Meghan Murphy is a writer, podcaster, and one of the original people to get canceled on Twitter — permanently banned in 2018 for tweeting "men aren't women, though" and referring to a man who wanted to get his testicles waxed as "him." She's been writing and podcasting independently ever since, and she now lives in Mexico. We talked about: the tweet that got her banned and the Yaniv waxing lawsuits that triggered it; Canada's Bill C16 and what it actually means to have gender identity law on the books; losing venues, hiring private security, and getting stalked around her Vancouver neighborhood; how Joe Rogan and Elon Musk both played a role in keeping her career alive; why she left Canada in January 2021; the cartel "protest" that burned some cars, got wildly exaggerated online, and tanked the tourist season in her Mexican town; the fear of fun — Andrew Huberman, Bryan Johnson, Gen Z, and the obsession with optimizing yourself out of actually living; why she's happier single; why "nobody wants you after 35" is not true; and why guys who call attractive women "mid" are almost certainly not having sex with real women. Follow Meghan on X → @MeghanEMurphy Meghan on Substack → substack.com/@meghanmurphy TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Meghan Murphy? 0:45 — The tweet that got her banned: "Men aren't women, though" 1:36 — Jessica Yaniv and the waxing lawsuits — the rabbit hole 3:20 — Trans widows, skin suits, and Lou's Black Mirror idea 5:15 — Canada's Bill C16 — gender identity legislation and its consequences 6:07 — Getting banned at 11pm on a Friday — and crying at the bar 7:22 — Losing venues, getting no-platformed, and hiring private security for talks 7:46 — Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and getting back on X 9:10 — How a ban silences other people — the chilling effect 9:54 — Her entire left-wing social circle turned on her 10:43 — Canada's speech laws — brushing up against criminal charges 12:05 — Leaving Vancouver in January 2021 — Covid authoritarianism and fear 13:27 — Stalked in her neighborhood, verbally attacked in public, constant threats 15:03 — Canada vs. America — why things changed here but not there 15:37 — Trump, Canada as the 51st state, and touring with Scott Thompson 18:18 — Life in Mexico — why she stayed and never went back 20:29 — Gentrification, gringos, and the cartel "protest" that tanked the tourist season 26:59 — The fear of fun — Andrew Huberman, Gen Z, and the obsession with optimization 30:55 — Bryan Johnson measuring his son's nighttime erections 33:40 — Living forever for what? If you're not having fun, what's the point? 35:46 — Lou weighs his food — and his brother smokes and has the same cholesterol 37:53 — Being single vs. married — and why Meghan is happier alone 40:12 — "Nobody wants you after 35" — why that's not true 44:10 — Porn, Instagram filters, and why guys don't understand real attraction 48:04 — Lou meets his wife — the audible "wow" at the bar 50:23 — Bitterness is unattractive — and everyone in Mexico is still having sex 50:44 — Outro — follow Meghan on X and Substack Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 🍺 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez

Aaron Brown is a quantitative analyst, risk manager, and author of the new book Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth from a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation. https://amzn.to/4frmg3n He's also about to debate gun control at the Soho Forum in August — and his preparation for that debate is a pretty good preview of what's in the book. Topics include: why out of 28,000 gun control studies, the RAND Corporation found only 20 that weren't statistically crippled; the smoking analogy and what it tells us about legislation that runs ahead of evidence; why gun laws burden legitimate owners and not criminals; why we have a crime problem, not a gun problem; The Lancet paper that claimed US aid saved 92 million lives; how to spot three red flags that tell you a statistic is BS; and Wonder Bread's motto "Helps build strong bodies 12 ways" — which nobody ever actually wrote down. Get the book → Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth from a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation https://amzn.to/4frmg3n TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — Aaron Brown and Wrong Number 0:34 — The Soho Forum gun control debate — and who he's up against 3:45 — The proposition: abolish all restrictions on adult firearm ownership 4:48 — Lou on navigating gun laws across state lines (NJ → PA → NY) 7:25 — The wide cultural divide: Scranton airport vs. any other airport with guns 9:04 — RAND Corporation: of 28,000 gun control studies, only 20 weren't crippled by errors 10:04 — The smoking analogy — legislation running ahead of the evidence 12:15 — Gun control laws only burden legitimate owners — not criminals 12:43 — The Glock switch ban and the AR-15 — targeting the popular, not the dangerous 15:18 — "Trump is a fascist" — and you want him to take the guns? 15:42 — Stop calling it a gun problem. It's a crime problem. 17:47 — We can identify the 1% of kids likely to commit 20–30% of violent crime 19:31 — Genetic markers for violence — and why that's controversial 20:48 — The Nordic prison model — does it work, and could it work here? 22:09 — Immigration data: why lumping everyone together gets you bad answers 25:20 — Lou's joke about open borders (for immigrants like his dad, not his cousins) 25:39 — Aaron's Jewish smuggler ancestors — blocked from junk dealing by licensing laws 27:04 — Did US aid really save 92 million lives? The Lancet paper that can't add up 29:13 — They saved 114% of the people — including 46M in China, which gets no aid 31:22 — Most published research findings are false — and we've known since 2005 32:42 — DOGE cuts and the "millions are dead" narrative 36:15 — Three red flags that tell you a statistic is BS 39:18 — Wonder Bread's "12 ways" — nobody ever wrote them down 40:18 — Outro — Wrong Number and the Soho Forum debate Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez

