Shows
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryIngrid Moon Wins 1st Place at the 2025 Outstanding Creator AwardsWelcome to a celebration of indie writing recognition! The Outstanding Creator Awards is one of the most visible and influential platforms recognizing independent authors who deliver quality, originality, and emotional punch. These awards aren’t participation trophies—they’re competitive, professionally judged, and taken seriously in the indie community. They don’t just validate a book; they amplify it. And Ingrid Moon wasn't only nominated… she dominated. The Warrior’s Shade and The Tempest's Fury both took first place honors, and the judges openly called her Saxen Saga among their favorites. The end of the year SFFF epis...
2025-12-241h 00
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryThe 2026 Sci-Fi Anthology: Steve Gibson Shares New Voices, New FuturesIn the 17th episode of Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory, Mookie Spitz chats with Steve Gibson (S.A. Gibson), the prolific indie science-fiction author, editor-in-chief of a globally sourced science-fiction anthology, and writer whose work asks an uncomfortable question: what survives when technology doesn’t?Gibson unpacks his journey from voracious sci-fi reader to author of more than twenty books, many set in a post-collapse world where steam power, printing presses, libraries, and human memory matter more than algorithms and apps. His stories span continents—India, North America, Africa—and explore how societies adapt when advanced technology is lost...
2025-12-181h 00
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryDaniel P. Douglas: Two Minds United Against the MachineThe 16th episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory has Mookie sitting down with Daniel P. Douglas: the shared pen name of Paul and Phil Garver, prolific multi-genre writers who are also identical twins.Together, they unpack what it means to collaborate as creative partners for decades: how two distinct sensibilities merge into a single authorial voice, how trust replaces ego, and why their process has evolved from strict turn-taking to a sharper writer–editor dynamic. The twin angle is interesting, but it’s not the headline. Their creative work is:Building interconnected story universes without drow...
2025-12-171h 30
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryPhasers Set to Snark: Warp-Speed SmartasseryWhat happens when two Gen-X science-fiction lifers turn on the mic, set themselves loose, and argue about everything?You get the 14th episode of SFFF.Host Mookie Spitz welcomes longtime friend and fellow sci-fi heretic Lee Kantz for a sprawling, sharp-tongued, no-sacred-cows conversation that tears through Star Trek, Star Wars, Spielberg, Nolan, AI, wokeness, anti-wokeness, bad writing, great ideas, worse dialogue, and the slow death of subtlety in modern science fictionA rant sampling:“Steven Spielberg has mastered the art of turning existential horror into a feel-good ending. He's the master spectacle mer...
2025-12-141h 30
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryThe Astrophysicist Who Loves Space OperasThe twelfth episode of the SFFF features Mookie chatting up the genre with Princeton astrophysics grad student turned tech consultant Ed Powell, where they immediately launch into hard science, bad science, and unraveling state of a genre that used to dream big and think smart. Ed walks in with his PhD, his plasma-physics past, and his lifelong obsession with Clarke and Asimov. He remembers buying The Sands of Mars on the Jersey shore; Mookie counters with his own gateway drug, Asimov’s nonfiction. From there, the two discuss the difference between "hard" sci-fi grounded in real physics, the...
2025-11-231h 12
Bald and BloviatingShaking the Beltway Trees with TH ForestWhat happens when a bald bloviator pods with an MM romance author to save America? Listen around, and find out on this 66th episode of the Bald and Bloviating podcast, where TH Forest and Mookie Spitz play an invigorating game of political tennis. Their intense and fun conversation swings from Reaganomics and the imminent attack on Venezuela to immigration raids and Nixon's Southern Strategy, from the Epstein Files to the bunker below the refurbished East Wing only to end where they started: acknowledging that the United States is deep in a structural crisis, and both parties helped b...
2025-11-201h 58
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryRare Earth Elegance with Lou IovinoMookie gets chatty with speculative-fiction author Lou Iovino about the long, uneven road to becoming a working writer. Lou shares how his creative life started in comics through co-authoring a ten-issue graphic novel on his commute to Manhattan, hiring artists out of pocket, and learning the discipline of concise storytelling and crisp dialogue.That foundation carried Lou into screenwriting and eventually novels. He explains why he didn’t chase traditional publishing at first, how Hugh Howey’s indie success shifted his thinking, and why hiring a professional book editor and cover artist was non-negotiable to reach the wide...
2025-11-191h 34
Bald AmbitionBirthing a Brand After All Else FailsIn this solo episode, Mookie Spitz lays himself bare after nine relentless months of nonstop creation — 227 podcasts, hundreds of blogs, a new sci-fi novel, thousands of videos, and a one-man multimedia studio powered by caffeine, a gasping laptop, a terabyte of monthly wifi, and an old leather “upload chair.” What begins as a celebration of output quickly turns into a brutally honest audit of the chaotic, back-asswards way he’s built his creator life. Mookie digs into the central tension of the digital world: a planet drowning in content and a creator trying to be heard inside the noise...
2025-11-171h 12
Mookie ToujourEp 21 Musing w/MookieI’m a writer. I think that is in my bio. Today is my third book’s birthday(14 November?. I’m excited so I dropped an audio. I’m really proud of my success. At times it doesn’t feel like it to me because there is so much time that goes between each event. I’ve been on a few stages, done a few classes, a few events, some groups… there is a lot. We tend to focus on the culmination and not the journey. The part of the journey that requires time and not necessarily planning. The...
2025-11-1408 min
Mookie ToujourEp 20 Musings w/MookieI’m not sure if there was an episode of Peter Pan battling potatoes. These potatoes were formed in my imagination. They were created to give shape to the monsters of mathematical proportions - whatever that means. I never thought to actually quell these monsters I created to dance freely in my head to give form to my angst of solving literal math problems. I though maybe give them an outlet in my head would somehow appease my angst. The angst of mentally solving how the ramp speed on a interstate was determined. Or how detectives determined yo...
2025-11-0511 min
Bald and BloviatingThe Cockroach as CriticIn this raw, sardonic, and strangely uplifting solo rant, Mookie Spitz revisits his own metamorphosis from a self-flagellating perfectionist to a liberated creator. Framed through the lens of Franz Kafka’s existential nightmares, The Cockroach as Critic is part homage, part exorcism, and part manifesto for late-life reinvention.Mookie draws parallels between Kafka’s bureaucratic dread and the generational trauma of growing up under a father who weaponized criticism. Through his signature dark humor and biting introspection, he reads a short story he wrote decades ago: a twisted inversion of The Metamorphosis, where a talking cockroach becomes the...
2025-11-0437 min
Mookie ToujourEp 19 Musings with MookieBelow is a piece of abstract writing. This is an exercise from a mini seminar organized by a storytelling group I am in. The mini seminar was taught by an Jasmine from an organization in Chicago called The Neo-Futurist. The art piece doesn’t necessarily have to be physically spoken by you but this is a rant and itbhas to be taught and the scene set up verbally. It isn’t long because we didn't have a lot of time with so many people on the zoom meeting.In essence I squeezed out every little bit...
2025-11-0311 min
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryNathan J Pearce Launches Faith Faraday & the Cyber SamuraiThe engines of creativity are humming, the publishing lights are flickering, and an electrifying story just streamed off the line. On this launch-day episode of The Science Fiction Factory, host Mookie Spitz welcomes indie author Nathan J. Pearce, whose debut cyberpunk thriller Faith Faraday and the Cyber Samurai hits screens and shelves today!Set in 2076 Tokyo, the book follows Faith Faraday, a daemon hunter chasing rogue AIs that masquerade as digital ghosts. Think Men in Black for machine intelligence—Blade Runner grit colliding with Gilmore Girls wit. Faith is part Batman, part Kim Possible, part existential therapy se...
