movie, but
you should know about it for sure, at the very least.
(05:30):
So what happened here we don't know. But with the
rise of fake news, and it's getting worse and worse,
and again not from some crazy website, not from Alex
Jones's Info Wars Empire. We're talking about CNN and the
Washington Post. The reality we're facing now is scary and chilling,
and somebody should make a movie about it, but just
(05:52):
don't hold your breath because Hollywood will never ever hold
fake news accountable. That's a story to be told by
someone else. How does Kirt Schlichter do it? Guys are
(06:13):
practicing attorney. He's a columnist at town Hall dot com
and he's always working on new novels. If you've read
any of the Kelly Turnbull series, you know how good
they are, how action packed they are, and how impression
they could be about the world around us.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
We just talked a.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Little bit about Mountainhead and how that movie kind of
predicted the future or tease the future. That's a little
bit chilling. Well, Kurch Schlichter books do just that, except
as newest doesn't. The new book is called Lost Angeles
Silver Bullets on the Sunset Strip, and it's a noir
like story. It's said in the nineteen forties in Los Angeles,
(06:49):
and it involves detectives and gum shoes and violins and
demi gods.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
The twist here is that there's a real big fantasy
element that's been woven into this particular genre and woven
quite seamlessly. Now, I will say, as as hard working
as Kurt is, he had a little help this time around.
His wife Rienam Moyses, helped co write the books, a
bit of a change of pays from the usual kirtch
Schlichter novel So wanted to talk to him about the
(07:17):
new book, about the partnership, about why he wrote it
and how what really inspired it, and also just get
his thoughts on pop culture in general.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
There's so much.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Change going on in Hollywood and especially the right of
center pop culture space, which is finally a thing and
maturing in rather interesting ways. So who better than Kurt
Schlichter to kind of weigh in on that and give
us some perspective on what's going right, maybe what's going
wrong as well. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation
with Kurt Schlichter. Again, always a treat to speak to him.
(07:46):
He's always hard at work at a new novel, even
teases another book coming away sooner than later. But for now,
let's talk about Los Angeles, about pop culture, and about
what makes Kurt Schlichter tick, because I'm dying to know. Well, Kurt,
it's not an insult to say this is the last
book in the world I expected from you, but it is.
(08:06):
I just didn't see you taking this particular fictional detour.
It's wonderful and there's tons of world building and we're
going to get into a lot of this. But from
your perspective, you know you've done so much work with
the Kelly Turnbull series, You've done more serious writing. This
is just like out of the blue. I imagine it
was maybe a palid cleanser. But you tell me, why
(08:27):
did you go in this particular direction with Los Angeles?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Look, Arena and I decided we wanted to do something
that was fun because, and I think you'll agree with me,
fun is underrated, especially among conservatives. Now you knew Brian,
you knew Andrew bright part too. Look herew was a
fun guy if it was always an adventure when you
were with Andrew, he did great things. He was a visionary,
(08:52):
he was an organizer and agitator, but he was fun and
he liked to have fun. And I want to be
part of a movement. It's fun and Los Angeles so
Overboots Over Sunset Strip is a fun book. Now, I
always try to make my book stuck the people's from
public books have a lot of humor in them, a
(09:14):
lot of serious stuff, even The Attack has some humor
in it. I don't think you can necessarily that you
need to necessarily make everything grim. Okay, it's not an
art film, all right. I want to make to extend,
I want to make points. I've got to make it
so people want to read the book. If you read
(09:36):
Los Angeles, you're gonna have fun. You're going to enjoy it.
That's the word that keeps coming back to us from
people who've read it.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Was fun and like.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
You, They're like, I didn't expect a forties noir with
fantasy stuff, and it's still got guns and there's a
lot of little conservative Easter eggs in it. I have
a rule about writing, and I think you'll appreciate ate this.
My rule is all good parts. Okay. If I was
an album, I'd probably be like London Calling, right, I mean, look,
(10:10):
there's some bad songs on London Calling that I don't
personally like, but there are a lot of people who
like them. Okay, it's not like there's any filler. Yeah,
everything everything on there is a song that could stand
on its own and somebody could like it, all right,
and some of it's great. London Calling is great train
of vein is great, But that's why I try and
(10:33):
do with the books. I'm not going to stop and
have you know, the hero talk about how his daddy
didn't love him enough. You know, I get so sick
of watching streaming shows where they cram five hours a
show into eight episodes and they have to have like
filler so they got like twenty minutes with you know,
(10:56):
twenty percent of it's the teenage daughter who drives the
plot by not listening to anybody. Have you noticed that,
thank you check your phone moments in the show exactly.
I don't want everything has to hit. And this I
think part of this as being a trial lawyer, where
everything has you have page limits, right, every every sentence
(11:18):
should make a point, and when you're talking to a
jury the same way. But also when I was a
stand up comic, right, you want everything to hit. Everything
is here set up, punch or attack. There's nothing extrainings.
There are no worse the perfect comic maybe Roger Rodney
(11:39):
Dangerfield because everything is you know. Uh. I went to
my doctor. I asked for a second opinion. He said,
you're also fat, you know. I mean, it's all it's
so lean and perfect. Hit by the time you're done.
You've just all you've done is laugh. You haven't gone.
He's seriously and and Arena, of course was with me
(12:05):
by my side while I was doing stand up, so
she's very much along that too, and you know she's
very much Now this doesn't work. This is this doesn't
do anything for the plot. Everything of the plot should
lead to something else. It should nothing should just happen,
and it should all be fun. You should be able
(12:26):
to pick up the book at any place and start
reading and something interesting is in the process of happening.
You're the learning something, or you're having a laugh, or
there's an action sequence. Everything all good parts. And that's
what we brought to Los Angeles because I mean, Arena
(12:46):
and I both have a very similar, very similar taste.
She knows more about fantasy stuff than me, so she
kind of helped with it because there's like Greek gods
running around and that's fun in its own way. And also,
you know, what a chance to start talking in the
forties lingo, Yeah, Mac, where's the Dane?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
You know, it's just fun, it's irresistible. Now, I imagine that
Arena was kind of your your best partner, your best
editor when it came to the writing the books. Now
you're working together, Yes, what made you jump into that
sort of collaboration because listen, you're married, you're hapily married,
but sometimes you know that when you work together, sometimes
maybe that's not always the best idea. But it obviously
it worked out well.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
We had fun doing it. It took it to a
new level because she's always reading the stuff, it's always
critiquing it. Here she was, you know, actively participating. You know,
we're actively kicking ideas around with each other, and we're
trying to figure out how do we make this plot work?
(13:49):
How does everything stream together? Are there any plot holes?
