Walter Kern (3:38)

the.

Erica (3:39)

Get me every time. I always feel like the sip is so appropriate to the guest. I don't know why, Walter, I felt like that was a good sip for you to. To hear. So, you guys, it's me, Erica. We're here at the Scott Adams school, and you asked for him. We delivered.

Walter Kern (4:04)

Hey. So. So Scott said that you got a dopamine hit from your coffee, but I got a cortisol hit, meaning an adrenaline hit this morning. So I've got extra, you know, extra neurochemicals. Firing mine. My cup of coffee consists of three, four nespresso capsules because I'm in a hotel right now, so I have the equivalent, I think, of, like, eight shots of espresso in a glass. And I might make it through the broadcast. Oh, my gosh. My head exploding. But I might not.

Erica (4:41)

Wow, that's. That's some cocktail you got going there.

Marcella (4:46)

Yeah, you might talk faster today.

Erica (4:49)

Cheers. So, uh, as many of you know, we had the fortune of meeting Walter, unfortunately, at Scott's memorial service, which actually was a beautiful day. And I don't know about you, Walter, Marcela, and Owen, but at the end of the day, we were kind of, like, all leaving each other. Like, I remember, like, Michael, Malice, and Joel getting into their Uber to go to the airport, and Cernovich went one way and we were going the other way. And I just didn't want the day to end because I felt like everybody there got it. You know what I mean? Like, we all got it, and we're not around people like that all the time who get it with Scott. And I remember Joel saying that he felt like. Like he missed everybody. You know, he's like, I miss everybody. It feels weird. So I felt that way too, but I wanted to play Walter, if you don't mind, a clip of you speaking at the service. And if you guys hear something that sounds like a baby crying. It's my very old cat who has dementia, and she will not stop for some reason. She's fine. She's right here. But let me play this clip, you guys, of Walter speaking at the service and then we're going to come back and talk about all sorts of things.

Walter Kern (6:09)

The way I really got into Scott world was by starting to listen to his show. After my father died of als. My father had a long, well, not that long decline, but a shocking decline from an ALS addiction in early 2020 to a death from the disease just a few months later. And I spent my time at his bedside and I came away depleted, depressed, upset, and I started listening to Scott's show as a self help strategy. I mean, to me he was the only self help author who ever helped me. And that was because I didn't get the feeling he wanted to touch me. I didn't get the feeling that he was creepy in any way. He was happy and, and he was so damn happy he wanted other people to have some, you know. And as I started to listen to him, I got an idea that his, his politics really flowed from a desire for others to be happy in their own way. He was one of those people who was an avatar of freedom because freedom is the only way that we get to think for ourselves, feel for ourselves, see for ourselves. We can only be happy in our own way and we can only do that if we're free. It was a very natural set of political beliefs that flowed from a desire for others to be fulfilled. It was the politics of self help really. You can only help yourself if you're free. And so the person who's going to help you be that is the person who's going to help you become more yourself.

Erica (8:12)

Amen. It's such a good encapsulation. Walter, do you want to reflect on that day?

Walter Kern (8:18)

Well, you know, I didn't know Scott except through his show. And so when my friend Greg Gutfeld asked me to speak at the memorial, I was intimidated. I knew that everyone would know each other and be part of a circle that I really wasn't part of. But I flew from Montana and I got to town in the dark after, you know, a rental car trip from the San Francisco airport. I didn't know where I was. I stayed in an anonymous hotel out by a freeway and I went to the address that was given me for the memorial. And when I showed up, I was with friends and I was immediately welcomed by strangers in a way that showed that Scott had truly succeeded in creating a community that words overused community, you know, it usually means people who don't have anything in common but except their skin. Color or their gender or something like that. But in fact, this was a real community because we all spoke the same language, had something like the same values, and were able to appreciate each other's differences and our love for, for this particular figure. So it was a great day for me. It was a real refreshment spiritually. And you can see me thinking on my feet. I always think on my feet. I always have a plan and I always throw it out. And I really didn't have any prepared speech to give. Those are all thoughts coming to me as they form. So they're sincere if, if, if a little disorganized.

Erica (9:56)

Oh, sincere for sure. Owen and Marcella, I'll toss to you first. Owen, do you want to reflect on that day at all with Walter with us here?

Owen (10:05)

Yeah, well, at the time after that I service, I commented that I thought it was the most useful memorial service ever. Kind of had. We had all these different perspectives about Scott. I think they were all true. They were all great insights and, you know, it encapsulated a lot of his advice over the years to everybody. So that self help course that we all went through over the years listening to Scott, I think was kind of, you know, a little mini version of that was all there in his memorial service. So I thought that was amazing. And I really did appreciate your perspective, Walter. I think it was good to have a perspective from someone who knew him through the show, because I think you kind of represented a lot that's how

Walter Kern (10:43)

most people knew him.

Owen (10:45)

Yeah, and, and I think we all felt like we knew Scott. We all felt like we had this relationship with him, but most of us never met him.

Walter Kern (10:52)

Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, you know, it was a little like Twitter where X comes alive. I mean, here were all these people who I had, you know, only seen on the field, as it were, and I was meeting the players. And that was exciting too, for a guy who kind of lives out at the edge of things in Montana and comments from the bleachers of, of life and politics and so on.

Erica (11:14)

So true. Marcella.