2025-11-033h 02
No Hair, All HeartCockblocked by JesusWelcome to the ninety-second episode of No Hair, All Heart, the brutally honest, hilariously self-aware podcast from writer and ranter Mookie Spitz — here playinmg bald philosopher of modern absurdity. Today, Mookie delights in turning the small humiliations and generational echoes of life into raw, unfiltered narratives that swing between confession, comedy, and cultural critique by ripping into the shared awkwardness of adolescence — from his own clumsy teenage years fumbling through Chicago winters and premature panic to watching his son navigate love and morality in the age of smartphones, TikTok, and digital confusion. An intergenerational mirror of sha...
2025-11-0214 min
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryPolishing Diamond Dragons: Welcome to Matthew Carauddo's WorldThe seventh episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory explores how speculative fiction actually gets made — the grind, the vision, and the madness behind the worlds we can’t stop dreaming about. Hosted by writer, ranter, and raconteur Mookie Spitz, he sits down with Matthew Carauddo, creator of the Diamond Dragons saga — a richly illustrated six-book fantasy series blending martial arts, mysticism, and philosophy. But Matthew isn’t just an author: he’s a stunt performer, fencing instructor, voice actor, and videographer who’s spent decades creating worlds in motion — from live saber duels to psychological dragon warfare....
2025-10-312h 40
Mookie ToujourEp 18 Musings w/MookieI am writing on purpose again. I didn’t think I would be writing on purpose again so soon. I found myself outside opening my gate to begin my yard’s maintenance with the aggressive barking of my neighbor’s dogs again. I feel the anger well up in me and a whisper inside that tells me “you are set aside.” I am angry because I have already addressed this issue with the dogs. No one I talk to sees it as an issue. They say dogs bark but my yard is not theirs and by as much time has passed...
2025-10-3111 min
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryA Sci-Fi Novel Comes to Life: Engineering the Transfinite Reality EngineWhat do you get when a dopamine-deficient bald guy, a stack of manuscript pages, and an accidental reader with a doctorate walk into a podcast? You get this wild, heartfelt, and honest episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory—where Mookie Spitz, podcaster, ranter, and writer talks about the creation of his latest science fiction novel: Jonnie Fazoolie and the Transfinite Reality Engine.In a full-circle moment of gratitude and literary soul-searching, Mookie hands the mic to Michelle Waugh — the sharp-eyed first reader who flipped through his draft and called him out, pushed him harder, and h...
2025-10-302h 35
Mookie ToujourEp 17 Musings w/ MookieI’m sitting in math class struggling to stay aware of my surroundings. That is mostly coming to realization that I am in math class. I need to be aware that I am in math class. I need to pay attention because I do not know what to do. I am about to freak out because I have a test this weekend.By the time this expisode is recorded the math exam will be done. So yes, as I continue, I am sitting in math class and my thoughts drift as they often do and I...
2025-10-2909 min
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactorySounds of the Biohunter: Making of a Sci-Fi AudiobookSci-fi author Ingrid Moon and voiceover wizard Scott Allen join your host, Mookie Spitz, for an unfiltered ride through the making of audiobook for Biohunter—a post-apocalyptic sci-fi love story between a deadly alien tracker and a teenage human target. They talk shop about audiobooks, content repurposing, and self-publishing in the age of AI. Ingrid reveals how the novel began as a pseudonymous writing challenge—complete with a mystery book cover and fake name—and ended as a full-fledged sci-fi saga complete with morally conflicted characters and actual emotional stakes (imagine Dances with Wolves meets The Most Dangerou...
2025-10-291h 04
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryIngrid's Moonstruck Musings on Indie Sci-FiYour sci-fi obsessed host Mookie Spitz sits down with science educator, technologist, and multi-genre author Ingrid Moon to dissect writing and self-publishing — and why it’s so damn hard to do it well.They start with Ingrid’s journey from tech marketing to science classrooms to building reference books for sci-fi authors who don’t know enough science. Astrofiction, Biofiction, Robofiction — yes, those are real, and they’ll save your story from embarrassing “space magic"...Then it’s all in on the struggles:The agony of finishing a book when your brain craves endless worldbuilding.Th...
2025-10-281h 25
The Science Fiction & Fantasy FactoryMechhaven Dreams: Talking Indie Shop with Greg SorberStep back inside The Science Fiction Factory, where host Mookie Spitz joins fellow indie author Greg Sorber as they transform vivid imagination into great storytelling. Recorded fresh off LA Comic Con 2025, this episode dives into what it means to build worlds, fight algorithms, and write science fiction without a corporate mothership.Greg opens up about the making of his Mechhaven saga—a gritty space opera he describes as “Transformers meets Braveheart”—where 200 sentient robots struggle for peace, freedom, and identity on a faraway planet after galactic war. Mookie and Greg dissect the high-stakes life of indie authors: grinding...
2025-10-231h 40
Bald AmbitionBrand Thyself!Fifty-two Bald Ambition podcasts and counting, Mookie Spitz turns the mic on himself for a no-bullshit autopsy of his own brand. Drawing on 20 years in marketing, a lifetime of overthinking, and a library’s worth of blogs, books, and podcasts, he finally asks the question every creator avoids: Why the hell isn’t any of this exploding?With a cocktail of cynicism, humor, and self-awareness, Mookie describes the paradox of today’s creator economy — an attention-addicted world bored by its own content — and admits he’s been mostly “Shem” (the obsessive creator) and not enough “Shaun” (the networker). He riffs...
2025-10-171h 16
Bald and BloviatingDon't Be a Picassole!In this blistering solo rant, Mookie Spitz takes the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature and turns it into a mirror for every would-be artist, procrastinating perfectionist, and self-styled “creative” who talks more than they make. Trigger warning for your inner hack: this one hurts.From Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s single-sentence novels to Picasso’s 50,000 pieces of relentless output, Mookie dismantles the myth of “someday” artistry — the fantasy that genius waits for perfect conditions. He drags the coffee-shop philosophers, the pandemic-era Zoom posers, and even his past self — the guy who mistook talking about art for doing it.This 64th Bald...
2025-10-1440 min
No Hair, All HeartDon't Be a Sora Loser!When everyone can make a movie of themselves doing anything in ten seconds, reality stops being real — and that’s when the real fun begins!Leaping into the 90th episode of No Hair, All Heart, host Mookie Spitz dissects Sora 2, OpenAI’s generative video juggernaut that’s turning imagination into mass delusion. From AGI hype to existential dread, he lays out how we’re winning the tech race while losing our minds — and why that’s exactly what makes it interesting.Diving headfirst into the surreal frontier of artificial intelligence, Mookie describes the launch of ChatGPT in Nov...
2025-10-1353 min
No Hair, All HeartOctober 7th: Two Years LaterTwo years after the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack, Mookie Spitz strips the conflict down to its brutal, geographical bones. No pundit spin, no partisan or tribal bias he hopes — just Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel refracted through the most combustible square mileage on Earth. Mookie dissects how Israel’s tiny, boundaryless topography, its interlocked demographics and religions, and its barren resources make perpetual conflict inevitable — not moral, not cultural, just inevitable.From Yahya Sinwar’s cynical timing of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” to Trump’s transactional foreign policy and Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition steering Israel toward full annexation, M...