I did a lot of the typing as I type
very fast, but you know she's there working on it,
giving it. And also there's a major female character in
the other detective. Yeah, and I don't know if I
(14:12):
know how to write females. So I mean, so I
couldn't have done I wouldn't have done this, and I
couldn't have done this all alone. This was something we
did together. I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I think one of the challenges of a project like this,
where you're taking a genre and giving it the old
twist yep. Is that you've got a world. I mean
it's sort of the new phrase world building. So if
you're having it could be a superhero movie or a
fantasy or a Jurassic World, whatever, this is world building.
I think you did quite well because I get lost
pretty easily and I felt like I was in pretty
(14:45):
early on in the novel. Did you find that challenging
to kind of get people up the speed?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I love that part of it. I love creating it,
and I did with the Kelly Turnbul series. The whole
purpose of the attack, which is which I did in
an oral history thing. You may have read uh World
War Zu Stutch Turkle used to write like it back
in the eighties. The World War three books, uh were
(15:13):
actually done in that And and you do that so
you don't have to have a character who's forrest gumping everywhere.
So I could go to the White House and I
write about a character is at the White House and
he tells his story what happened during this attack. Then
like a mom in Chicago, a guy at the border, uh,
you know, a terrorist and it. But but it's really
(15:36):
allowing me to build the world that is the attack.
So by the time you're done with the book. You
have a you have a very complete picture of the
threat that I'm talking about and how people might react
to it and how things might go. So the real
you're dead on with a world building will I love
to create a world and Arena loves that part too,
(15:58):
where we're just you know, what are the rules here?
How does this work? How do you have Greek gods
that just don't magically become kings of everything? Yeah? Why
why is that? And is it something that's you know,
crazy or uh, you know, is it? Is it something
convincing and honest to the story.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And also he's a consistent too, because if you build
that world and all of a sudden you're changing the
rules for plot purposes, yes, and you've lost the audience.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah. No, we we built the rules and then we
built the plot around it, and uh, you know, we're
gonna probably do a sequel down the road. People have
been asking for one already, which is fun. By the way,
they say people don't read anymore, People read ferociously. I mean,
we're just getting oh yeah, I read it. You know,
(16:47):
this was that was my you know, one of this
week's books. People, we're just swallowing up books now one
of the when we get back to Andrew Breitbart here,
Andrew Bikebart said, we have to take control of culture.
Thanks to Amazon, I don't have to go through a
publisher for these now. I've done that at least four
times with other books, with nonfiction books, right, And you
(17:09):
go through it and you submit it, and they tell
you what they like and don't like. It's eight or
nine months before you see a book come out, and
then they don't really help you sell it. I mean
I was getting people, you know, helping with publicity who
had fewer contacts on their phone than I had on
(17:29):
And you know, with these, I have, you know, professional
quality books that I can get out fast. I'm going
to have another book, an oral history of our Second
Civil War. It's going to be out in July because
I'm just going to get it done. I'm going to
get my art done, I'm going to get it revised
(17:51):
and edited, and then I'm just going to release. I'm
gonna you know, I don't have to go through a
giant process and no one cares. That's the thing. If
it says Simon and she, you know, you know where
Simon and Schuster on a book or Amazon Kindle. No
one cares. It's all content is king. Distribution became the
(18:15):
big distribution was always the gatekeeper. And Andrew was such
an advocate of ganging rid of the gatekeepers. Amazon simply said,
we're getting rid of the gatekeepers. Here's a process where
it's very simple technically.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And also you know a lot of the work that
you do is satirical, yes, and can be time sensitive.
So if you've got that eight month gap, yes, some
of the points you're making in some of the connections
you're drawing may get lost. I want to talk a
little bit about the book because you know, with your
Turnbull books and other projects, it's often uncomfortable how you
talk about something today and then we're reading about it
(18:51):
in a month or less. I'm like, oh, please, Kurt,
can give us a little guardrail here and this one
on paper. It can't allow that because said in the forties.
But you've kind of flipped the script here with Trixie,
the one of the main characters where she has a
unique ability. Can you can you tease that a little bit?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
I love that part of the book, The thing about
Tricksy Gamble, who's kind of the you know this, Uh,
very elegant, very smart female detection. Smarter than the hero,
the main hero, Eddie Loud, who likes to solve things
with his fists. She's very smart. But she is a
descendant of Cassandra, who was, of course the trojan woman
(19:31):
who Apollo cursed to be able to predict the future
kind of and for no one to believe her. And
she regularly predicts all sorts of insane things that are
going to happen in Los Angeles. You know, someday, you know,
they you know, come across, you know, Oscar winners. Right
(19:52):
of course, there's movie stars all over the place, and
you know, and she'll like kind of like, wow, you know,
someday there some day they're gonna have a man be
a nominated as Best Actress. Of course that he's like,
you're crazy. Have you been hitting the sauce? You know? Uh,
So there's a lot of fun in that. I think
people appreciate that one guy, So why are you doing
a little too much? All right, You're never gonna please everybody,
(20:14):
but I think, uh, you know, when you have a
book that I writer that you know that Arena has
a part of You're always going to have the conservative easterings. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You know you've been mentioning Andrew Breitbart a lot, and
I I still can't believe he's gone. But I also
think he was right about so much and so much.
He touched so many people's lives. I mean I always
bump into people and said, you know, Andrew called me up,
or he texted me, or he encouraged me. What do
you think he'd make of the moment rin right now?
I feel like so much has changed, has been a
lot of progress.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
He'd be so proud of us. Uh. You look at
the Uh you're also out of the bright Bart world.
That's where I started as a writer after Andrew basically
you know, strong armed me in a joining big Hollywood.
But look at us all. We've all built our own
kind of unique career. You've You've managed to build this
(21:09):
career as kind of the go to conservative media voice.
I know. Uh, you know when when a show needs
somebody to talk about Hollywood, they call you. Yeah. Uh,
I've got my books, I guest host radio shows. Of course,
I'm a senior columnist at town Hall. Uh. Ben Shapiro
is of course Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And a rapper too now with Tom McDonald. By the way,
I'm sorry, Ben Shapiro did a rap song with Tom McDonald.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Uh you know, I I was his lawyer for a while.
I was like the only lawyer a lot of these
bright bart people knews. So I was a lawyer for everybody.