Marcella (11:18)

You know, your, your speech, I would say, moved me a lot. I lost my mom to als, so I didn't know that about you, Walter. So, yeah, hearing that was very moving. But, you know, one thing that I notice about the memorial itself is that I laughed a lot. You know, I expected to cry a lot. But Walter, you're. You, you gave such a great speech that you just made me laugh as well. You know, you, you brought the tears, but you also brought such, such great story Building. I mean, you're a novelist, so it's just the way that you wrote it, the, the way that you wrote it, the way that you read it, what was it, the 80s, 90s? God had like cabinets. I still remember, you know, very visual language that you use. So I, I, I'm grateful for having you there, for having met you and from hearing your story about your father so.

Walter Kern (12:21)

Well, I used the word addiction in that speech. I said he had an LLS addiction. In fact, it was an affliction.

Erica (12:28)

Affliction.

Walter Kern (12:30)

And I misspoke. No one gets addicted to als, I can tell you. It is a truly terrible disease. And my father, I think, handled it beautifully for someone in terrible pain, losing one capacity a day. You know, one day he could move his right arm and then he couldn't, and then he couldn't move his left arm. But, you know, seeing Scott's passing was, was a kind of replay of the dignity and the selflessness that sometimes the dying have. You know, it's a very selfish thing. We die alone. It's the loneliest thing we do really. And to be able to share that and not make it all about yourself is a triumph of the human spirit, you know, it really is. And so I'd like to think my father triumphed in that way. I know Scott did. And the world saw it meant a lot to me to be there.

Erica (13:31)

Yeah, same. He gave us a gift in the privilege of being there till his last moments. Really.

Walter Kern (13:40)

Well, I will say about the 90s cabinets, the thing I loved about the visit was they was finally able to see the entirety of the set of his podcast here. You know, I looked every day at these brown cabinets over his shoulders and I thought, wow, he lives in a really modest kind of old fashioned house. I mean, someone should go to Home Depot and get the new cabinets. And then I saw when I got there that in fact it was kind of an office of his and not his main kitchen. He had a rather nice main kitchen. I've got to say

Erica (14:17)

that was funny. I knew that that's what you thought in your head when you were saying that. I'm like, oh, he thinks that he's in his kitchen. And I was going to touch on that because, you know, here we were looking at, you know, Scott made a Dilbert museum in his house, which was next to his office, a room next to his office. So we were in there all looking at everything in awe. I mean, my God, the, the span of Dilbert, the Dilberritos were in there, you guys. Everything but then Shelly took us aside, meaning us, like, you know, us here, and just a few other people that are, you know, podcasters, his ex. Ex friends, not ex friends. And said, hey, like, I'm not letting anyone in here, but do you guys want to see Scott's office? And this is after coming out of the museum. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when she opened the door and, Walter, you were. I think you were, like, right behind me, and I remember hearing you going, like, oh, wow. And you were saying, like, what was going on in my head? Because you walk in there, and it's like, it's a pretty big room, and there's Scott's desk with the cabinets behind it with the books on the shelf with everything, and you were just, like, filled, and you're like, come over with, like, Scott's essence in there. It's so moving.

Walter Kern (15:37)

The first real cartoonist I ever met, as a child, I thought that there were two jobs that I would just absolutely kill to have, and one was astronaut and the other was cartoonist. People thought these things up, and they got to live in the world of their own imagination. I mean, ultimately, I became a novelist, but I can't hang pictures of the scenes from my novels on the wall as a cartoonist can. And to go inside your own head, as it were, and look around at your own creations and then create new ones seems almost like, you know, the nuclear fusion of mental. Mental work. So I was in awe.

Erica (16:23)

I love that. All right, so we did talk to Walter before the show briefly, about some things we want to touch on for you guys. We always like to start with a light story. I don't know if this is light. It is of other.

Walter Kern (16:38)

I'll make it light. It can be anything you want it, since it may be completely imaginary. So let's make it light today.

Erica (16:45)

All right, so you. You wanted to be an astronaut, and had you become an astronaut, maybe you could tell us more about aliens. Do they exist?

Walter Kern (16:55)

Well, so here's the thing. We. We noticed the other day, or someone released the fact that the government has registered the domain name alien.gov and aliens.gov Everyone suddenly went, does this mean, you know, disclosure looms? Does this mean that this website, this domain name, will be filled with pictures of, you know, craft, maybe little creatures lying in refrigerated glass cases?

Owen (17:27)

I figured it was just a new. New branch of the government.

Walter Kern (17:30)