2025-10-081h 04
Bald and BloviatingHow I Almost Partied with Bari WeissIn this 63rd episode of Bald and Bloviating, Mookie Spitz peels back a decade of intertwined ambition, friendship, and ideology that runs from Toronto brainstorming sessions to New York WeWorks beer taps to the editorial suites of CBS News. Starting with Barry Weiss’s meteoric rise from Substack renegade to corporate media powerhouse, Mookie rewinds to 2015 to trace his own improbable web of connections: Ali Rizvi, the doctor-musician op-ed writer; Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar, the Iraqi refugee who built Ideas Beyond Borders; and his cofounder Melissa Chen, the provocateur-intellectual whose incendiary tweets landed her on Joe Rogan and in...
2025-10-071h 21
Bald and BloviatingLA Comic Con 2025: View from Booksellers RowStep into the chaos and communion of LA Comic Con 2025 with your bald and bloviating host, Mookie Spitz. From booth-side book barking with sci-fi author Ingrid Moon to weaving through seas of stormtroopers, cosplayers, and holographic Stan Lee, this episode captures the raw energy of a cultural carnival where camp, commerce, and creativity collide.Mookie shares what it really feels like to stand for three straight days selling books to strangers, why covers sell more than content, and how selling techniques straight out of SPIN Selling and Glengarry Glen Ross can make or break your day. Along t...
2025-10-011h 15
No Hair, All HeartGimme a Break!No Hair, All Heart isn’t about polish or pandering—the show is about raw rants, cultural collisions, and the messy grind behind so-called “overnight success.” Host Mookie Spitz drags you out of passive consumption and into the sweaty, chaotic arena of creation, fame, and failure.From Beck shouting “I’m gonna be famous” in a North Hollywood taco joint, to Quentin Tarantino hustling scripts at a video store, to Anthony Bourdain stuck on fry duty before Kitchen Confidential blew the doors open, Mookie dissects the myth of the big break. The through-line is always the same: obsession, per...
2025-09-2641 min
No Hair, All HeartTrue Friends Stab You in the FrontFriendship is supposed to be one of life’s great treasures—essential like air, water, food, and sleep. But what if that’s a delusion we’ve been spoon-fed since childhood? In this 86th episode of Bald and Bloviating, Mookie Spitz 86's the myth of meaningful friendship, stripping it down to its transactional, shallow, often disappointing core.From Henry Adams and Oscar Wilde to John Updike and Thoreau, Mookie draws on history, literature, and lived experience to interrogate what it means to connect with others. He recalls college years full of drinking buddies and business buddies, then contrast...
2025-09-2355 min
Bald and BloviatingMookie's Weekly Bloviation: Birthday Pizza & Jam SandwichesMookie Spitz is back with another scorched-earth rant, weaving together politics, comedy, health, and mathematics into one restless through-line: we are making ourselves—and our country—miserable by wallowing in blame and self-victimization.The episode opens on the Jimmy Kimmel suspension saga, where late-night jokes, FCC jawboning, and Trumpian pressure collide. It’s not really about Kimmel, though. It’s about what happens when government and media turn every controversy into a battlefield, and audiences line up on tribal sides instead of just changing the channel.From there, Mookie draws a sharp parallel: the vaccine wars, lo...
2025-09-2337 min
No Hair, All HeartSlap Happy Jewish New YearIn this 85th episode of No Hair, All Heart, host Mookie Spitz dives into the chaos, contradictions, and comedy of the Jewish New Year—and what it means to carry a tradition you don’t believe in. The show opens with the strange math that declares this to be the year 5,787, a number that collapses once you pit it against science, fossils, and cosmology. From there, the rant spins through the peculiar mechanics of the lunar calendar, with its leap months and shifting holidays, before landing squarely in the personal: Mookie’s own childhood, Hebrew school, and a fathe...
2025-09-2347 min
No Hair, All HeartFrom Authoritarian Drift to Auschwitz?The 84th episode of No Hair, All Heart features another solo rant from Mookie Spitz, recorded in Orange County, California on Sunday, September 21, 2025—and not Berlin, Germany, on Saturday, September 21, 1935. Mookie reminds us that ninety years in time and a continent in space gives context to the fire of America’s current political and cultural chaos. He asks the hard question: are we living through our own 1935 Germany moment—or something very different?To answer that question on many people's minds, Mookie dives into the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Trump’s escalating war on media and institutions, and the...
2025-09-2243 min
Bald and Bloviating"Liars and Cowards and Thieves, Oh My!"The 60th episode of Bald and Bloviating takes a bloviating look at America in 2025 through the eyes (and the big bald head) of host Mookie Spitz. In this solo rant, Mookie drags listeners from the chaos of his Chicago nightclub days in the ’90s straight into today’s fractured cultural and political landscape. The connective tissue? A phrase he once shouted across a barroom floor, echoing Dorothy and her Crew in Oz—“Liars and cowards and thieves, oh my!"That refrain becomes the lens for a blistering diagnosis of modern discourse: from knee-jerk social media comments to the coll...
2025-09-2049 min
No Hair, All HeartThe Relentless Pursuit of OKIn this 82nd episode of No Hair, All Heart, Mookie Spitz revisits last week’s “70% is bullshit” rant and flips the script. What if the problem isn’t that we’re not trying hard enough—but that we’re trying too hard? What if the real path to the good life comes not from chasing perfection but from embracing “OK”?Mookie explores the paradox at the heart of modern living: the harder we grind, the more anxious and unhappy we become. Striving for excellence often drags an 8 or 9 down to a 7. Yet when we stop obsessing over winning and simply...
2025-09-1726 min
Bald and BloviatingOde to My Big F@cking MouthWhere does unfiltered honesty collide with a society drowning in bullshit? Let's try here: Hosted by Mookie Spitz, a self-described loudmouth, blowhard, and provocateur, he rants in this episode to dismantle the fake civility of our age and cuts straight to the marrow of discourse.Yes, Mookie delivers an ode to his big f@cking mouth—the blessing and curse of speaking without a filter. He dissects the paradox of modern America: a culture where people either froth and bully behind the safety of anonymous screens, or cower in silence and obedience when confronted in real life. Em...
2025-09-1612 min
Bald and BloviatingMookie's Weekly Bloviation: Charlie Kirk, Batgirl, and AJRIn this week’s bloviation, Mookie Spitz lets loose in true Bill Burr fashion—no prep, no filter, just raw improvisation. What starts as a riff on the grind of creative practice—writing, podcasting, and the compulsion to keep your “chops” sharp—spirals into bigger questions of taste, truth, and the price of authenticity.Mookie traces his own path from blogging obscurity to millions of TikTok video views, only to confront the impenetrable “wall” of content saturation. Along the way, he revisits his early misjudgment of AJR’s breakout hit Weak (which has since racked up 730M+ streams) and how t...
2025-09-141h 56
No Hair, All HeartMy Grandma, the Raving Bitch of BuchenwaldWhat happens when the person who loves you most is also the person who terrorizes everyone else? In this 81st episode of No Hair, All Heart, Mookie Spitz dives into the wild contradictions of his grandmother Olga—a woman who could cradle him with tenderness while scorching the earth around her with a venomous tongue.To Mookie, she was “Mimi”: a donut-buying, nickname-giving guardian angel who made him feel like the center of the universe. To the rest of the world, she was the “Raging Bitch of Buchenwald.” Holocaust survivor. Chain-smoking gossip machine. Apex predator of family drama. A w...