I would have advised maybe, but uh, you know Dana Lash,
hugely successful, Derek Hunter, yeah, Uh, Larry O'Connor, of course,
(21:58):
uh you know, and we've all built out our own
things in our own ways.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And I mean it's just you know, and and that's
just us. There's Andrew would go on any show anytime,
you know, Larry and I joke that, uh you know, hey, Kurt,
you got at four in the morning to do the
uh you know, the uh Fargo North Dakota Morning Zoo
with Gibo and the Boner. And it's like true, if
(22:27):
somebody calls me and says, you know, hey, I'm into
like a five thousand wade station and uh you know,
rural Minnesota, you know, could just spare a few minutes, of.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Course, yeah, because you.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Know, if if you're gonna get a few more listeners
because I show up. Wait, that's what we do. We
help each other and now.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
But given all that and given the progress and kind
of sort of given his his graduates, for lack of
a better phrase, what's next? Because it's still a David
versus Goliath when you think about how would in the
media and the platforms and Netflix, and we're still outgunned
in a monumental fashion despite the progress we're making. What
do you think needs to happen next?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I think we will continue to be outgunned for a while,
but the sheer volume of content that we're generating is
gonna make it impossible for us not to have a
cultural impact. The next big the next big distribution hurdle
is of course movies and series. Yeah, because right now,
(23:32):
if you want a series, you gotta get on Amazon, Netflix, whatever,
and those guys. For instance, a Kelly Turnbull Stuck is
made for the movies, and it's literally made of the movie.
I grew up watching the great movies the sixties and seventies.
I have a very visual writing style. I literally transcribe
a movie i'm watching. That's my writing system. I watched
(23:54):
the movie in my head of what's happening, and I
transcribe it. I've i some people I write the book
in my head. I make the movie in my head,
then I write the book in my head. Then I
write the book on paper. So this stuff would work
for a film. It's going to take somebody going, you know,
I'm going to defy the people around me and I'm
(24:18):
going to go make this and it's gonna happen someday.
It has to. There's just enough of it out there
where it just builds up. Of course, Los Angeles would
be great too, is a movie or a series. But
one thing that one thing, one mistake we made is
conservatives look at entertainment. And I don't know if we
(24:39):
may have talked about this before, because I've had this
theory for a while. We were economic determinists, right, We
were very standard conservatives early on and we've kind of changed.
But we thought, you know, as since Hollywood figures out
it's leaving money on the table, they're gonna rush to
make movies out of our stuff. No, because they're not
(25:02):
purely driven by economics. That's a factor it always will be,
but they're also determined. It's also cultural, you know, they
don't they won't if my kid in the private school,
if I'm doing people's Republic. I mean, look what Bill
Crystal said. Bill Crystal called him a racist and said
(25:23):
it was appalling. You know, I kid won't get into
Crossroads or Harvard Westlake. So we've got so Hollywood is
not purely driven by economics. If it was, I think
we'd have a better chance. So as barriers come down
to production, as smaller production companies are able to use
CGI and other technology to ramp up production, and the
(25:47):
CGI stuff, even in direct to videos stuff is getting
kind of amazing, and it's getting reasonably priced. Eventually, somebody's
gonna be able to somebody's gonna be able to little
the cultural headwinds uh and be able to to do
some of this conservative stuff what Daily Wire's already trying.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, you know this would piss off Justin Bateman, who's
very anti AI. But do you think that AI could
be the secret sauce here where Kelly der Pirnbull's story.
Wouldn't you gotta have some money there because you've got to.
It's big, it's bold as action packed. You can't do
it on the cheap. But if you use AI to
kind of cut some corners and make those differences, could
(26:29):
that be the the the pathway forward.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
I think that's going to be part of it. Uh,
you know, you can't just keep you can't use And
I greatly respect Justine Bateman. I know people who know
she's a great person.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, I'm teasing her a little.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Bit, but but no, no, but the thing is, you
can't use uh artistic credentials to keep the gate shut.
You're not gonna say, well, we're we're not gonna allow
you to. You know, you might be able to make
this a thing, but you'd violate these arbitrary artistic rules,
(27:13):
so you can't do it. Oh oh okay, then we
just won't be hurt. It's not gonna it can't work. Eventually,
someone's gonna go. No, I want to try, you know.
I mean, obviously I would prefer somebody walk in with
seventy million dollars and say let's make people's republic with
you know, with some you know you know, well, I
(27:35):
think Tom Cruise is a little small, but that again,
he played Jack reach or twice. But you know, I
don't think you can forever sideline people simply by creating
arbitrary artistic guard rails. They can't be crossed. Yeah, and
(27:56):
you just happen to be the only guy who can
function in a world where those guardoils are respected. Okay,
we see a lot of that in our institutions, right,
A lot of the institutions are I'm going to set
the rules, which happened to give me a monopoly. And
one of the one of the great things about the
new cultural movement, the new conservative movement, you know, Rush
(28:19):
and Andrew and of course dol Trump says, we don't
play by your rules. Yeah, so I think the short
answer is yes, I think it's possible. Uh, but you know,
we don't want to make for for a long time,
a lot of our movies were not great. There are
(28:41):
We made a lot of bad movies. They looked bad,
they were badly produced, they were badly written. The comedies
weren't funny. But yeah, keep in mind that's also true
for Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, it's baby's But you know, Hollywood
makes well now, it makes maybe fifty movies a year,
one hundred movies. We make three. So if you got two,
(29:02):
they are bad. Two thirds of your movies are bad.
If Hollywood makes you know, twenty bad, Okay, that's a
fifth of them are bad. Yeah, I don't like those odds.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, well, before I let you go, Kurt, you've done
a lot in this space. I mean, obviously you do
political commentary, radio work. You kind of wear many many hats, lawyer,
you know, you name it. Are Is there something in
the pop culture space you still want to do? You
mentioned stand up comedy before. Is as something you could
return to? Do you think I could do more of
a video series. But I'm kind of curious. You've cracked
(29:34):
the code. Your books do very well, You're prolific. I'm
just gonna curious that there's a part of the pop
culture landscape you still have your eye on.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Look. I mean, I obviously would like to get these
things adapted from movies. I plan to write more books,
at least two a year. Yeah, Podcasting is always a potential.
I mean that's almost becoming a cliche, you know, for
you know, if you're you know, if you're in a
Hollywood bar, you know everybody, Oh, I'm also a DJ
(30:05):
and I'm a conservatives, I'd also a podcaster.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But opportunities are going to arise that I haven't thought
of yet. That's one of the beautiful things that is
going on. Who anticipated Twitter? Where I get to go
on and be essentially I do stand up anytime I want. Yeah,
but also political commentary, longer form stuff if I want.
(30:31):
I don't know what's coming down the pike, Christian, I
don't know, but I'm excited about it because everything's an
opportunity and we're the ones who are agile. Have you
noticed that all the new media is where we have succeeded.
The left is stuck in the dying networks, right, It's
(30:54):
stuck dying newspapers, It's stuck in you know, Hollywood, which
is changed dramatically. Obviously, they own the old stuff. We
own all the new stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So and they're starting to figure out who their Joe
Rogan was when they actually had the Joe Rogan and
they kicked him out, So.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, he was Joe Rogan. I mean, look, the guy
is a pot smoking libertarianist kind of actor, comedian guy
who probably never voted, and now he's you know, turning
young men onto Trump, which is great. He's in the
right place. But you know, they we see this all
(31:41):
the time. With the institutions. There's been a lot of
marshal institutions. They boomers have taken the institutions and they
don't want to leave, you know, whatever happened to the
good old fashioned Irish goodbye? These guys are like the
ones who it's like one o'clock, the party's long over,
and they're like, so you got any any other vodkas
or wine or anything, you know, and it's like, would
(32:02):
you go home? Nancy Pelosi? Yeah, I mean they're all old,
they're all tired. Their energy is aoc I don't you know.