Rambo Van Halen is a pseudonym. He's a Hollywood producer — the real kind, the below-the-line kind, the guy making sure the steel gets to the factory — who worked in the industry for decades, walked away in 2019, and wrote a book about it. The book is called Hollywood Samizdat: Notes from Below the Line. It's published by Passage Press. Lou read it. He dog-eared it. They talked for an hour. Topics include: what a producer actually does (mostly administration, definitely not what people think); what happens to actors when nobody says no to them for 20 years; the feminization of Hollywood and why straight guys stopped being able to do their jobs; military veterans vs. film school graduates on set (no contest); Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, and the Amazon river; the unwritten casting rule about who can and can't be the butt of the joke; MeToo — the careers it should have ended, the ones it shouldn't have, and the Joe Gatt story that will make your jaw drop; and why Rambo Van Halen is not his real name and probably never will be. Get the book → https://passage.press/products/hollywood-samizdat?srsltid=AfmBOorHefB5b7WS0T_hiObEIcPzGEWLHKXoL-4gInHttqmha-D5SLui Rambo on Substack → https://substack.com/@rambovanhalen TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Rambo Van Halen? 1:40 — What a producer actually does (it's mostly administration) 3:50 — Building a bubble around the creatives — and what it does to them 6:20 — Film is a business, not a public service — and film school gets this wrong 7:25 — Jim Carrey, Michael Jackson, and what happens when nobody says no 10:55 — Plastic surgery, masculinity, and actors who should leave their faces alone 12:46 — Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, and the men who used to be on screen 16:25 — How Hollywood got feminized — and why straight guys couldn't do their jobs anymore 19:06 — Military guys on film sets — why they beat film school graduates every time 21:32 — Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog, and Klaus Kinski's on-set meltdown 25:04 — Why he made his lateral move out of LA in 2019 27:30 — White male shit libs coming at him on Facebook 30:56 — Comedy as a masculine art form — why wokeness couldn't kill it 35:00 — George Floyd, Memorial Day, and saying what you actually think 37:25 — The unwritten rule: the black guy can't be the butt of the joke 43:28 — Roy Price, MeToo, and the careers that got destroyed 45:01 — John Lasseter, Aziz Ansari, and Joe Gatt — three very different MeToo stories 50:37 — The sushi bar incident — actress hits on producer, ignores her date 54:24 — Bikini casting, auditions, and what actresses will do for a role 58:12 — Who is Rambo Van Halen — and why the pseudonym? 1:01:16 — Why he wrote Hollywood Samizdat as a journaling exercise 1:03:08 — On publicist spam, bad podcast guests, and only booking people worth talking to 1:04:01 — Outro — where to find Rambo Van Halen Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez

Kira Shishkin is the CEO and founder of Informed.now — a news-by-SMS service that sends you one text per day covering what actually changed the world in the last 24 hours. No ads. No bias. No storytelling. Just primary sources, direct quotes, and a link so you can read the original sources yourself. Kira grew up in Ukraine, came of age in Israel, and built this company after watching both countries get torn apart by information warfare. He knows what happens when people can't trust what they're reading — and he built something to fix it. We got into: why American news is designed to exhaust and trigger you; how Informed.now sources directly from government agencies; why they link to the actual PDF instead of a story about the PDF; what today's top stories were (OPEC output increases, China blocking US sanctions on Iran oil traders, Vietnam getting flagged for IP theft); how real humans — not bots — answer your follow-up texts; and why the only way to keep news unbiased is to make the reader the client, not the advertiser. Try it → informed.now TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Kira Shishkin and what is Informed.now? 1:45 — Why reading the news in America has become exhausting 3:10 — How it works: one SMS per day, primary sources only 5:20 — Why they link directly to the source — and why no one else does 7:30 — The UN, the White House, and healthy skepticism of primary sources 10:15 — Facts vs. storytelling — why Informed.now doesn't tell you what to think 13:40 — How they decide what makes the cut: the significance filter 16:55 — Today's top stories live: OPEC output, China-Iran oil, Vietnam IP 20:10 — The two-way SMS — real humans, not chatbots 24:30 — Lou suggests FOIA requests — Kira puts it on the roadmap 27:15 — What to do when there are no primary sources (war reporting) 30:40 — Growing up in Ukraine and Israel — information warfare up close 34:20 — AI-generated war images, radicalization, and the social media echo chamber 37:50 — Kira's background: think tanks, TurboTax, private equity, crypto 41:10 — The business model: reader-funded, no ads, no investors, profitable 44:00 — Outro and where to find Informed.now Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ  Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081  Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU  📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r  🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected]  ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez 