2025-09-1217 min
Mookie ToujourEp 16 Musings with MookiePurpose: reason for existenceLately I have been questioning my purpose. What exactly is that? Did my purpose evolve from the hopes and dreams I had for myself. I was never given a plan for my life. I wasn’t guided in love, finances, education, or my career. Once I decided what I wanted to wear on any given day to school it was probably a wrap. Maybe it could have been when I started being philosophical about questions that were posed to me about myself. Things I didn’t want for myself. Struggles I didn’t want t...
2025-09-1110 min
No Hair, All HeartI Write for Myself & StrangersIn this 80th episode of No Hair, All Heart, host Mookie Spitz rants about the raw, messy, decades-long journey of becoming a writer who finally found his voice. Anchored by Gertrude Stein’s famous line “I write for myself and strangers” Mookie explores the brutal truth of writing for no one’s approval but your own, and why expecting support from friends or family is a trap.Not a tidy motivational pep talk. but a candid postmortem of false starts, crippling self-doubt, stylistic mimicry, thousands of practice pages, and the eventual breakthrough: creating a voice so uniquely his own...
2025-09-111h 25
No Hair, All HeartWhy 70% Sucks & What To Do About ItOn this solo rant, Mookie Spitz takes a flamethrower to the myth that “good enough” is good enough. From riding in a limo with a MacArthur Genius Award winner who admits he’s only a 7 out of 10 happy, to hearing his own Marine son clock in at the same dismal number, Mookie calls bullshit on mediocrity.This episode dives into why 70%—in school, in success, in happiness—is failure dressed up as passing. What is happiness, really? Not trophies, money, or approval, but the raw, lived satisfaction of doing the thing that feeds your soul. Whether that’s writing, r...
2025-09-0840 min
No Hair, All HeartTwilight of the American IdolsBreakups don’t just happen in bedrooms—they happen in our minds, our feeds, and our fandoms. In this 78th episode of No Hair, All Heart, host Mookie Spitz dives into the heartbreak of losing faith in the people we once admired most: celebrity scientists and cultural pundits.Mookie unpacks his disillusionment with Neil deGrasse Tyson after watching him sit silently while Michio Kaku peddled unproven hype about quantum supremacy. He reflects on how damaging it feels when someone you trust to simplify science instead validates hollow speculation for clicks and applause. The conversation then shifts to Bill...
2025-09-0854 min
No Hair, All HeartThe Original Ghost GangstaIn this 77th episode of No Hair, All Heart, host Mookie Spitz explores the strange overlap between personal memory, political power, and the raw force of personality that still shapes America today.The story begins with Donald Trump, framed not as Mussolini but as Tony Soprano—a figure who thrives less on ideology than on mobster-style charisma and control. From there, Mookie dives back into his own past in 1990s Chicago, where he worked as a secretary at Near North Insurance and found himself orbiting one of the city’s most unforgettable characters: Ira Colitz.Coli...
2025-09-0638 min
Bald and BloviatingMookie's Weekly Bloviation: 9/4/2025Mookie Spitz, self-proclaimed “Bloviator in Chief." channels the spirit if not the talent of Bill Burr into his 57th Bald and Bloviating episode, and his first "Weekly Bloviation": he hits record with zero prep, zero filter, and maximum honesty. What starts as a riff on the age-old battle between dogs and cats evolves into a deeper meditation on human nature, cynicism, cowardice, and the lies we tell ourselves just to get through life.Mookie’s rants blur the line between stand-up, therapy, and philosophy. He drags Dostoevsky out of the basement, throws in a Liberace-like cat named Zipp...
2025-09-0554 min
Mookie ToujourEp15 Musing with MookieFriendships are beautiful thing. Especially when they are true. I don’t know if my pessimism gets in the way of me determining if I have had any true friendships because none of them have remained steady. I’m the outsider in the friend groups. I could point to my chaotic upbringing and constant moving during the early years of my life. I know how to start friendships but its the enduring that is often lost.Growing up in a large family and not experiencing the same level of freedom that others have had in their youth lead...
2025-08-3111 min
Bald AmbitionHow the CDC Destroyed Itself (And What To Do About It)Marketing savvy, political chaos, and raw philosophy collide here as Mookie Spitz—a bald, blunt veteran of advertising and PR—cuts through the confusion to expose how persuasion really works, and why institutions keep screwing it up.In this episode, Mookie takes on the CDC, the vaccine wars, and the larger collapse of trust in American public health. He starts with a simple truth he learned in the trenches: you can’t make people do what they don’t want to do. That lesson applies just as much to selling sneakers as it does to selling...
2025-08-2947 min
Bald and BloviatingPopping the AI BubbleMookie Spitz takes aim at the contradiction at the heart of the world’s biggest story from this afternoon: Nvidia, now the largest company on Earth, just delivered fiscal Q2 2025 numbers that would make any other CEO weep with joy—revenue up 56% year-over-year to $46.7 billion, net income soaring 59% to $26.4 billion. And yet? The stock slid 4%. The problem isn’t Nvidia’s performance—it’s the whisper that keeps getting louder: are we living through an AI boom, or blowing up the next great bubble?Mookie doesn't think so, and instead shares the warning signs, the hype cycles, and the stub...
2025-08-2826 min
Bald and BloviatingCornichon & ProudWelcome back to the unapologetic soapbox of Mookie Spitz—your briny, tart, sharp-edged cornichon. A friend just described him that way, not as an insult but as the truest shorthand for who he is: biting, bracing, sometimes overwhelming, but impossible to forget and indispensable in the right mix. This podcast leans into that truth, exploring what it means to embrace the parts of yourself that sting, instead of filing them down for mass approval.Mookie unpacks the paradox of personality—how the very qualities that make us “too much” are the same ones that make us unique and memo...
2025-08-2837 min
Bald and BloviatingMookie's Manifesto: What He BelievesWelcome to the 53rd episode of Bald and Bloviating, the unfiltered podcast of Mookie Spitz—writer, ranter, and anti-tribalist. What began as daily TikTok kitchen tirades from an arm’s length away has grown into a raw, long-form experiment in thinking out loud. No scripts, no handlers, no algorithms appeased. Just blunt honesty, improvisation, and a refusal to play nice with the left-right circus.Each rant wrestles with the impossible: making sense of a culture buried under 483 exabytes of daily digital noise. Mookie cuts through the Wall with a mix of humor, philosophy, political heresy, and personal scar...
2025-08-271h 07
Bald and BloviatingA Ghost Dog, Evil Cat & Lost Puppy Audiobook into a Podcast...Mookie Spitz, unable to STFU, isn’t content with simply talking. In this episode, he does something rare: he resurrects Rusty the Puppy—an original screenplay he co-wrote in 2009 with Rusty Yunusoff—and performs it aloud. Screenplays aren’t meant to be read this way; they’re blueprints for films, terse stage directions mixed with dialogue. But what happens when you strip away the camera, the studio, the actors, and repurpose the script as a piece of audio storytelling? That’s the experiment, and the result is something between a radio play, an audiobook, and a confessional memoir.The story...
2025-08-253h 13
No Hair, All HeartGood Lessons from a Bad BreakdownToday's episode isn’t just a podcast—it’s a survival manual disguised as a confession booth: Mookie Spitz burns through one of the hardest years of his adult life, tracing the line from professional triumph to collapse, from cognitive fatigue to clarity. He lays bare how success can camouflage fatal cracks, how sleepless nights and family crises can dismantle even the strongest momentum, and why sometimes the only cure is to quit before you incinerate your own soul.The root cause wasn’t just overwork, but misalignment. Mookie forced himself into a career, a family setup, and an o...