I'm no fan of hers, but she's energetic. She was
cute until she started packing on the pounds. Uh. But uh,
you know, I mean, look, obviously there's a demographic, but
(32:23):
like larger women, I don't know, but I don't know,
don't care, not me. There's a new demographic for her
then exactly she can be on a ticket with Sir
mixed a lot.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
But.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
That used to be a hip reference. I just.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Thought it might be time for rebranding.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
But I'm but uh, I think it's uh. I I
think the energy is with us right now. Uh. And
the beauty of it is the ethic among kind of
the guys like us are kind of the the first
class who came through after Andrew. Right, we're the guy
(33:03):
We're the farthest out there. But there's a lot of
folks coming up, and the ethic for us is not
to drive them out. Yeah, yeah, right, we don't. I
mean I don't, and I think most of us scale this.
I feel zero challenge from some twenty five year old
who starts a call umn, gets a cool new webs
(33:25):
a cool new Twitter account where he's doing lots of
cool stuff, has a podcast.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
It.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I don't feel threatened by it. I think it's kind
of cool. Join the party, yeah, I mean, look, I'd
rather be a big party, right, big parties are you know?
I prefer a big party. So I think, uh, I'm
excited about the future. I think it's a I've always
been opted, look like Androma Californian. I'm always gonna be optimist,
(33:51):
you know that, otherwise I'd hang myself in right. Well, yeah, no,
I look, I think good things are gonna come. And
I think if you check back in in five years,
we're probably you know, I would not be surprised if
one of my books is in production somewhere.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, and if that happens, moretal beyond the way. But Kurt,
thank you so much for joining the show. Of course,
the book is Lost Angeles Silver Bullets on the Sunset Trip.
You can get at Amazon. Can you get at other
places as well?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Amazon? Okay, and you get hardcover and audio book. That's
another thing, man. Now you can do essentially AI audio books.
With a little adjustment. You can get a very clear,
well spoken audio book for people who prefer that. And
that's great.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, and Kurt's a real pioneer in this space self publishing,
speaking right to your audience, getting a following and then
treat them right what you do again and again, and
of course this time with Arena that that's a great chance.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's so much fun having her a part of this.
I mean, we do everything because I stopped doing laws,
so I'm hanging around the house all the time, so
I guess we had to do something right there. You go,
very constructive.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Thanks so much. I love your vision for the future.
I love your energy, and I love the fact that
part of that Breitbart graduate class, part of the people
who are changing things and not just sitting there and complaining.
You're actually making pop culture and doing it quite well.
So thanks again, and we'll look forward to your next
book pretty darn soon to read this one.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
First, well, you'll see it in July. Thanks a lot,
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Your character actor of the week is Paul Winfield.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Well that's for the show this week.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Again, thank you to Radio America for having me as
part of their great podcast lineup. And if you enjoy
this show, in addition to giving it a like a subscribe,
as share doing all those digital things, do check out
Hollywoodintoto dot com. It is my website, my home base.
It is eleven years old now still going strong, and
of course it's got news reviews, commentary for me right
(35:47):
of center perspective, much like this show. Never want to
scare away our central left friends. They are welcome to
visit check out what's going on. There's a lot of
a political content there. Film reviews. I publish a lot
of work from the great Barry Worst. He's a wonderful
film critic, a political to the core, but gosh, his
perceptions on art and culture and film, especially looking back
(36:08):
at film from twenty thirty forty years ago. It's one
of a kind. So even if you hate my reviews,
go check out Barry Worse. And a quick final note,
this show is coming to you late again. I am
struggling again. I've got a lot of stuff on my plate.
There's something personal that I'm dealing with which is pretty profound.
Doesn't have anything to do with health, thank goodness, but
(36:29):
it's got me bogged down and I can't.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Go into it.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
But I am horribly sorry about the delays. I really
have a focus on this video podcast, on creating more
content for YouTube and of course iTunes and elsewhere. If
you're listening to us there, I'm sorry. I'm trying. It
will get better. Just give me, Just give me a
I need to take a knee now and then, but
I will push forward. It'll get more, it'll get better
(36:52):
as time goes on. Just want it to be transparent
and clear and apologetic as well. So that's it for
this week's show. I hope everyone out there has a
wonderful week. Doctor's Orders, M
This week in the Hollywood and Toto Podcast, Life Imitates
Art sort of. A new HBO Max movie named Mountainhead
does dissect some current headlines and gives us a peek
into the future, but turns out the future is already here.
And we talked to the great Kurch Schlicker about his
new book Los Angeles. It is not what you expect
(00:20):
from Kurt schlickter. I say that it's a good thing,
but I want to share the curveball he throws our
way and his interesting partner in crime this time around.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to the Hollywood and Toto Podcast. Entertainment news and
reviews without doubt, woke Hollywood narrative, free speech, free expression.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Now that's entertainment.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And here's your host, Oh Lord winning film critic Courtian Toto.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
The new movie Mountainhead is one of those rip from
the headline movie that says a lot more than you expect.
This is an HBO Max presentation created by the same
person to succession, and it's a story about four tech
bros who gather at this posh winter resort to bond
and bicker and tease each other a little bit and
discuss the work they do. Often involving social media. Well,
(01:18):
turns out one of the four key players here has
made this AI improvement to his platform and it's causing chaos.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
The President wants to speak to us, the pros, like
what could he possibly kind of.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Set that your platform has been flamed a model situation
circulating unfalsifiable deep fakes, massive fraud, market instability because when you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Flood the zone with AI, well, someone can make a
fake AI video that causes real world harm. Violence ensues,
and now we had to figure out what to do
about it. That's one of the key elements of the
story here. Wasn't fully satisfied with Mountainhead. I thought the
characters were a bit one dimensional. There's so much hate
towards this quartet. You can tell that the creator of
(02:03):
this particular film, Jesse Armstrong, lows Elon Musk and wanted
to use this as a vehicle to get that out.
That's fine, but got to tell a good story first
and foremost. But what I wanted to focus on is
the AI element. The movie's theme is that what if
an AI video came out and cause real world consequences.
We are so close to that happening, you know, when
(02:25):
it comes to electoral politics, I've often wondered, imagine if
it was two days before election day. Let's just say
it's twenty twenty four and there's a new video and
it chose Kamala Harris swatting an eight year old child.
Or there's a video of Donald Trump saying the N
word in private conversation. Now we know both would be fake,
(02:46):
but would we be able to determine that in time?
