In 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 voice of his own inner saboteur. What begins as absurd comedy spirals into something eerily honest: a meditation on isolation, self-critique, and the trap of confusing suffering with creativity.

But this isn’t a pity party, instead a declaration of freedom. Mookie grinds that cockroach — literal and psychological — underfoot and reclaims joy in creation. The episode becomes a celebration of rebirth as the artist learns to share, to give back, to enjoy his output without apology. Kafka’s hunger artist finally eats.

Along the way, expect rants about Max Brod’s betrayal (or salvation), the absurdity of self-importance in art, the emotional cost of perfectionism, and a surprisingly tender reflection on fatherhood and gratitude. By the end, Mookie connects his late-life creative surge to something universal: that the “metamorphosis” isn’t about decay, but about finally hatching into yourself.

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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 and Bloviating episode is part confession, part sermon, part flamethrower. Mookie draws lines between the ease-poisoned world of AI art and the sweat-stained grind of real creation, between the sous-chef’s burn scars and the diner’s luxury, between heaven and hell as two rooms divided by one thin wall. The verdict? If you’re not bleeding for it, you’re probably bullshitting.

A Picasso...

• Works daily — even when uninspired, broke, or ignored.
• Creates out of compulsion, not validation.
• Finds joy in the process, not the applause.
• Welcomes discomfort as proof that something real is happening.
• Treats art like labor — a grind, a calling, a job you can’t quit.
• Doesn’t wait for “the right time” or “perfect idea.” They make time.
• Knows that meaning comes during the work, not before it.

An Assho'...

• Talks about creating more than they actually create.
• Mistakes taste for talent, and intellect for output.
• Hides behind perfectionism — “It’s not ready yet.”
• Curates the appearance of artistry instead of doing the work.
• Thinks inspiration is earned by thinking, not doing.
• Quits when applause doesn’t come fast enough.
• Believes effort should be easy — that creation shouldn’t hurt.

Which are you?

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In 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 the orbit of media’s new ruling class.

But the beating heart of this episode is Mookie’s volatile, funny, and deeply human friendship with Faisal — a relationship that swung between mentorship and dependency, affection and exhaustion. Half Wayne's World bromance, half De Niro–Keitel in Mean Streets, theirs was a 95/5 friendship: one man giving, the other consuming, both feeding on the electricity of shared trauma and manic humor. Late nights in Brooklyn bled into philosophical brawls, metal shows, and endless laughter — until it all collapsed under ego, fatigue, and the unspoken truth that one was always performing for the other.

Their story is of mentorship gone sideways, of PR ideals colliding with post-truth branding, and of the uneasy blend of altruism, ego, and spectacle that powers modern advocacy. Mookie dissects how social capital morphs into moral capital, how contrarians become institutions, and how even the most self-aware blowhard can find meaning in being both gardener and plant.

Equal parts confessional memoir and cultural autopsy, this episode delivers wit, candor, and uncomfortable honesty about fame, friendship, and the shifting moral gravity of our media age.

In the end — as Vonnegut wrote — so it goes. Every movement becomes mainstream, every outsider becomes establishment, and every friendship, however electric, burns itself into a kind of truth that can only be told after the smoke clears.

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Step 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 the way, he unpacks the deeper meaning behind cosplay as camp, the difference between L.A. Comic Con and its cousins in San Diego and New York, and the eternal struggle every creator faces—chasing attention in a saturated digital world without selling out your soul.

He also lays down battle-tested best practices for any creator trying to sell at a con:

• Put QR codes everywhere (Amazon links, newsletters, payment apps).
• Covers matter more than content—make them bold, professional, and on-genre (MAYA: Most Advanced Yet Acceptable).
• Invest in signage, posters, and visuals that legitimize your booth.
• Give away freebies (bookmarks, stickers, cards) that double as conversion tools.
• Personalize signings with the event name—it turns a book into a keepsake.
• Always be converting: if they don’t buy, leave them with your QR code or email.
• Engage passersby with humor and small talk—don’t wait for them to approach.
• Lead with the pitch, not the synopsis (“Fallout meets Hunger Games” sells faster than 60 seconds of plot).
• Tailor your pitch to their tastes—make it about them, not you.
• Value networking as much as sales—the long game matters.