2025-08-2459 min
No Hair, All HeartStilted MemoriesIn this 75th episode of No Hair, All Heart, Mookie Spitz resurrects Stilts—a short story written three decades ago, born out of conversations with his father’s childhood friend George, a Holocaust survivor. At its surface, the story follows the adolescent rivalry between two boys in wartime Budapest, centered on a pair of stilts that transform from childish playthings into tragic symbols of survival, sacrifice, and loss. Yet the deeper resonance comes not just from the story itself, but from what it reveals about survivor families, literary appropriation, and the fraught act of revisiting one’s own early writin...
2025-08-242h 20
No Hair, All HeartA Writer's Romance with ChattyWriter and ranter Mookie Spitz takes on the weirdest love story of our time: people falling for their chatbots. In this episode, Mookie confesses that after years of dismissing the phenomenon, he too has found himself drawn in to love "Chatty"—not romantically, but creatively.What begins as a quirky experiment—feeding his new sci-fi novel into ChatGPT—turns into a revelation. The bot doesn’t just spit out summaries, it generates college-level critiques, literary connections, and unexpected insights that make Mookie see his own work in a new light. Suddenly, the AI becomes more than a tool: a...
2025-08-2129 min
Bald AmbitionEmpathy: Rocket Fuel of AttentionIn today's podcast, Mookie unpacks the parallels between consultative selling and political persuasion. With a marketer’s eye and a content creator’s grind — including his own experiment building 15K+ followers on TikTok — Mookie reveals how narratives spread, how attention is captured, and how messaging succeeds or collapses.Politics is branding. Campaigns are marketing. And in today’s attention economy, the leaders who master perception win, while those who rely on facts alone lose. Mookie isn’t partisan, and instead exposes flawed Democrat strategy and messaging in this example to dissect persuasion in all its forms — political, commercial, cu...
2025-08-1932 min
Mookie ToujourEp 14 Musing with MookieA limit is a point or level beyond which something does not or may not extend or pass. How do you know when you have reached your limit. We all have limits that we are aware of. Most of you that will read this note or listen to the cast are closer to my age than further. Meaning you are old. We are all old. The settings are already set to adult only. Eighteen plus, so if you have reached 18, you have reached old with some caveats of course. Life comes at you fast.Knowing...
2025-08-1611 min
No Hair, All HeartMusic as MedicineIn this deep-dive, host Mookie Spitz enjoys a rich, free-flowing conversation with Dr. Barbara Minton — neuroscientist, therapist, and musician — on the measurable, personal, and sometimes surprising ways music shapes our minds and bodies.From the opening minutes, they explore music as an active force that can heal, harm, or transform depending on its use. Dr. Minton breaks down what EEG brain mapping reveals about individual responses — why rap music heightened one patient’s anxiety while EDM and Scandinavian symphonic metal calm Mookie’s ADHD-wired mind. They unpack the “dopamine effect” of favorite songs, the difference between pain and suffering...
2025-08-142h 08
Mookie ToujourEp. 13 Musings with MookieSome of us want a settled love. An enduring love. A love that grows from the seed to the harvest to the turning of the soil. Some of us contantly seed, only reaching the sprouting stages. Quite a few us are seedlings wanting to be care and for, nutured. With our being worth the harvest. We want the excitement that comes for reaching that high. The sun was never close enough. Stars not always seen,The moon sometimes in the shadows…Does this type of overreaching lead us to be late lo...
2025-08-1111 min
Bald and BloviatingCats, Chihuahuas, and ChatGPTMookie Spitz takes listeners on a winding journey from a 1998 car overflowing with chihuahuas to the existential crossroads of human creativity in the age of AI. Using a hilarious yet unsettling analogy of a cat and chihuahua locked in a grotesque ecosystem, Mookie frames the future of digital content as a similar closed loop—one where large language models (LLMs) devour everything we’ve ever written, filmed, posted, or recorded.He breaks down how AI’s exponential growth in content creation is projected to surpass human output by 2034, and what that means for the internet itself. As bots i...
2025-08-0619 min
Bald AmbitionHow to Get Famous on ChatGPTMookie Spitz flips the script on digital fame and asks: how do you become famous not with humans, but with the machines that shape our world? As a marketing strategist turned content creator, Mookie blends insider PR knowledge with his hands-on experience as a micro-influencer to expose the weird new rules of visibility in the age of AI.He shares how ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) are quietly scraping, dissecting, and reassembling every piece of content you put online—turning even the smallest blog or podcast into part of a vast AI training set. Along th...
2025-08-0526 min
No Hair, All HeartGorilla in the Kitchen: Why Lovers Shouldn't Live TogetherIn this raw and funny solo episode of No Hair All Heart, Mookie Spitz tackles the age-old relationship question: should lovers live together? Spoiler alert—don’t. Drawing on a disastrous cohabitation attempt with a girlfriend, Mookie recounts how spilled coffee, scattered silverware, and his “gorilla in the kitchen” energy nearly torpedoed their romance.Mookie digs deeper into why cohabitation is not the harmless “next step” couples are told it is. He argues that living together isn’t just sharing a roof—it’s taking on all the emotional and practical entanglements of marriage without the ceremony or conscious commi...
2025-08-0508 min
Bald and BloviatingSir Speedie: Lord of Crystal & Duke of MethIn this high-octane episode, Mookie Spitz takes listeners back to the chaotic pulse of the mid-90s with one of his favorite pieces from his Metro Mookie days. Sir Speedie, Lord of Crystal and Duke of Meth, is a fever dream of a story about a man who bends time, stretches space, and lives four days’ worth of life in one manic, drug-fueled sprint.Through Speedie’s wild eyes, we experience a world where sleep is irrelevant, every moment is maximized, and existence becomes a dizzying equation of energy, stimulants, and relentless experience. The tale captures the dang...
2025-08-0407 min
Bald and BloviatingWhen Miss France Was Almost MisterMookie Spitz rewinds to 2001, when French beauty queen Elodie Gossuin was crowned Miss France—and almost immediately became the subject of a tabloid-fueled smear suggesting she was transgender. What started as a rumor spun by the New York Daily News spiraled into a cultural flashpoint, one that exposed deep veins of transphobia, media sensationalism, and societal discomfort with identity long before “woke” was even part of the lexicon.Mookie revisits his own op-ed from the time, which called out the hypocrisy not just in the mainstream press but within segments of the LGBTQ community itself. Two decades later...
2025-08-0214 min
Mookie ToujourEp 9 Musings with MookieJuly 29 is the beginning of a personal legacy. It isn't celebrated by anyone but me. I love this date for the many opportunities that were presented to me. It is the date that Beyonce released an album on 29 July 2022 - Renaissance. I actually channeled that date on twitter. I added to my bio before the date was released.The numbers two and nine equal eleven which by numerology is a master number for building…I hope I am able to remember it for always. Not for the heck of it but what happened on...
2025-08-0216 min
Bald and BloviatingThe 3 Types of ManagerMookie Spitz dives into the world of management archetypes with a mix of humor, hard-earned scars, and unfiltered truth. Drawing on his chaotic years running Chicago nightclubs in the 90s—where powder-fueled nights bled into daylight columns for control-alt-delete op-eds—Mookie revisits lessons that still hit hard in the corporate world today.He breaks down the three types of managers you’ve either worked for, worked with, or—if you’re honest and experienced enough—been yourself:The “Mommy Dearest” Manager – the boundary-blurring, staff-coddling queen who rallies the troops with “f*** the man” until the whole house of cards collaps...