Would enough voters say, hey, wait a minute, I'm not
going to vote for a guy who's using the N word?
Or I thought Harris was nice, why would she swat
that poor little boy? That's what I worry about. I
think I'm not alone there. These are real world situations
that could be happening pretty soon. But I think the
twist to Mountainhead, which they don't realize I don't think
(03:07):
at all, is that, in a way, this is happening
right now.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Welcome to the future.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Bron Let me backtrack of Bake. This is not about
AI yet. It is about fake news.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
A day or two ago, there were a whole bunch
of reports from legacy media saying that Israel forces had
shot and killed multiple Palestinians for the crime of gathering
to collect food and supplies. Obviously, people of Gaza are struggling,
some are starving. There's an issue there. We'll go into
that in detail.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
We know the context.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But how ghastly for Israeli forces to do that. What
could they be thinking? It's unconscionable, It's unacceptable and it
didn't happen. Fake news, But we didn't learn that right away.
The mainstream media just picked up that hamas narrative straight
from the source the terrorists. Wasn't true. And then after
(03:58):
this had circulated on social media a lot of people
had heard about it from seemingly legitimate sources. A man
in Boulder attacked some people gathering to help release the
Israeli hostages in Gaza. This alleged terrorist threw flammable liquid
on them, burned some of them, sent several people to
(04:19):
the hospital, and screamed free Palestine. Now did that person
see those headlines about Israel allegedly shooting the Palestinians and
act or were they reacting to other fake news headlines
we've seen week after week after week attacking Israel. Or
(04:41):
was he crazy or was it all the above?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Journalism is dead.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
We just don't know. But the more fake stories being
pushed out by the media that cast a group in
a very, very very negative light, the more chances there
are that incidents like what happened in Bolder, Colorado will
keep on happening. And that's what really chilled me about
Mountainhead after I saw the movie. Yes, that AI threat
is real, Yes it could be happening sooner than to think. Yes,
(05:08):
as a society, we've got to deal with that. And yes,
good for this movie, albeit flawed for pointing that out.
That is what satire does. It examines things, It gives
us a fresh perspective, and it also offers a cautionary
tale a time or two. It's exactly the case the Mountainhead.
I really can't recommend it as a movie movie, but
you should know about it for sure, at the very least.
(05:30):
So what happened here we don't know. But with the
rise of fake news, and it's getting worse and worse,
and again not from some crazy website, not from Alex
Jones's Info Wars Empire. We're talking about CNN and the
Washington Post. The reality we're facing now is scary and chilling,
and somebody should make a movie about it, but just
(05:52):
don't hold your breath because Hollywood will never ever hold
fake news accountable. That's a story to be told by
someone else. How does Kirt Schlichter do it? Guys are
(06:13):
practicing attorney. He's a columnist at town Hall dot com
and he's always working on new novels. If you've read
any of the Kelly Turnbull series, you know how good
they are, how action packed they are, and how impression
they could be about the world around us.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
We just talked a.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Little bit about Mountainhead and how that movie kind of
predicted the future or tease the future. That's a little
bit chilling. Well, Kurch Schlichter books do just that, except
as newest doesn't. The new book is called Lost Angeles
Silver Bullets on the Sunset Strip, and it's a noir
like story. It's said in the nineteen forties in Los Angeles,
(06:49):
and it involves detectives and gum shoes and violins and
demi gods.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
The twist here is that there's a real big fantasy
element that's been woven into this particular genre and woven
quite seamlessly. Now, I will say, as as hard working
as Kurt is, he had a little help this time around.
His wife Rienam Moyses, helped co write the books, a
bit of a change of pays from the usual kirtch
Schlichter novel So wanted to talk to him about the
(07:17):
new book, about the partnership, about why he wrote it
and how what really inspired it, and also just get
his thoughts on pop culture in general.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
There's so much.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Change going on in Hollywood and especially the right of
center pop culture space, which is finally a thing and
maturing in rather interesting ways. So who better than Kurt
Schlichter to kind of weigh in on that and give
us some perspective on what's going right, maybe what's going
wrong as well. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation
with Kurt Schlichter. Again, always a treat to speak to him.
(07:46):
He's always hard at work at a new novel, even
teases another book coming away sooner than later. But for now,
let's talk about Los Angeles, about pop culture, and about
what makes Kurt Schlichter tick, because I'm dying to know. Well, Kurt,
it's not an insult to say this is the last
book in the world I expected from you, but it is.
(08:06):
I just didn't see you taking this particular fictional detour.
It's wonderful and there's tons of world building and we're
going to get into a lot of this. But from
your perspective, you know you've done so much work with
the Kelly Turnbull series, You've done more serious writing. This
is just like out of the blue. I imagine it
was maybe a palid cleanser. But you tell me, why
(08:27):
did you go in this particular direction with Los Angeles?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Look, Arena and I decided we wanted to do something
that was fun because, and I think you'll agree with me,
fun is underrated, especially among conservatives. Now you knew Brian,
you knew Andrew bright part too. Look herew was a
fun guy if it was always an adventure when you
were with Andrew, he did great things. He was a visionary,
(08:52):
he was an organizer and agitator, but he was fun and
he liked to have fun. And I want to be
part of a movement. It's fun and Los Angeles so
Overboots Over Sunset Strip is a fun book. Now, I
always try to make my book stuck the people's from
public books have a lot of humor in them, a
(09:14):
lot of serious stuff, even The Attack has some humor
in it. I don't think you can necessarily that you
need to necessarily make everything grim. Okay, it's not an
art film, all right. I want to make to extend,
I want to make points. I've got to make it
so people want to read the book. If you read
(09:36):
Los Angeles, you're gonna have fun. You're going to enjoy it.
That's the word that keeps coming back to us from
people who've read it.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Was fun and like.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
You, They're like, I didn't expect a forties noir with
fantasy stuff, and it's still got guns and there's a
lot of little conservative Easter eggs in it. I have
a rule about writing, and I think you'll appreciate ate this.
My rule is all good parts. Okay. If I was
an album, I'd probably be like London Calling, right, I mean, look,
(10:10):
there's some bad songs on London Calling that I don't
personally like, but there are a lot of people who
like them. Okay, it's not like there's any filler. Yeah,
everything everything on there is a song that could stand
on its own and somebody could like it, all right,
and some of it's great. London Calling is great train
of vein is great, But that's why I try and
(10:33):
do with the books. I'm not going to stop and
have you know, the hero talk about how his daddy
didn't love him enough. You know, I get so sick
of watching streaming shows where they cram five hours a
show into eight episodes and they have to have like
filler so they got like twenty minutes with you know,
(10:56):
twenty percent of it's the teenage daughter who drives the
plot by not listening to anybody. Have you noticed that,
thank you check your phone moments in the show exactly.