Well, exactly. My first thought when I saw it was, I. I can't believe they didn't have these already registered. I mean, aliens.gov is sort of almost redundant. Of course, we're governed by aliens. We've known it all along. Not only that, our government governs aliens to some extent. I know that's a controversial word for migrants, but, you know, it attempts at least to govern them. So these were natural domain names that they should have had from the very beginning of the domain name era. That they just registered them now is suggestive. It means they have something to tell us. They're, you know, it's sort of like when your parents put out the dish of milk and the cookies for Santa the night before. You know, it fires your imagination. Suddenly you're seeing Santa in your mind. Maybe they're just going to leave these websites up empty so that we can imagine them for a long time, but I think they'll probably start filling them with information, and this information will probably resemble the information that I've been getting for years now, because not only was I fascinated as a boy with the topic, I'm fascinated as an adult. And as an adult, I'm in a position to speak to some of the people who, you know, have been there, people who've worked in satellite intelligence, for example, and who tell me, oh, yeah, those things come in and out all the time. We just don't tell you about it. I, I, what do you mean in and out? And they mean of the atmosphere, the upper atmosphere. They're zipping in and out. Oh, especially around the time of wars or, you know, in the old days, nuclear tests. I've accumulated a lot of this knowledge and done these interviews at length over the years, and it has led me to the conclusion that we have either been subjected to the world's longest and most complicated lie since the 1950s, when, you know, the flying saucers started showing up in the movies and on our cereal boxes and everywhere else, or there's something to it. And if I'm going to be frank with your audience, I think there's something to it. And I think, and I think the inequality of knowledge, the division of knowledge between those who have it and those who have to just watch Steven Spielberg movies and gas is so great that it's kind of tearing apart society in a strange way. They say that the rich and the poor are the, are the two groups that are always at each other's throat through history. You know, the Marxists would tell us that. But those who know and those who are kept in the dark are also natural adversaries. And I think one of the problems with our society is that it's so divided between People who think they have inner or insider knowledge and those who must always guess or give up on guessing because they've despaired of being told anything interesting or important. I think that gap needs to be closed.

Erica (20:49)

Have you ever seen anything?

Walter Kern (20:51)

Yes, of course I have. I live in Montana. The sky, the big sky country, the sky's bigger than anything. And it is a absolute stage for, you know, astral and cosmic phenomena. Now, one time I stopped my car and told my wife that a giant illuminated centipede was crawling across the sky and it looked like the invasion was coming. It turned out to be Starlink. If anybody's seen Starlink in a dark sky as it emerges bead by bead, pearl by pearl in this long string, and then disappears in the same fashion, they will have seen something that most of mankind throughout its history would call God.

Erica (21:35)

I mean, right?

Walter Kern (21:36)

But, but, but, but have I seen things that aren't Starling? Yeah, I have. I mean, I won't go into cataloging them all, but the interest in the subject comes naturally. It wasn't inspired by cartoons. It was inspired by a desire to understand things that had happened to me and things I'd seen.

Erica (21:56)

I mean, early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning because

Walter Kern (22:00)

early gets you closer to the action.

Erica (22:02)

So don't be late. Book your next vacation early on VRBO and save over $120. Rise and shine. Average savings, $141. Select homes only. Marcel and I both seen something, and Owen claims he's seen nothing. And I'm like, oh, and look up a little bit once in a while.

Owen (22:22)

Big city. So I certainly don't have the light.

Walter Kern (22:25)

I read, I read recently that sightings were down and had been down sort of consistently on, on. On a downward track for many years. And the hypothesis was that people are now looking at their phones rather than at the sky when they're bored. So they might be up there. You're just reading your text messages.

Erica (22:48)

He's very busy.

Walter Kern (22:51)

That sounds right.

Owen (22:52)

I'm not sure if I would see them, though. I mean, you know, I live right near Chicago, so I think there's plenty of light pollution most of the time, and it would be kind of hard to see.

Walter Kern (23:00)

That's true in Chicago. You know, there's a theory that a lot of the aliens actually live underground and have their laboratories and sort of nests there. And so in Chicago, I think they come up through the manhole covers, not down from the sky.

Owen (23:14)

Okay, I'll start looking down a little more.

Erica (23:17)

Yeah, I feel like I'm suddenly worried about ocean aliens now, which I never thought till recently, because here on the Jersey shore, you might remember, we had these. I was. Scott said I was his best drone reporter and the best one out there because I was reporting on them every night. And they were real, and there were a ton of them. They were loud, they were bizarre. I don't know that they were. I mean, to me, I'm not saying those were aliens, but we were doing something so, you know, nobody wants.

Walter Kern (23:49)

Well, and. And, you know, when I. When I use the term aliens, I see in the comments, as I see every time I use it, it's just a distraction. And I think, well, from what? From life. From. You know, it's not a distraction, it's a fascination. And the idea that we're being manipulated with it. I mean, we're manipulated with all news, so of course we're manipulated with this news to some extent, you know, but. But it's not a distraction to think that life is spread or intelligence at least, and there might be a difference. You know, maybe these things are the emanations of a great AI and artificial intelligence, a great machine, and aren't necessarily, you know, mammals with green blood or reptiles. But in any case, what a wonderful distraction it is given what some of the other distractions are.

Erica (24:44)

Yeah. We've been told Iran is a distraction from the Epstein files. So, you know.

Walter Kern (24:48)

Oh, yeah. It's all a distraction from the Epstein files.

Owen (24:51)

So if you do believe that there's something to this and there's aliens here, do you think there have been? Do you think they're malicious? Do you think we have a lot to worry about?

Walter Kern (25:00)

I think it is the height of human arrogance to think that they give a damn about us. I walk, you know, I'm in a hotel right now in Los Angeles, and I walk down the street, and I'm sure that in the watered lawns of the Beverly Hills mansions, there are a lot of worms. But do I go digging for them? No. Do they. If they had eyes, maybe notice me go by? Yes. Imagine them thinking he cares about us or he hates us, or he wants to attack us, or he's ignoring us while he does, you know, wondrous, magical things. The last. The last conclusion would probably be the best. The idea that they are interested in us just because we're interested in them is a projection of our narcissism.