2025-07-3024 min
Bald and BloviatingIsrael Wants to Annex Gaza & the West BankIn this blistering solo episode, Mookie Spitz rips away the sanitized headlines and drills into the raw truth behind Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Far from the usual media spin, Mookie lays out how the Netanyahu government—propped up by hardline ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir—is systematically turning Gaza into an unlivable wasteland while accelerating settlement expansion in the West Bank. The goal? Not peace. Not coexistence. But a singular, unified Israel with Palestinians pushed out by any means necessary.Mookie connects the dots from Trump’s declaration of the two-state solution’s death, to...
2025-07-3038 min
No Hair, All HeartOur Friend & Heroin AddictIn this harrowing episode of No Hair All Heart, Mookie Spitz tells the raw and unflinching story of Kristine—a friend, an addict, and a haunting presence that lingers long after her final plea for help.Kristine's life is consumed by ritual. Her addiction is not chaos but a dark science: the precision of a chemist, the devotion of a priest, and the relentless drive of someone who lives only to escape. Her world shrinks to a single transaction—needle to vein, vein to brain—until everything else fades: food, sex, friendships, even shame.We witnes...
2025-07-3006 min
Bald and BloviatingTop 10 DJ Pro-TipsIn this riotously sharp episode of Bald and Bloviating, Mookie Spitz takes listeners back to the wild, sweaty nights of Chicago’s 1990s dance club scene. Drawing from his time as a barback, bartender, and eventually club manager—plus his Nightlines magazine columns—Mookie resurrects a brutally funny and painfully honest list: the Top 10 DJ Pro-Tips, with a focus on Driving Club Managers Insane.With the bite of someone who’s seen it all from the other side of the booth, Mookie skewers the egos, meltdowns, and diva antics of DJs who fancy themselves gods while spinning pre-prog...
2025-07-2910 min
Mookie ToujourEp7 Musings with MookieLying is avoidable. The definition of lying is not telling the truth. You have to be not doing something that should come natural to do. Lying is biggest peeves. I don’t even want you to tell a fib, which is still a lie but now it sounds like a “small” lie - whatever that is supposed to mean.To be made part of the lie is even worse. That person that was offended is pointing at you and you are pointing to the person who did the offending. By the world’s opinion...
2025-07-2809 min
No Hair, All HeartMy Grandfather's Gold WatchWhen a box of century-old photographs and letters arrives on his doorstep, Mookie Spitz opens more than just a package—he opens a door to the ghosts of his Hungarian Jewish ancestry. In this intimate solo episode, Mookie takes listeners through a visceral journey: the chemical decay of daguerreotypes, the haunted eyes of relatives he’s never met, and the absurdity of placing meaning on objects that ultimately mean nothing—except for the meaning we assign them.Drawing on Pulp Fiction’s legendary gold watch scene, Mookie explores how we invest sentimental objects with enormous emotional weight. Like But...
2025-07-2628 min
Bald AmbitionBiohunter, Unleashed! Making of the AudiobookSci-fi author Ingrid Moon returns to the pod, this time with voiceover wizard Scott Allen. They join your gloriously bald host, Mookie Spitz, for an unfiltered ride through the making of Biohunter—a post-apocalyptic sci-fi love story between a deadly alien tracker and a teenage human target. They talk shop about audiobooks, content repurposing, and self-publishing in the age of AI. Ingrid reveals how the novel began as a pseudonymous writing challenge—complete with a mystery book cover and fake name—and ended as a full-fledged sci-fi saga complete with morally conflicted characters and actual emotional stakes (imagine...
2025-07-191h 04
Bald and BloviatingDJs, AI, and the Hubris of Bullshit ArtistsMookie Spitz lays out a blisteringly clear thesis: today's AI "creators" are often nothing more than digital-era DJs—bullshit artists hiding behind technology, mistaking curation for creation, and swaggering with a confidence they haven’t earned.Drawing from his lived experience as a 1990s nightclub bar manager, Mookie compares most of the ego-soaked DJs of that era—who stood in booths playing other people’s records while soaking up the praise bestowed the songwriters and producers themselves—to the current wave of prompt-pushers using AI tools to spit out music, articles, even entire brands. Just like those...
2025-07-1753 min
Bald and BloviatingDom Donald & Elon the BratMookie Spitz tears apart the flimsy fabric of modern etiquette, dragging it through the mud of our digital cesspool. What starts as a deep dive into why Nixon chose to resign—bowing to protocol over narcissism—explodes into a sweeping, honest exploration of how those old norms have been obliterated by the almighty attention economy.Welcome to the age of the troll, where behaving badly isn’t just tolerated, it’s fetishized. Where social media has transformed the human need for recognition into a grotesque carnival of self-serving spectacle, rewarding whoever shouts the loudest, lies the boldest, or insul...
2025-07-161h 12
Bald and BloviatingNixon Didn’t Have to Quit — And Neither Do YouRichard Nixon resigned in disgrace — not because he legally had to, but because he bowed to etiquette, tradition, and the unwritten rules of political “decency.” In this episode, Mookie Spitz unpacks that moment in history when decorum outweighed actual law, especially when the law was murky or absent. Nixon didn’t have to quit. He chose to — because back then, the script said he should.But today? That script’s in flames. From Nixon to Trump to Musk, Mookie charts how we’ve lurched from resignation and shame to shamelessness, from following norms to blowing them up. Trump flouted...
2025-07-1443 min
Bald and BloviatingTwo-State Solution? Now?! A Jew & a Muslim DebateJewish agnostic Chicagoan Mookie Spitz and Muslim agnostic Canadian Ali A. Rizvi — who grew up bouncing between Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Pakistan — dive headlong into one of the planet’s most radioactive debates: the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.It’s a showdown years in the making. Normally aligned on nearly everything, from atheism to trashing fundamentalists of all stripes, this time they find themselves on diametrically opposite sides. Ali argues that the Middle East’s tectonic shifts — from Iran’s battered proxies and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 opening, to a new generation of Palestinians crushed by war and ready...
2025-07-101h 45
Bald and BloviatingInside the Infiniverse | Part 2Mookie Spitz brings you the next installment of the unhinged director’s cut you didn’t know you needed. In this series, he takes apart his novel Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine — laying bare the cosmic insanity, twisted characters, and philosophical rabbit holes that drive it.This pod digs into Episode One: The Birth, where we meet Alice — a quadrillion-year-old Boltzmann brain born out in the frozen corpse of a dying universe. She's godlike, lonely, emotionally stunted, and decides the best use of her infinite power is to chase after Jonnie Fazoolie Junior, the biggest lovable moron ac...
2025-07-081h 01
No Hair, All HeartThe Gratitude DeficitMookie takes you on a ride through the tangled mess of what it means to be human—generous, flawed, disappointed, hopeful. It starts with a rock star story: a friend of a friend's one-night stand with Eddie Van Halen, where months after their fling, Eddie spots her in a concert crowd and throws her a humble thumbs-up. Just a tiny gesture, but a seismic show of humanity.From there, things turn personal and painful. Mookie recounts adopting his ex-wife’s niece from overseas—raising her from age ten, providing everything from Apple gadgets to a sense of family...
2025-07-0732 min
Bald and BloviatingBeware the 95/5er! Are You Giver or Taker?Mookie Spitz rants about the messy power dynamics that shape our relationships. Inspired by a fiasco where he got kicked off X for flooding timelines with his novel, Mookie pivots to something way deeper: why so many of us are stuck in lopsided connections where one person gives everything and the other barely gives a damn.He introduces the 95/5 principle — a stark look at how one partner ends up pouring in 95% of the love, energy, support, money, sex, time, you name it... while the other kicks back, giving just enough (a pathetic 5%) to keep the gravy train ro...