I don't want everything has to hit. And this I
think part of this as being a trial lawyer, where
everything has you have page limits, right, every every sentence
(11:18):
should make a point, and when you're talking to a
jury the same way. But also when I was a
stand up comic, right, you want everything to hit. Everything
is here set up, punch or attack. There's nothing extrainings.
There are no worse the perfect comic maybe Roger Rodney
(11:39):
Dangerfield because everything is you know. Uh. I went to
my doctor. I asked for a second opinion. He said,
you're also fat, you know. I mean, it's all it's
so lean and perfect. Hit by the time you're done.
You've just all you've done is laugh. You haven't gone.
He's seriously and and Arena, of course was with me
(12:05):
by my side while I was doing stand up, so
she's very much along that too, and you know she's
very much Now this doesn't work. This is this doesn't
do anything for the plot. Everything of the plot should
lead to something else. It should nothing should just happen,
and it should all be fun. You should be able
(12:26):
to pick up the book at any place and start
reading and something interesting is in the process of happening.
You're the learning something, or you're having a laugh, or
there's an action sequence. Everything all good parts. And that's
what we brought to Los Angeles because I mean, Arena
(12:46):
and I both have a very similar, very similar taste.
She knows more about fantasy stuff than me, so she
kind of helped with it because there's like Greek gods
running around and that's fun in its own way. And also,
you know, what a chance to start talking in the
forties lingo, Yeah, Mac, where's the Dane?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
You know, it's just fun, it's irresistible. Now, I imagine that
Arena was kind of your your best partner, your best
editor when it came to the writing the books. Now
you're working together, Yes, what made you jump into that
sort of collaboration because listen, you're married, you're hapily married,
but sometimes you know that when you work together, sometimes
maybe that's not always the best idea. But it obviously
it worked out well.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
We had fun doing it. It took it to a
new level because she's always reading the stuff, it's always
critiquing it. Here she was, you know, actively participating. You know,
we're actively kicking ideas around with each other, and we're
trying to figure out how do we make this plot work?
(13:49):
How does everything stream together? Are there any plot holes?
I did a lot of the typing as I type
very fast, but you know she's there working on it,
giving it. And also there's a major female character in
the other detective. Yeah, and I don't know if I
(14:12):
know how to write females. So I mean, so I
couldn't have done I wouldn't have done this, and I
couldn't have done this all alone. This was something we
did together. I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I think one of the challenges of a project like this,
where you're taking a genre and giving it the old
twist yep. Is that you've got a world. I mean
it's sort of the new phrase world building. So if
you're having it could be a superhero movie or a
fantasy or a Jurassic World, whatever, this is world building.
I think you did quite well because I get lost
pretty easily and I felt like I was in pretty
(14:45):
early on in the novel. Did you find that challenging
to kind of get people up the speed?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I love that part of it. I love creating it,
and I did with the Kelly Turnbul series. The whole
purpose of the attack, which is which I did in
an oral history thing. You may have read uh World
War Zu Stutch Turkle used to write like it back
in the eighties. The World War three books, uh were
(15:13):
actually done in that And and you do that so
you don't have to have a character who's forrest gumping everywhere.
So I could go to the White House and I
write about a character is at the White House and
he tells his story what happened during this attack. Then
like a mom in Chicago, a guy at the border, uh,
you know, a terrorist and it. But but it's really
(15:36):
allowing me to build the world that is the attack.
So by the time you're done with the book. You
have a you have a very complete picture of the
threat that I'm talking about and how people might react
to it and how things might go. So the real
you're dead on with a world building will I love
to create a world and Arena loves that part too,
(15:58):
where we're just you know, what are the rules here?
How does this work? How do you have Greek gods
that just don't magically become kings of everything? Yeah? Why
why is that? And is it something that's you know,
crazy or uh, you know, is it? Is it something
convincing and honest to the story.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And also he's a consistent too, because if you build
that world and all of a sudden you're changing the
rules for plot purposes, yes, and you've lost the audience.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah. No, we we built the rules and then we
built the plot around it, and uh, you know, we're
gonna probably do a sequel down the road. People have
been asking for one already, which is fun. By the way,
they say people don't read anymore, People read ferociously. I mean,
we're just getting oh yeah, I read it. You know,
(16:47):
this was that was my you know, one of this
week's books. People, we're just swallowing up books now one
of the when we get back to Andrew Breitbart here,
Andrew Bikebart said, we have to take control of culture.
Thanks to Amazon, I don't have to go through a
publisher for these now. I've done that at least four
times with other books, with nonfiction books, right, And you
(17:09):
go through it and you submit it, and they tell
you what they like and don't like. It's eight or
nine months before you see a book come out, and
then they don't really help you sell it. I mean
I was getting people, you know, helping with publicity who
had fewer contacts on their phone than I had on
(17:29):
And you know, with these, I have, you know, professional
quality books that I can get out fast. I'm going
to have another book, an oral history of our Second
Civil War. It's going to be out in July because
I'm just going to get it done. I'm going to
get my art done, I'm going to get it revised
(17:51):
and edited, and then I'm just going to release. I'm
gonna you know, I don't have to go through a
giant process and no one cares. That's the thing. If
it says Simon and she, you know, you know where
Simon and Schuster on a book or Amazon Kindle. No
one cares. It's all content is king. Distribution became the
(18:15):
big distribution was always the gatekeeper. And Andrew was such
an advocate of ganging rid of the gatekeepers. Amazon simply said,
we're getting rid of the gatekeepers. Here's a process where
it's very simple technically.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And also you know a lot of the work that
you do is satirical, yes, and can be time sensitive.
So if you've got that eight month gap, yes, some
of the points you're making in some of the connections
you're drawing may get lost. I want to talk a
little bit about the book because you know, with your
Turnbull books and other projects, it's often uncomfortable how you
talk about something today and then we're reading about it
(18:51):
in a month or less. I'm like, oh, please, Kurt,
can give us a little guardrail here and this one
on paper. It can't allow that because said in the forties.
But you've kind of flipped the script here with Trixie,
the one of the main characters where she has a
unique ability. Can you can you tease that a little bit?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
I love that part of the book, The thing about
Tricksy Gamble, who's kind of the you know this, Uh,
very elegant, very smart female detection. Smarter than the hero,
the main hero, Eddie Loud, who likes to solve things
with his fists. She's very smart. But she is a
descendant of Cassandra, who was, of course the trojan woman
(19:31):
who Apollo cursed to be able to predict the future
kind of and for no one to believe her. And
she regularly predicts all sorts of insane things that are
going to happen in Los Angeles. You know, someday, you know,
they you know, come across, you know, Oscar winners. Right
(19:52):
of course, there's movie stars all over the place, and
you know, and she'll like kind of like, wow, you know,
someday there some day they're gonna have a man be
a nominated as Best Actress. Of course that he's like,
you're crazy. Have you been hitting the sauce? You know? Uh,
So there's a lot of fun in that. I think
people appreciate that one guy, So why are you doing
a little too much? All right, You're never gonna please everybody,
(20:14):
but I think, uh, you know, when you have a
book that I writer that you know that Arena has
a part of You're always going to have the conservative easterings. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You know you've been mentioning Andrew Breitbart a lot, and
I I still can't believe he's gone. But I also
think he was right about so much and so much.