Erica (25:50)

Oh, I love that. But every once in a while, a kid will pick up that worm and chop it into little pieces and play with it. Not that the other worms know that.

Walter Kern (25:59)

Exactly. And that becomes. And the story of that becomes, for worms, the Bible. In other words, it was the biggest thing that ever happened to them, you know, and we're the same way. And, you know, I sound like an absolute kook. What a terrible way to introduce myself to people who don't know me. You know, I'm a serious novelist and journalist. I've written for the new report public. I've been a correspondent for Time magazine. I would love to put up my resume to show that, you know, I don't spend it my whole time talking about thinking about aliens and worms. But I do spend a lot of my time doing it because it is clear that we're being at least teased with this subject or distracted with it. And when people tell me I'm wasting my time talking to informants, whistleblowers, writers, military people and so on, I think, you know, how is that a waste of time? I'm either, as I said before, informing myself about the greatest lie mankind was ever told and I'm getting to meet the liars themselves, or I'm finding out a little bit of a. I'm getting a little preview of one of the greatest revelations we'll ever have. So I win either way.

Erica (27:21)

And don't forget, you guys, conspiracy theories. The word is just meant to make you feel stupid and to stop looking into something. So just because someone says, you know, it's a distraction or it's a conspiracy theory, just. That's just noise. And if your gut or your imagination or your. Your interest is going somewhere, go with it. Just go with it. Who cares?

Walter Kern (27:46)

You know? You know, as a novelist, as a screenwriter, as a journalist, do you know what I call conspiracy theories? I call them plots. When people assert that there might be a plot involved in life, that it might be an organized event rather than just a random one, I think they're actually grasping reality. They might not have the right conspiracy theory. They might not have the right plot. There might be several plots running at once that you think are one or one big plot that has been broken into 100 pieces and you're perceiving only those pieces, not the entirety. But in some way. The reason stories are legible to us, the reason movies mean something, is because we all understand plot. And to want to use that concept to understand life is quite natural, I think, and not to be punished.

Erica (28:48)

I've heard you reference this before when talking about news events. I'll just put. I'm not going to even name the ones I've heard you talk about, and I would love to talk to you about this off camera one day. But yes, I agree, I. I see it the way you see it is these are like storylines and things are, like, falling into place a certain time, like, certain times there's news and you're like. It's just weird how things fit to, like, keep you going and string you along into a direction. But when you think about, like, if I wrote this as a movie, I would write it this way, or a story, I would write it this way.

Walter Kern (29:27)

Listen, we can't eat rocks and we can't eat raw leaves. Food has to take a certain form chemically before it's digestible by humans. Information is the same way. Just looking at a car square, not knowing what it is, not knowing where it came from, how it was assembled, or that it might drive away is not information. It's just beholding a phenomena. In order for humans to digest information, it must be put into story form. Therefore, the people who want us to do things, prepare for a pandemic, support a war, whatever, must put the information into story form in order for it to be digestible by the audience. When I see powerful entities, governments, corporations, you know, mafias, as it were, putting together stories, I know that they want something from me, and I know that I can guess what they want from me by seeing how they build the story, you know, by seeing how they build the sales pitch, as it were, by seeing how they make legible all these, what would be illegible individual events. So I think that all of us as, as readers of the world, not just of books, should use some of the skills we get from reading books and watching movies and screenplay and reading screenplays in our perception of the world. Because how these stories are built for us reveals what others want from us.

Erica (31:16)

Right. So true. Scott would always tell us that. Right. Marcella, about following the storyline, the plot, the plan, the money, who's doing who, who's taking the polls. Right. Yeah.

Owen (31:27)

And that he would also frame things as being like the, you know, the most likely thing to happen next is the most interesting or the most entertaining or the most ironic. And it's all about plot line.

Walter Kern (31:40)

I mean, Covid was. Covid was begun in the consciousness of most Americans as a bunch of supposed surveillance videos of Chinese train stations and so on, where people were falling over and what was causing them to fall over. Now that's how you start a mini series. I'm sorry, you know. And then in the next chapter of COVID it was sailing toward Us on a. On a cruise ship on which it had broken out. And would we let the cruise ship land and would the infection come across the ocean into our very, you know, country and secure perimeter? That was suspense. And then it did, and then it started breaking out here. Now, I'm sorry. It's true that pandemics and viral events do have a storyline. You know, there's infection and then there's symptoms and then there's illness and then there's spread. So in a way, pandemics are stories, but this was framed and created in a way that a Hollywood script writer would put it together. And when I notice that something looks like a script, I really start to wonder who the writers are. And then I wonder who's paying them. Because we're writers, we don't do it for free.

Owen (33:05)

Well, I certainly noticed when it was leaked or revealed that during the January 6 investigations, they hired Hollywood scriptwriters on that committee.

Walter Kern (33:17)

Listen, I hate to be this way, but I'll just give your audience some unfiltered truth. One time I was in Los Angeles and I had a meeting with some other writers for a project that we were contemplating. And it was at 2:00 in the afternoon, say, and at 1:00 I got a call from one of the writers, said, we can't meet today. I've somebody's in town that I need to meet with instead. And I said, well, who's more important than me? And they said, they said, the CIA. And what they meant by that was that the CIA comes through town and it maybe has stories that it wants to tell, or it has technologies or weapons. Let's say that it wants to see celebrated in cinema, maybe because that scares our enemies to see what, you know, America supposedly has in its back pocket. But in any case, there of course, is a synergy and a communion between our national security state and our national entertainment state. They're not that different.