Mookie's rant isn’t just a recap of a convention; but a meditation on why we create, why we sell, and why we still show up. Expect stories of sore feet, overpriced sandwiches, surprising sales wins, unexpected encounters, and the lessons that stick long after the crowds go home.

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Mookie 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, lockdowns, and mandates. Instead of nuanced risk assessments, Americans got one-size-fits-all decrees and moral scolding. The result? A predictable whiplash backlash that empowered conspiracy cranks and made neighbors hate each other. Just like with media: tell people what they must think, what they must watch, what they must inject, and they’ll rebel.

But this isn’t just a political tirade—it’s also a philosophical one. Mookie detours into the world of mathematics—Terry Tao, Grigori Perelman, the Riemann hypothesis and Poincare conjecture—to underscore the point that greatness requires total dedication, not whining. Tao chose jam sandwiches and PTA meetings over immortality. Perelman proved the Poincaré conjecture but rejected a million-dollar prize. Both choices make sense, but they reveal the same truth: stop expecting the world to hand you fulfillment. Do the work or don’t—but don’t blame everyone else for your own inertia.

The rant builds to a cultural diagnosis: America has grown addicted to grievance. We point fingers at the other party, the government, the baker who won’t sell us a cake, the employer who shut down the plant. We brand ourselves as victims rather than taking responsibility, adapting, or moving forward. In the process, we’re poisoning our own society, turning abundance into bitterness and freedom into fuel for endless outrage.

By the end, the message is blunt but liberating: stop griping, stop blaming, stop outsourcing your happiness to politicians or bureaucrats. Live and let live. Bake your own cake—or order a birthday pizza. It’s not the end of the world.

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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 collapse of nuance, from Biden’s “zombie presidency” to Trump’s scorched-earth showmanship. Along the way, Mookie dissects the FCC’s role in media consolidation, the late-night purge of comics like Jimmy Kimmel and Colbert, and the authoritarian sleight of hand happening right behind the curtain.

But his rant isn’t just another partisan tirade. Mookie skewers both sides with equal ferocity, exposing the delusion, cowardice, and theft that underpin tribal politics. He weaves in riffs on Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Will & Grace, Nixon’s ghost, and even genetic drift—building a raw, unscripted narrative about why Americans can’t seem to think critically, why nuance makes people uncomfortable, and why liars, cowards, and thieves thrive in a system addicted to outrage.

The episode closes on a paradox: America may be boiling over with corruption, polarization, and performative rage that's headed toward direct influence and control of media by the White House, but the brand of our great nation is still freedom. The chaos itself might be the last proof that we haven’t slid fully into authoritarianism—yet.

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Where 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. Empathy has collapsed, nuance has evaporated, and truth itself is now an illusion.

The rant doesn’t stop at diagnosis. Drawing on Radical Candor (Ray Dalio, Kim Scott), Mookie reframes the conversation: real change only happens when you challenge directly and care personally. He maps the dysfunction of political tribes across the candor matrix—ruinous empathy, manipulative insincerity, obnoxious aggression—before staking out the only quadrant that keeps communication alive.

But the deeper point is this: when everyone else is screaming or shutting down, it falls to the artist to break the stalemate. The role of the provocateur is to voice what others won’t, to turn personal rant into shared catharsis. Art becomes the only space left where honesty can bleed out, the only place where the noise can be repurposed into meaning.

Funny, furious, and painfully honest, Mookie reminds listeners that silence is not golden when the world is on fire. His big mouth has gotten him hired, fired, unfollowed, and unsubscribed—but it’s also what keeps him writing, ranting, and resisting the noise.

Bloviating Blog

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In 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 that disconnect between personal taste and public reception still shapes his approach to art and audience.

But this isn’t just about music metrics. The episode takes a hard turn into politics, free speech, and the fallout from Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Mookie dissects the cultural backlash around trans rights, weaving in his past interview with a trans friend whose perspective unexpectedly echoed a MAGA supporter’s frustrations. The result is a no-bullshit exploration of polarization, identity politics, and the stubborn refusal to placate any tribe.

The thread tying it all together: agency. Whether it’s creating art without pandering, speaking uncomfortable truths, or owning your opinions in a climate where outrage rules, Mookie insists on being the “cornichon” on the charcuterie plate—sour, sharp, and essential.

Join Mookie at his most unfiltered: part confession, part provocation, part philosophical rant.

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