He touched so many people's lives. I mean I always
bump into people and said, you know, Andrew called me up,
or he texted me, or he encouraged me. What do
you think he'd make of the moment rin right now?
I feel like so much has changed, has been a
lot of progress.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
He'd be so proud of us. Uh. You look at
the Uh you're also out of the bright Bart world.
That's where I started as a writer after Andrew basically
you know, strong armed me in a joining big Hollywood.
But look at us all. We've all built our own
kind of unique career. You've You've managed to build this
(21:09):
career as kind of the go to conservative media voice.
I know. Uh, you know when when a show needs
somebody to talk about Hollywood, they call you. Yeah. Uh,
I've got my books, I guest host radio shows. Of course,
I'm a senior columnist at town Hall. Uh. Ben Shapiro
is of course Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And a rapper too now with Tom McDonald. By the way,
I'm sorry, Ben Shapiro did a rap song with Tom McDonald.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Uh you know, I I was his lawyer for a while.
I was like the only lawyer a lot of these
bright bart people knews. So I was a lawyer for everybody.
I would have advised maybe, but uh, you know Dana Lash,
hugely successful, Derek Hunter, yeah, Uh, Larry O'Connor, of course,
(21:58):
uh you know, and we've all built out our own
things in our own ways.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And I mean it's just you know, and and that's
just us. There's Andrew would go on any show anytime,
you know, Larry and I joke that, uh you know, hey, Kurt,
you got at four in the morning to do the
uh you know, the uh Fargo North Dakota Morning Zoo
with Gibo and the Boner. And it's like true, if
(22:27):
somebody calls me and says, you know, hey, I'm into
like a five thousand wade station and uh you know,
rural Minnesota, you know, could just spare a few minutes, of.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Course, yeah, because you.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Know, if if you're gonna get a few more listeners
because I show up. Wait, that's what we do. We
help each other and now.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
But given all that and given the progress and kind
of sort of given his his graduates, for lack of
a better phrase, what's next? Because it's still a David
versus Goliath when you think about how would in the
media and the platforms and Netflix, and we're still outgunned
in a monumental fashion despite the progress we're making. What
do you think needs to happen next?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I think we will continue to be outgunned for a while,
but the sheer volume of content that we're generating is
gonna make it impossible for us not to have a
cultural impact. The next big the next big distribution hurdle
is of course movies and series. Yeah, because right now,
(23:32):
if you want a series, you gotta get on Amazon, Netflix, whatever,
and those guys. For instance, a Kelly Turnbull Stuck is
made for the movies, and it's literally made of the movie.
I grew up watching the great movies the sixties and seventies.
I have a very visual writing style. I literally transcribe
a movie i'm watching. That's my writing system. I watched
(23:54):
the movie in my head of what's happening, and I
transcribe it. I've i some people I write the book
in my head. I make the movie in my head,
then I write the book in my head. Then I
write the book on paper. So this stuff would work
for a film. It's going to take somebody going, you know,
I'm going to defy the people around me and I'm
(24:18):
going to go make this and it's gonna happen someday.
It has to. There's just enough of it out there
where it just builds up. Of course, Los Angeles would
be great too, is a movie or a series. But
one thing that one thing, one mistake we made is
conservatives look at entertainment. And I don't know if we
(24:39):
may have talked about this before, because I've had this
theory for a while. We were economic determinists, right, We
were very standard conservatives early on and we've kind of changed.
But we thought, you know, as since Hollywood figures out
it's leaving money on the table, they're gonna rush to
make movies out of our stuff. No, because they're not
(25:02):
purely driven by economics. That's a factor it always will be,
but they're also determined. It's also cultural, you know, they
don't they won't if my kid in the private school,
if I'm doing people's Republic. I mean, look what Bill
Crystal said. Bill Crystal called him a racist and said
(25:23):
it was appalling. You know, I kid won't get into
Crossroads or Harvard Westlake. So we've got so Hollywood is
not purely driven by economics. If it was, I think
we'd have a better chance. So as barriers come down
to production, as smaller production companies are able to use
CGI and other technology to ramp up production, and the
(25:47):
CGI stuff, even in direct to videos stuff is getting
kind of amazing, and it's getting reasonably priced. Eventually, somebody's
gonna be able to somebody's gonna be able to little
the cultural headwinds uh and be able to to do
some of this conservative stuff what Daily Wire's already trying.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, you know this would piss off Justin Bateman, who's
very anti AI. But do you think that AI could
be the secret sauce here where Kelly der Pirnbull's story.
Wouldn't you gotta have some money there because you've got to.
It's big, it's bold as action packed. You can't do
it on the cheap. But if you use AI to
kind of cut some corners and make those differences, could
(26:29):
that be the the the pathway forward.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
I think that's going to be part of it. Uh,
you know, you can't just keep you can't use And
I greatly respect Justine Bateman. I know people who know
she's a great person.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, I'm teasing her a little.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Bit, but but no, no, but the thing is, you
can't use uh artistic credentials to keep the gate shut.
You're not gonna say, well, we're we're not gonna allow
you to. You know, you might be able to make
this a thing, but you'd violate these arbitrary artistic rules,
(27:13):
so you can't do it. Oh oh okay, then we
just won't be hurt. It's not gonna it can't work. Eventually,
someone's gonna go. No, I want to try, you know.
I mean, obviously I would prefer somebody walk in with
seventy million dollars and say let's make people's republic with
you know, with some you know you know, well, I
(27:35):
think Tom Cruise is a little small, but that again,
he played Jack reach or twice. But you know, I
don't think you can forever sideline people simply by creating
arbitrary artistic guard rails. They can't be crossed. Yeah, and
(27:56):
you just happen to be the only guy who can
function in a world where those guardoils are respected. Okay,
we see a lot of that in our institutions, right,
A lot of the institutions are I'm going to set
the rules, which happened to give me a monopoly. And
one of the one of the great things about the
new cultural movement, the new conservative movement, you know, Rush
(28:19):
and Andrew and of course dol Trump says, we don't
play by your rules. Yeah, so I think the short
answer is yes, I think it's possible. Uh, but you know,
we don't want to make for for a long time,
a lot of our movies were not great. There are
(28:41):
We made a lot of bad movies. They looked bad,
they were badly produced, they were badly written. The comedies
weren't funny. But yeah, keep in mind that's also true
for Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, it's baby's But you know, Hollywood
makes well now, it makes maybe fifty movies a year,
one hundred movies. We make three. So if you got two,
(29:02):
they are bad. Two thirds of your movies are bad.