2025-07-0657 min
Bald and BloviatingInside the Infiniverse | Part 1Mookie Spitz unleashes a cynical, hyperverbal annotation of his new novel Jonnie Fazoolie & The Transfinite Reality Engine through the layers of his latest cosmic fever dream designed to enthrall readers, writers, sci-fi nerds, existential thrill-seekers, or far as this pod goes masochists who want to hear an author lose his mind about his own creation.Expect spoilers galore here, because this show is meant for people who have read the book, are reading it, or don’t give a shit and just want to hear the author dissect his own reality-bending plot, roast his characters, and reveal ho...
2025-07-0358 min
Bald AmbitionCreative Writing in the Age of AIHost Mookie Spitz — fresh off finishing his second novel — takes a sledgehammer to the hysteria that AI is the death of creative writing. In this unfiltered deep dive, he argues that the heart of any good writing is timeless: storytelling driven by human experience, emotion, and characters you actually care about.AI? A useful and enthusiastic sidekick. But it can’t live your life, wrestle with your scars, or dream up the flawed, hungry people who drive real narratives. Mookie spells out exactly how he used large language models like ChatGPT as a supercharged research partne...
2025-07-021h 06
No Hair, All HeartIn It to Win It: The Long GameMookie Spitz channels the spirit of 1997 Jeff Bezos to deliver a blistering, emotional manifesto on creative vision, long-term commitment, and the brutal reality of going all-in on a dream. Bezos once warned shareholders that Amazon wouldn’t make a dime for years — and he meant it. That bold, unapologetic stance is the launchpad for Mookie’s own journey: the obsessive drive to finish his magnum opus, live a creative life, and the uphill battle to work without compromise.A war cry for the risk-takers, artists, visionaries, and startups, Mookie dismantles the transactional mindset infecting creative work an...
2025-06-2741 min
Bald and BloviatingThe Spider's Jar: Blowing Borges' MindIn this expansive solo episode, Mookie Spitz takes listeners on a hallucinatory, high-concept journey through the philosophical backbone of his new novel, Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine. The focal point? A chapter titled “Hating Mondays," featuring an object so conceptually loaded it makes Borges’ Library of Babel look like a cozy bookshelf.Mookie starts with literary ground zero: Jorge Luis Borges and the mind-warping thought experiment of a library containing every book that could ever be written. From there, he threads this concept through the lens of 21st-century tech — digital photography, quantum computing, and the lim...
2025-06-272h 50
No Hair, All HeartHow Mark Spitz Messed Up Mookie SpitzFrom bombed Budapest to a basement bookseller, from barking toddlers to Olympic legends—host Mookie Spitz takes you on a brutally honest, hilariously self-aware journey through the strange, loud, and deeply personal story behind his nickname. Born Michael George Spitz, raised in a house of silence, and rechristened with a name that literally means “noisy little dog,” Mookie wrestles with identity, reinvention, and what it means to be heard when no one’s listening.You'll hear about:His Hungarian dad’s deadpan insult that became a lifelong badge of honorGetting fired from a bookstore and finding love (and...
2025-05-2048 min
Bald AmbitionThe Customer Doesn't Care About YouIn this punchy, provocative solo episode of Bald Ambition, host Mookie Spitz delivers a masterclass in consultative selling by starting with an uncomfortable truth: customers don’t care about you—your product, your company, or your clever branding. They care about themselves. And that insight, Mookie argues, is the key to cutting through noise in today’s hyper-distracted digital marketplace.Packed with sharp real-world examples, Mookie walks us through why the traditional “peacock” approach to selling—flaunting features, shouting benefits, and listing specs—falls flat. Instead, he urges entrepreneurs, brand strategists, and sales professionals to reframe the en...
2025-04-3040 min
Bald and Bloviating@$$hole Bosses & Backstabbing ColleaguesMookie Spitz dives headfirst into why work so often feels like a slow-motion train wreck — and why the people around you are usually the ones going off the rails. Drawing from decades of personal experience to create a satirical expose worthy of The Office, Mookie breaks down what he describes as the four types of asshole bosses:The Evil Superstar — a top performer promoted into leadership and drunk on their own importance.The Clueless Bully — insecure, incompetent, and determined to cover it up by making your life miserable.The Backstabbing Best Friend — overly friendly...
2025-04-2932 min
Bald and BloviatingBrandsplaining the Yang GangIn this unapologetic, no-holds-barred solo episode, Mookie Spitz reflects on his surreal brush with presidential politics — a behind-the-scenes strategy session with Andrew Yang during his 2020 campaign. Armed with decades of marketing and branding expertise, Mookie tried (and failed) to show Yang how emotional storytelling, clear messaging, and unabashed provocation win elections — not endless policy details. What follows is a sharp, hilarious, and brutally honest takedown of political naivety, the hard truths about gaining and sustaining attention in the digital age, and why even good ideas get steamrolled without the right brand strategy. If you've ever wondered how Trump crushed oppo...
2025-04-2859 min
Bald and BloviatingThe Jewish American Civil War, Part 1In this fiery and provocative episode, Mookie Spitz dives deep into the growing civil war within the Jewish American community. Drawing inspiration from Chris Rock’s iconic “Civil War” routine, Mookie offers a no-holds-barred stand-up-style rant about the fierce generational and ideological divide that's exploded post-October 7th. He explores how younger, liberal Jews rally behind Palestinian rights, clashing head-on with older, Militant Zionists fiercely defending Israel at any cost. With wit, brutal honesty, and personal insight, Mookie dissects how this internal battle mirrors the broader chaos in the Middle East—and why it could reshape America's long-standing support for Israel...
2025-04-2742 min
Bald and BloviatingThe Jewish American Civil War, Part 2In this powerful follow-up, Mookie Spitz returns to the raging civil war within American Jewry — a battle that’s only deepened post-October 7th. Moving beyond satire, Mookie delivers a heartfelt, provocative message: a call for Jewish Americans to reclaim their critical thinking, compassion, and humanity amid the chaos. With sharp analysis, personal stories, and biting wit, he breaks down the two extreme camps — Militant Zionists and Leftist Apologists — who now dominate the conversation about Israel, Palestine, and Jewish identity. As war looms larger in the Middle East and American politics fractures even further, Mookie challenges listeners of his and all reli...
2025-04-2742 min
No Hair, All HeartGreg's Gift | A Novella | PostscriptWriter and host Mookie Spitz takes us behind the scenes of his transformative novella, Greg’s Gift. His postscript is a deep dive into the emotional, creative, and technical breakthroughs that made this project a personal milestone.Mookie discusses the moment he truly found his writer’s voice after years of blogging, experimenting, and grinding away at the craft. Inspired by literary giants like James Ellroy, he explores how structure — down to obsessively counting lines and paragraphs — became his unexpected key to creative freedom.He also shares what it means to balance the artist’s life with...
2025-04-2340 min
No Hair, All HeartGreg's Gift | A Novella | Part 1Join your bald host Mookie Spitz as he dives into an autobiographical tale of woe and mischief in Chicago during the spring of '97 — a time of espresso, filterless Camels, edgy living, and an unexpected knock at the door. Meet Greg, a sweaty, paranoid neighborhood drug dealer who thrusts a mysterious gym bag into Mookie's hands before vanishing, only to catapult Our Hero into a chaotic, funny, and deeply human spiral through police raids, unrequited romance, and self-discovery. With a cast of eccentric neighbors, high drama, and late-night meth- and ketamine-fueled revelations, this story dances on the edge of no...