Erica (34:22)

Well, I heard that there was a good chunk of money that this. The CIA. I never want to say CIA. I feel like I'm gonna get in trouble, that this.

Walter Kern (34:30)

You're already in trouble. We know you're thinking it.

Erica (34:34)

I'm thinking it. You already know that the CIA has a big chunk of money allocated for movies and that they actually, you know, kind of will give you, like a plot that they want to happen and give you information to put in there for propaganda. Right.

Walter Kern (34:53)

And, and as. But, you know, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement for, for the intelligence services. It might be propaganda for the screenwriter It's a damn great story. And frankly, us talking about them does not make us subversives. In a way, it makes us recruiters because it makes the whole world seem very interesting to a certain type of person. I mean, I can imagine as a kid learning this. Oh, my gosh, Hollywood and intelligence agencies have a relationship. Well, that would make me want maybe to join an intelligence agency. How interesting. Compared to them just, you know, I don't know, deciphering telegrams or something.

Erica (35:36)

Well, I do have a question. So did you see House of Cards?

Walter Kern (35:41)

I saw parts of it.

Erica (35:43)

I mean, I saw like, the first couple of seasons and, like, with the. The sources that little old me has, that was pretty accurate. I heard for some. Some of the plot that they got really good information on that, the writing.

Walter Kern (35:57)

Can I tell you something? There's really good information in TV shows all the time because writers are very competitive, and they try to get closer to the source of these stories than other writers. They try to get better versions of them. Yes, they may try to improve on them or sort of, you know, impose their own style, but. But they're really actually good investigators, good detectives, and they come up with some great stuff. And the things you see on television, which are presented as fantasy and fiction, are often quite true. In some ways, they're used to immunize you against the revelations that they are true. So what's happened with the alien subject is that for years and years, we've been treated to movies and TV shows. And so if you then see one yourself, you go, oh, you watch too much tv. Oh, you've seen too many movies.

Erica (36:52)

Yeah.

Walter Kern (36:53)

If we notice political plots or conspiracies and we talk about them, we're often told, you watch too much tv. What a wonderful. What a wonderful method for defeating people's discoveries of inconvenient truths in advance, to put them on TV first, such that it sounds like you're just repeating crap you watched.

Erica (37:22)

Right.

Owen (37:22)

Now you're a writer and you've written books that have become movies. I think up in the Air might be the most famous with George Clooney. When you write, do you. Do you use that kind of detective process? And how do you go about finding the closest source to the truth?

Walter Kern (37:42)

Well, see, I write about what I like to call normal life or everyday life. I want to write about phenomena that we all are exposed to, not necessarily secret military plots or political intrigue that goes on behind closed doors, but the lives we all lead. So up in the Air was a story about what I thought was the least, the least well covered institution in American life, which was airports. We all go through them and none of us notice them, or we notice them, but we don't talk about them, or we have feelings about them, but we don't think they're important. But one thing that's true is that we all go through those airports. We all sit in those little seats, we all have those conversations with seatmates. We all have the same irritations when, when the person in front of us decides to lean back. And I thought, I can make a novel of experiences that I can literally pick up off the ground. They're here for the taking. And as a novelist, that's what I do. I go around and I look for, you know, I look for habitats. I'm like a biologist in the field or, you know, an anthropologist. I look for ecosystems and habitats and so on, which are not celebrated or written about or talked about. But in this case, I looked at one that we all live inside without noticing, like fish and water. And that is the world of airports, hotels, suite hotels, Applebee's chain restaurants and so on. I just thought it was fascinating that we, you know, as Americans, we want to be sophisticated. We still live in a kind of inferiority complex to the wondrous intelligent geniuses of Europe and the rest of the world. So we, we discount our own contributions to the world. A novel in which an Applebee's is described thoroughly. Oh, you know, how beneath us all.

Erica (39:49)

I love that.

Walter Kern (39:50)

Cafes and in Paris, you know.

Owen (39:52)

Yeah, well, I mean, I, I, I'll tell you personally, I, I was, I, I worked, I still work for a big consulting firm where we do a lot of travel, a lot of flying. And when up in the Air was in the theaters, my project manager said, hey, we're all going to have a, you know, project outing. We're all going to go see up in the Air together. And we all sat there and watched the movie. And then at the end, we're like, okay, that was pretty depressing.

Walter Kern (40:16)

Like, it was just, you see, you see, I like to call it one of the last depressing Hollywood movies. You know, it was a fairly big budget. It was, it was Paramount Studios, it was a big director, Jason Reitman, and one of the world's biggest stars, George Clooney. And it had an unhappy ending. Now, that is an achievement. I mean, you know, almost all movies now end with the world being saved. You know, the person getting the love of their life. And I remember Joy, you know, a little. Everybody loves gossip. I remember George Clooney telling me, you know, I don't get the girl in this movie. And that is like Gary Cooper losing a gunfight in a Western. People are gonna pay attention.

Erica (41:02)

That's so true. I mean, why do we have to walk out of a movie feeling good? I mean, don't you just want to feel like I. I like feeling right, you know?

Owen (41:10)

Yeah, it was a great story and, you know, very kind of satirical. I kind of saw it as like the other side of the story of the office. You know, you remember those two guys that come in, Bob and whoever, and they lay people off and it was kind of like the story of that person that lays people off and.