If Hollywood makes you know, twenty bad, Okay, that's a
fifth of them are bad. Yeah, I don't like those odds.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, well, before I let you go, Kurt, you've done
a lot in this space. I mean, obviously you do
political commentary, radio work. You kind of wear many many hats, lawyer,
you know, you name it. Are Is there something in
the pop culture space you still want to do? You
mentioned stand up comedy before. Is as something you could
return to? Do you think I could do more of
a video series. But I'm kind of curious. You've cracked
(29:34):
the code. Your books do very well, You're prolific. I'm
just gonna curious that there's a part of the pop
culture landscape you still have your eye on.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Look. I mean, I obviously would like to get these
things adapted from movies. I plan to write more books,
at least two a year. Yeah, Podcasting is always a potential.
I mean that's almost becoming a cliche, you know, for
you know, if you're you know, if you're in a
Hollywood bar, you know everybody, Oh, I'm also a DJ
(30:05):
and I'm a conservatives, I'd also a podcaster.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But opportunities are going to arise that I haven't thought
of yet. That's one of the beautiful things that is
going on. Who anticipated Twitter? Where I get to go
on and be essentially I do stand up anytime I want. Yeah,
but also political commentary, longer form stuff if I want.
(30:31):
I don't know what's coming down the pike, Christian, I
don't know, but I'm excited about it because everything's an
opportunity and we're the ones who are agile. Have you
noticed that all the new media is where we have succeeded.
The left is stuck in the dying networks, right, It's
(30:54):
stuck dying newspapers, It's stuck in you know, Hollywood, which
is changed dramatically. Obviously, they own the old stuff. We
own all the new stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So and they're starting to figure out who their Joe
Rogan was when they actually had the Joe Rogan and
they kicked him out, So.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, he was Joe Rogan. I mean, look, the guy
is a pot smoking libertarianist kind of actor, comedian guy
who probably never voted, and now he's you know, turning
young men onto Trump, which is great. He's in the
right place. But you know, they we see this all
(31:41):
the time. With the institutions. There's been a lot of
marshal institutions. They boomers have taken the institutions and they
don't want to leave, you know, whatever happened to the
good old fashioned Irish goodbye? These guys are like the
ones who it's like one o'clock, the party's long over,
and they're like, so you got any any other vodkas
or wine or anything, you know, and it's like, would
(32:02):
you go home? Nancy Pelosi? Yeah, I mean they're all old,
they're all tired. Their energy is aoc I don't you know.
I'm no fan of hers, but she's energetic. She was
cute until she started packing on the pounds. Uh. But uh,
you know, I mean, look, obviously there's a demographic, but
(32:23):
like larger women, I don't know, but I don't know,
don't care, not me. There's a new demographic for her
then exactly she can be on a ticket with Sir
mixed a lot.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
But.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
That used to be a hip reference. I just.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Thought it might be time for rebranding.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
But I'm but uh, I think it's uh. I I
think the energy is with us right now. Uh. And
the beauty of it is the ethic among kind of
the guys like us are kind of the the first
class who came through after Andrew. Right, we're the guy
(33:03):
We're the farthest out there. But there's a lot of
folks coming up, and the ethic for us is not
to drive them out. Yeah, yeah, right, we don't. I
mean I don't, and I think most of us scale this.
I feel zero challenge from some twenty five year old
who starts a call umn, gets a cool new webs
(33:25):
a cool new Twitter account where he's doing lots of
cool stuff, has a podcast.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
It.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I don't feel threatened by it. I think it's kind
of cool. Join the party, yeah, I mean, look, I'd
rather be a big party, right, big parties are you know?
I prefer a big party. So I think, uh, I'm
excited about the future. I think it's a I've always
been opted, look like Androma Californian. I'm always gonna be optimist,
(33:51):
you know that, otherwise I'd hang myself in right. Well, yeah, no,
I look, I think good things are gonna come. And
I think if you check back in in five years,
we're probably you know, I would not be surprised if
one of my books is in production somewhere.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, and if that happens, moretal beyond the way. But Kurt,
thank you so much for joining the show. Of course,
the book is Lost Angeles Silver Bullets on the Sunset Trip.
You can get at Amazon. Can you get at other
places as well?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Amazon? Okay, and you get hardcover and audio book. That's
another thing, man. Now you can do essentially AI audio books.
With a little adjustment. You can get a very clear,
well spoken audio book for people who prefer that. And
that's great.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, and Kurt's a real pioneer in this space self publishing,
speaking right to your audience, getting a following and then
treat them right what you do again and again, and
of course this time with Arena that that's a great chance.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's so much fun having her a part of this.
I mean, we do everything because I stopped doing laws,
so I'm hanging around the house all the time, so
I guess we had to do something right there. You go,
very constructive.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Thanks so much. I love your vision for the future.
I love your energy, and I love the fact that
part of that Breitbart graduate class, part of the people
who are changing things and not just sitting there and complaining.
You're actually making pop culture and doing it quite well.
So thanks again, and we'll look forward to your next
book pretty darn soon to read this one.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
First, well, you'll see it in July. Thanks a lot,
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Your character actor of the week is Paul Winfield.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Well that's for the show this week.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Again, thank you to Radio America for having me as
part of their great podcast lineup. And if you enjoy
this show, in addition to giving it a like a subscribe,
as share doing all those digital things, do check out
Hollywoodintoto dot com. It is my website, my home base.
It is eleven years old now still going strong, and
of course it's got news reviews, commentary for me right
(35:47):
of center perspective, much like this show. Never want to
scare away our central left friends. They are welcome to
visit check out what's going on. There's a lot of
a political content there. Film reviews. I publish a lot
of work from the great Barry Worst. He's a wonderful
film critic, a political to the core, but gosh, his
perceptions on art and culture and film, especially looking back
(36:08):
at film from twenty thirty forty years ago. It's one
of a kind. So even if you hate my reviews,
go check out Barry Worse. And a quick final note,
this show is coming to you late again. I am
struggling again. I've got a lot of stuff on my plate.
There's something personal that I'm dealing with which is pretty profound.
Doesn't have anything to do with health, thank goodness, but
(36:29):
it's got me bogged down and I can't.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Go into it.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
But I am horribly sorry about the delays. I really
have a focus on this video podcast, on creating more
content for YouTube and of course iTunes and elsewhere. If
you're listening to us there, I'm sorry. I'm trying. It
will get better. Just give me, Just give me a
I need to take a knee now and then, but
I will push forward. It'll get more, it'll get better
(36:52):
as time goes on. Just want it to be transparent
and clear and apologetic as well. So that's it for
this week's show. I hope everyone out there has a
wonderful week. Doctor's Orders, M
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