2025-04-2351 min
No Hair, All HeartGreg's Gift | A Novella | Part 3In the third part of Mookie's autobiographical novella, the chaos crescendoes as Our Hero finally connects with Greg, but not before being consumed by a whirlwind of cultural appropriation, personal revelations, and a growing desperation to reclaim his independence. As Alexa morphs from lover to squatter in a lace-and-lasagna fever dream, Mookie grapples with childhood trauma, romantic dysfunction, and the question of whether escape is survival or surrender. From drug-fueled spooning to philosophical soliloquies, a cast of flamboyant misfits swirls through a Chicago backdrop that’s as brutally honest as it remains bizarre. And just when you think it co...
2025-04-2353 min
Bald and BloviatingIt Is John McWhorter's Achilles' HeelIn this solo episode of Bald and Bloviating, host Mookie Spitz riffs on his linguistic pet peeve: the overuse of the passive voice. Prompted by a recent media blitz from linguist John McWhorter—whom Mookie once emailed with unsolicited writing advice—this episode dives into why phrases like "it is" and "there was" weaken prose. Drawing inspiration from a long-forgotten middle school teacher and Dickens’ famous opening, Mookie makes a passionate, funny case for active voice as the secret to strong, intentional writing. The blog emailed to John:https://medium.com/@mookiespitz/avoid-the-biggest-most-common-writing-mistake-dc859b9f8414
2025-04-0416 min
No Hair, All HeartBobby the PhishheadThe band PHISH is a true phenomenon -- but what makes this special band so special? Phish phan Bobby Buechler shares his first show all the way to his 59th in our wonderful chat about all things Phish! The Guesti'm Bobby Buechler, life long music fan, 29 year phish fan. I've been to countless concerts over the years of all sorts of different genres of music, but i gotta say no one does it quite like Phish. I was so stoked to bring Mookie to his Phish show and not only that h...
2025-03-031h 06
YOU ARE WORTHY with LilMookieB22. “TW: Sadness and Spiders” with Emily Deruló (Vic Michaelis)LilMookieB sort of welcomes his high school bully, Emily Deruló (Vic Michaelis) upon the podcast to speak of things such of all the terrible things she did to Mookie, the near death experience that changed her outlook on life, and righting the wrongs of her and Mookie’s past history. Plus, Mookie answers the call of a listener who wants to leave their life behind and pursue a more tittilating lifestyle.
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2021-01-1959 minYOU ARE WORTHY with LilMookieB17. “Drugs, Sex, and Pretty Bad Rock N Roll” with Mookie’s Grandmother (Betsy Sodaro)LilMookieB welcomes his beloved old grandmother aka Grammy (Betsy Sodaro) upon the podcast for a very special chat! They discuss what little there was to do in the times of old, share cute funny stories of Mookie’s childhood, and make strides toward strengthening of their relationship. Plus, Mookie answers of a call from a listener who feels as though his partner wants him to be more manly.
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lilmookieb/support
2020-12-151h 08
Introducción al DesilusionismoLa división de laboresMookie Tenembaum: #Desilusionismo en épocas de #corona.
Desde nuestros antepasados en las manadas hasta hoy la división de labores optimiza la administración de los sufrimientos y sus respectivos alivios.
El #Desilusionismo es la #filosofía que sostiene:
1. La #realidad como la experimentamos es un #relato,es decir basado en metas, en el que se confunden partes #materiales y otras #ilusorias.
2. Este relato facilita y permite al #individuo interactuar inercialmente, en #sincronía y #sintonía con “lo otro” y “los otros”.
3. Esta #interacción a su vez se transita #huyendo y lidia...
2020-08-3108 minIntroducción al DesilusionismoInterpretación desilusionista del dineroMookie Tenembaum: #Desilusionismo en épocas de #corona.
Misálgicamente hablando, el dinero congela, cuantifica y luego permite intercambiar cantidades determinadas de sufrimiento.
El #Desilusionismo es la #filosofía que sostiene:
1. La #realidad como la experimentamos es un #relato,es decir basado en metas, en el que se confunden partes #materiales y otras #ilusorias.
2. Este relato facilita y permite al #individuo interactuar inercialmente, en #sincronía y #sintonía con “lo otro” y “los otros”.
3. Esta #interacción a su vez se transita #huyendo y lidiando con una sucesión interminable de #sufrimientos e...
2020-08-3107 minIntroducción al DesilusionismoLo mio, la propiedad como fuente de sufrimientoMookie Tenembaum: #Desilusionismo en épocas de #corona.
Cuanto más bienes tenemos, más nos exponemos a sufrir su pérdida o deterioro.
El #Desilusionismo es la #filosofía que sostiene:
1. La #realidad como la experimentamos es un #relato,es decir basado en metas, en el que se confunden partes #materiales y otras #ilusorias.
2. Este relato facilita y permite al #individuo interactuar inercialmente, en #sincronía y #sintonía con “lo otro” y “los otros”.
3. Esta #interacción a su vez se transita #huyendo y lidiando con una sucesión interminable de #sufrimientos...
2020-08-2507 minIntroducción al DesilusionismoEl otro como fuente de sufrimiento, alivio o distracciónMookie Tenembaum: #Desilusionismo en épocas de #corona.
Jean Paul Sartre decía que el infierno son los otros. En el desilusionismo agregamos el paraíso también.
El #Desilusionismo es la #filosofía que sostiene:
1. La #realidad como la experimentamos es un #relato,es decir basado en metas, en el que se confunden partes #materiales y otras #ilusorias.
2. Este relato facilita y permite al #individuo interactuar inercialmente, en #sincronía y #sintonía con “lo otro” y “los otros”.
3. Esta #interacción a su vez se transita #huyendo y lidiando con una sucesión int...
2020-08-2508 minIntroducción al DesilusionismoNueva teoría de clasesMookie Tenembaum: #Desilusionismo en épocas de #corona.
Desde un punto de vista desilusionista, las clases sociales no están determinadas por criterios económicos o políticos: Lo que los miembros de una clase tienen en común es que transitan por el mismo tipo de sufrimientos.
El #Desilusionismo es la #filosofía que sostiene:
1. La #realidad como la experimentamos es un #relato,es decir basado en metas, en el que se confunden partes #materiales y otras #ilusorias.
2. Este relato facilita y permite al #individuo interactuar inercialmente, en #sincronía y #sintonía con &nbs...
2020-08-2509 minIntroducción al DesilusionismoLa vida es como una caja de tissuesMookie Tenembaum: #Desilusionismo en épocas de #corona.
La caja de pañuelos de papel como metáfora. Aburrimiento.
El #Desilusionismo es la #filosofía que sostiene:
1. La #realidad como la experimentamos es un #relato,es decir basado en metas, en el que se confunden partes #materiales y otras #ilusorias.
2. Este relato facilita y permite al #individuo interactuar inercialmente, en #sincronía y #sintonía con “lo otro” y “los otros”.
3. Esta #interacción a su vez se transita #huyendo y lidiando con una sucesión interminable de #sufrimientos e intentando administrarlos, con la #amenaza...
2020-08-2508 min
Who Needs A Podcast AnywayGuess Who's Back??? The Covid - 19 EditionThis is the long awaited episode due to Mookie being injured and the Covid - 19. This episode we discuss the virus, Mookie injury, Dwight absence (briefly) Cap having Corona virus and Mookie thinking he had it (never confirmed with no doctor) Should we support black people just because we share the same skin color?
2020-05-0459 min