Walter Kern (41:27)

Well, yeah, I mean, for the audience, the. The hero of up in the Air has a. Or the protagonist at least has a peculiar job, which is that he goes around to big companies and orchestrates their layoffs for them and goes to their executives and gives them the bad news. Now, what could be more dramatic than that? And people say, walter, how did you know about that form of consulting? How did you know? And I say, I didn't. I made up a job for the guy out of thin air, out of my head that I thought would lead to interesting scenes because really I was. I wasn't interested in my protagonist as much as I was in his world. And, you know, when you travel all the time, you become very detached. And in a way, it's a luxury to be that detached. You know, I used to talk to business flyers and they say, I. Everybody thinks I'm unhappy, but the secret is I'm very happy. I get treated really well by the airline because I have a million miles. I'm let into all these clubs, I'm given all this free food. I get to stand first in line. I'm special at home. I'm not special at home. It's, you know, did you feed the dog here? It's, you know, here they'll hold a plane for me for five minutes because I'm a platinum status.

Owen (42:53)

I've seen it. And I'm like one tier below that. Or like, that was the highest I could get. Just be. Partly because I live in Chicago and it's pretty competitive and it's like the top 3% that get into that upper tier. And. But I. I knew people that I worked with that were in that, and they would always get the first class tickets. They could even reach out to airline to fix my flight problems in a way that I couldn't do. And they would hold them, they would do all sorts of things. And it's like, wow, there's just such a.

Erica (43:23)

That's our.

Scott Adams (43:25)

So.

Walter Kern (43:25)

So I asked the director of the movie. I actually met him first or one of my earliest meetings of him with him was in Chicago. You know, Chicago is a hub for United Airlines and they were scouting it as a location. And I said, so what's your status on your airline? He said, well, I'm global services, and that is the high echelon United Airlines classification. And I said, well, what's the. What's the nicest thing they've ever done for you as a global services member? He said, once they held a 747 for me in Japan.

Erica (44:03)

Wow.

Walter Kern (44:04)

That was flying to the United States. Holy cow. And I went, wow. The ability to have a 747 wait at the curb.

Erica (44:13)

You guys, we got to start rethinking what power is. I mean, forget it.

Walter Kern (44:18)

Let's also rethink what power powerlessness is. Because. Because the reason the movie is a little bit sad or bittersweet is that its hero mistakes this kind of power for real power.

Erica (44:31)

Right.

Owen (44:31)

Which.

Walter Kern (44:32)

Which it is not. What it is is flattery by a corporation that wants you to or your boss who pays the bills to keep spending money.

Erica (44:42)

That's right. Marcel, I want you to jump in. I see you have a question.

Marcella (44:45)

Yeah, so I have two questions. One is about the Rash is the script you wrote. And I want you to talk about it if you can, and where it's at now in the process.

Walter Kern (45:01)

Okay. Well, what Marcel is referring to is a satirical. A sort of dark comedy that I wrote about pandemics and about mass hysteria in general. It's called the Rash. It's not about COVID It's about a fictional skin disorder that causes people to scratch, or is it that the scratching is what causes the skin disorder? Nobody really knows. Society is confused, you know, do I have the rash because I scratch or do I scratch because they have the rash? Well, I use this fictional disease, I guess. Or it could be mental delusion to explore the process by which an entire society goes crazy. Okay. And similar movies were written all throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, satires of American Madness Network. It was a movie in the mid-70s about network news which proposed that the news would start staging events in order to cover them because real life was.

Owen (46:15)

It would never do anymore.

Walter Kern (46:17)

Now, that was thought to be cynical, ridiculous and outlandish. But of course, we now know it as our everyday life.

Erica (46:25)

Walter, will there. Will there be like a million dollar hard to get ointment that people Need.

Walter Kern (46:32)

Well, you know what? I've done a good job in laying my premise because what you want to do as a writer, when you create a premise, is to get the audience guessing about how it will work out. And of course, you're right. When there's a rash that may or may not exist, there's a company that has a product that will cure it. Only what are they curing? In my case, they don't know. So, you know, to kind of give away a bit of the plot, a company has a drug whose only effect is that it makes people really lazy and really apathetic. And they go, this drug is perfect for curing the rash because it doesn't stop the itch, it just makes you too lazy to scratch. And so that's all I'll reveal about the movie. So, so, so I wrote this script. It was brought to me by Nicole Shanahan. She didn't have the story idea, but she wanted a story in this general domain to make us aware of some of the things that had happened to us during the COVID period. But these are the same things that happen to us whenever power wants us all to do the same thing or wants to fill us with fear so that they can then cure the fear to their advantage. So I went and wrote this script and I gave a little presentation about it in Washington D.C. i made a teaser trailer, a little two minute trailer that showed you what the movie might be like if it's ever funded, you know, if it ever attracts the money it needs to be made, which it hasn't yet. And I spoke about it at a maha event in Washington. Make America Healthy event. Well, within days, I suddenly had the media, from Politico to Yahoo News to the Hollywood Reporter to a British publication, to the editor of Mother Jones magazine, attacking me for even thinking, for even considering satirizing the holy sacred COVID pandemic, quote, unquote, the worst idea in the history of Hollywood. What? Mel Brooks made a movie called the Producers, that it's about a play called Springtime for Hitler.

Owen (49:02)

Stephen Colbert had dancing vaccines or dancing syringes on his show.

Erica (49:07)

That was the right message.

Walter Kern (49:09)

How dare Walter Kern think that there are some lessons, serious and comic, to be had from an experience we all had as a nation that was one of the most bizarre imaginable, in which little kids played clarinets in plastic tents. I mean, oh, who, who would ever think of making a comedy out of that? You know, who would ever make a comedy out of arrows on the floor telling you which direction to Walk and how far apart to stand. No, no. You know, you'd have to be insane to think that was worthy of humor.

Erica (49:49)

Makes the funding like I want. Like, tell me what we have to do to get you funding.

Walter Kern (49:53)

Well, well, one. One. One of the. One of the articles suggested that it was a crowdfunded movie. It's not. We're looking for real investors. And. And I exist on. On X and. And you can DM me or, you know, people can find their way, but I was attacked solidly for a week, not just nationally, but internationally, for. For the, you know, the thought. The impudence of thinking we could make ourselves laugh at something that was actually pretty damn funny.

Owen (50:30)

Well, I. I mean, I think they're probably just imagining the reception of it and how embarrassed they're all going to be because they're going to be the butt of the joke.

Walter Kern (50:36)

Right. Because once we've laughed at a mass hysteria, which is what that was. Well, you know, whatever. Whatever it was medically, it was a mass hysteria in terms of mental and intellectual and social behavior. Okay. Once you've laughed at it, they can't do it to you again.

Erica (50:55)

That's right.

Marcella (50:56)

That's true.

Walter Kern (50:56)

They want to reserve the right to use that script again. And I'm going to make fun of that and similar scripts. It won't be allowed. And it shocked me. You know, I. I've made a lot of controversial statements over the years and taken on some contrary stands, and I've faced all kinds of trolling and, you know, criticism, but it came down like a boulder on Roadrunner's head when I suggested that there might be some humorous and satirical potential in that pandemic experience.

Erica (51:30)

I think we could use it.

Walter Kern (51:31)

Yeah, of course we could.

Erica (51:33)

Yeah, I think we could use it.

Walter Kern (51:35)

It's not over until you've laughed at it. Just like Scott's. Just like Scott's memorial service was a chance to laugh and tell funny stories and be together. Marcella said it. She expected to cry, but she laughed instead. And there. Therein lies the closure. Therein lies the resolution. Therein lies the life goes on feeling, and we haven't had the life goes on feeling yet about this experience, and we need it.

Erica (52:08)

I totally stand by this. You guys listening? If. If you know someone or if it's you and you want to help fund this, you know, like, seriously fund it, I think it's important. I know people that are livid to this day.

Walter Kern (52:23)

Of course they are.

Erica (52:24)

Yeah. And I get it. And, you know, and they watch their

Walter Kern (52:27)

relatives die through windows if they were lucky enough to get that close to the facility.

Erica (52:33)

Yep.

Walter Kern (52:33)

And, you know, and. And we. We started this by me saying that my father had died of. Of ALS. He died of ALS in May 2020. Okay. In that world, I could not get anybody to help lift him to come to my house. I couldn't get the people who had the medicine that made him comfortable to come to the driveway. They showed up in spacesuits, and I had to go out. I mean, it was insane.

Erica (53:04)

This also happened with my father, too, and I am livid. And a lot of other stories. We all have personal stories about this. And I agree. And I think, you know, Scott would always say, mock it. Right. Like, you gotta mock it. Let's mock this. I mean, we're mocking the gay Atolla, Right. So we need. We need to mock it.

Walter Kern (53:23)

Well, I haven't. You may be doing that in your private life.

Erica (53:27)

You were doing it here.

Walter Kern (53:28)

Yeah, but I. I fear him. I. I think I. I actually think he has nothing to lose by mocking him with. We're only demanding that more oil fields be destroyed.

Erica (53:39)

I know, but he's got one leg, erectile dysfunction, and he's been outed as gay.

Marcella (53:44)

So it's getting close to home because yesterday's news was there was two drones undetected. They don't know what over the base of where J.D. vance and Marco Rubio were staying. And reciting.

Walter Kern (54:00)

I love our government telling us that our defense secretary and vice president stay at a certain military base. Isn't that supposed to be a secret?

Marcella (54:10)

They're probably not staying there anymore.

Erica (54:12)

If the government doesn't tell you, any news reporter will. They're happy to divulge.

Walter Kern (54:16)

It's all a distraction.

Owen (54:18)

I will say it worked to make fun of Kim Jong Un when they called him Rocket Man. I mean, it made a difference. It seemed to defuse the whole situation.

Walter Kern (54:28)

Well, I don't want to come up for the nickname for. For, you know, the gay Ayatollah, because. And I guess Gayetola or whatever.

Erica (54:37)

Yeah.

Walter Kern (54:37)

Is a nice try, but it. It just doesn't have Rocket man ring.

Erica (54:43)

Well, if Trump came up with it, it would.

Walter Kern (54:45)

Yeah, well, you know, there's a. There's a theory that Ku Klux Klan was defeated when Superman comics made so much fun of it that people, you know, stopped wanting to join. And so. And.

Owen (54:58)

And find a good name for them. Maybe Gay of Hormuz.

Walter Kern (55:02)

I don't know. I mean, you know, I. I don't. I think one of. I think one of the, you know, One of the superior aspects of American society is that you can be gay here and, and, and, you know, over there, I'm not so sure. It's so easy. You. You kind of have to be the ayatollah to really come out of the closet, or maybe you're stuck deepest in it, I don't know. But. But like, I'm not going to be making fun of him today. I. I find myself in the middle of this war not knowing what to think. Wars are the worst thing to comment on because they're like sports games that you can't see that, you know, they're obviously secret. They're happening far away. There are going to be lies about them and propaganda. Absolutely certain. So you're supposed to comment on a game you can't see and that you're being lied about, too. It's very hard. By the time you have an opinion about most wars, they're over. And an educated opinion. And, you know, we're still. We're still fighting about. Some people are at least whether World War II is justified. This is going to go on a bit.

Erica (56:22)

Vietnam, all of them. Yeah.

Marcella (56:24)

Before. Before we go, I do have to ask you. And you don't have to share it. I know you're working on a new. A new book.

Walter Kern (56:31)

Yes.

Marcella (56:31)

And you're in the middle of writing it. Is there any. Can you give us any hints about what it is or what you're working on?

Walter Kern (56:41)

Well, as I fade slowly into invisibility, as the sun comes up behind me and, and washes out my face,

Scott Adams (56:50)

if

Walter Kern (56:50)

people were wondering what's happening, it's not that I'm spreading Vaseline on the camera. The light is equalizing.

Erica (56:57)

I need that trick.

Walter Kern (57:01)

So I wrote a book. I've been writing a book for years. And it's about a long trip I took at random across America. And at one point it was called the Last Road Trip. And I made the mistake of. Of, of previewing this title in the media, you know, saying that I was working on a book with this title. Well, somebody damn stole the title. So I'm not going to tell you what the book is about because somebody's going to steal the very story. But it is a true story of a voyage I made a while back around the country because I had a sense that it was changing so quickly that unless I went out and captured as much experience in a shorter time as possible, it would disappear before I had seen it fully. And so it's sort of like. It's like a bedside visit to a Relative who's ailing. You want to spend a lot of time with them. You want to hear their stories. You want to. You want to fix in your mind what their eyes look like and what their jokes sound like and so on. And when I saw so much change coming to this country in such a rapid fashion, I thought, I want to go get to know it before it becomes unrecognizable. And that's what I tried to do. And it's the story of that attempt.

Erica (58:25)

I love that I'm having regrets of not traveling the world more before it's turning into what it's already turned into.

Walter Kern (58:34)

I regret not traveling Oregon sufficiently. I mean, no one really needs to get everywhere in the world. They just need to get to a place that isn't theirs. And to see something from a perspective, they don't usually see it, that's enough to teach us. I mean, those who can't afford international tickets, There's a town not far from you where they do things a little differently. Why not go there, check into a motel, and find out what's distinctive about it?

Erica (59:04)

That's great advice.

Owen (59:05)

I think there's been stories about how there's a pretty big percentage of Americans that have never left their state.

Walter Kern (59:10)

Yeah, well, we don't have any time left. But I can tell you, this one sad thing I discovered about America was I'd go into gas stations, and I'd ask for directions to the next town, and they'd say, don't you have a phone? And I'd say, well, can't you give me the directions? And they'd say, well, let me look at my phone. And I think, you don't know where you live.

Erica (59:33)

Remember the guy? Be like, you go down about a half a mile, you make directions, then you make a left. You'll see the water tower.

Owen (59:41)

Yeah, it's a lost skill. I remember having the atlases and the maps.

Erica (59:46)

Yeah.

Owen (59:47)

Having to figure out how to get around my city. Having to figure out how to get across the country. And I don't think anyone could do it today.

Walter Kern (59:53)

I don't.

Owen (59:53)

I wouldn't do it either. I just plug in the gps.

Walter Kern (59:56)

Not anyone can do it, but I did it. That's exactly how I did it. I gave myself certain rules, and one of them was that the phone stayed in the glove compartment.

Erica (60:07)

Love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Walter, thank you so, so, so much. You guys. Don't fear. I already asked Walter if he'll come back a thousand times, and he said yes. He said he'll come back every week. I'm kidding. He didn't say that, but he did say he would come back. And we are so appreciative that you came here. We will link everything about you that we can. You a huge fan base here. I hope there's someone out here that wants to help with funding for Rash.

Walter Kern (60:39)

I think it's the Rash, you know, and there's something called the Brownstone Institute out there, which is a kind of a MAHA think tank, and they know a lot about the movie. So if you can't find Walter Kern, you maybe can find the Brownstone Institute and talk to them.

Erica (60:54)

Okay, we're going to link all of that for everybody. Thank you so much. We always do a closing sip to Scott, and we ask everybody to go out there and, as Scott would say, to be useful. You guys, I think we learned a lot from Walter today. You are an absolute gem. We are the luckiest group, and we can't thank you enough. We can't wait till we see you next time.

Walter Kern (61:19)

I had a lot of fun, and I have consumed eight solid shots of espresso in one glass, and it looks like it, and I'm acting like it, so God bless.

Erica (61:28)

All right, let's do a closing sip to Scott. Everybody go out there and be useful to Scott.

Owen (61:33)

Be useful.

Erica (61:34)

Bye, guys. Have a great day. Thanks, Walter.

Walter Kern (61:37)

Bye.

Marcella (61:37)

Thank you, Walter.