Salih Hudayar is the Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. He was born in East Turkistan, fled to the United States as a political refugee at age 7, and has spent his life working to bring international attention to what the US government and over a dozen Western parliaments have formally recognized as a genocide. We covered: how China invaded and occupied East Turkistan in 1949 with Stalin's help; the 1996 secret document that became the blueprint for genocidal policy; how China created a fake jihadist organization to justify its crackdown; how China and Turkey funneled 20,000 Uyghurs into Syria to manufacture a "terrorism" narrative; Xi Jinping's "show no mercy" speech and the bombing that followed two hours after his plane left; the 2.2 million Chinese officials sent to live inside Uyghur homes; the forced removal of over a million children into military boarding schools; 16,000 mosques destroyed; Muslim names, Ramadan fasting, and the Arabic greeting "Assalamu Alaikum" all banned; and the ongoing organ harvesting program in which an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 young Uyghurs are killed annually for their organs. The genocide is now in its 13th year. Millions remain in concentration camps. This is happening now. Learn more and get involved: 📲 Follow on social media → https://x.com/ETExileGov 📖 Recommended reading: "The Xinjiang Procedure" by Ethan Gutmann (organ harvesting research) TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Salih Hudayar? 0:25 — What is East Turkistan — and why China calls it "Xinjiang" 1:59 — Mao, Stalin, and the 1949 invasion 2:25 — Born in East Turkistan, fled to the US at age 7 4:37 — His father's mission: never forget where you came from 6:18 — Chinese raids on his family home 7:22 — ROTC, Oklahoma Army National Guard, and a kidney disease that ended his military career 8:13 — The Turkic world: Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks 9:46 — China's 1996 Document No. 7 — the secret blueprint for genocide 11:51 — The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and crushing the independence movement 14:03 — How China created a fake jihadist group to justify the crackdown 17:31 — Were there actual terrorist attacks in East Turkistan? 18:31 — The Tiananmen Square car attack — false flag? 22:04 — How China and Turkey funneled 20,000 Uyghurs into Syria 24:23 — Grooming, brainwashing, and Chinese intelligence operations 32:23 — Xi Jinping's "show no mercy" speech 35:07 — The anti-extremism law: beards, Ramadan, and thought control 37:10 — Phase two: arresting everyone 38:12 — 2.2 million Chinese officials sent into Uyghur homes 41:02 — Children forcibly removed to state "orphanages" 43:19 — Why Muslim countries stay silent — Belt and Road leverage 44:45 — 16,000 mosques destroyed. Muslim names banned. 48:38 — Returning to East Turkistan in 2012 and 2014 53:11 — The Kant massacre: 3,000–4,000 killed 55:26 — His grandfather refused to leave 55:55 — The asylum process 59:05 — Organ harvesting: 25,000–50,000 killed annually 59:28 — How to support East Turkistan Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez #UyghurGenocide #EastTurkistan #China #Xinjiang #SalihHudayar #CCP #HumanRights #LouPerezPodcast #Uyghur #GenocideAwareness

I sat down with Victor Varnado — comedian, founder of Supreme Robot, and the man behind the Worldwide Tic-Tac-Toe Championship. Victor is also King Super Nuts. That's not a joke. Well, it is. But it's also real. Victor built disability gaming software that could let paralyzed, blind, and deaf players enjoy video games without any extra hardware. He got a National Science Foundation grant to develop it. A tech company bought it for pre-IPO shares worth $500,000. The IPO never happened. The company got in trouble with the SEC. Victor never saw a dime. He tells the story without bitterness, which is somehow the most remarkable part. We also talked Richard Pryor, AI, the UCB rap battle scene, and why tic-tac-toe is actually a strategy game. Play the game → highscoregamearcade.com Here's what we got into: 🎤 Richard Pryor over George Carlin. Victor's case: Pryor holding thousands of people simultaneously is a technical feat that only becomes visible once you've seriously studied performance. Lou spent years in the Carlin camp. He's reconsidering. 📚 The histology class that changed how he sees the world. One class rewired him. The example that hit hardest: Carnegie's public library was originally open during hours when the public was at work. It started as a leisure club for the elite. The thing we think of as universally good was a lot more complicated at the start. 💡 Supreme Robot: build the IP first, find investors second. Victor's framework — create something, prove people want it, then go to investors with evidence instead of a pitch deck. His definition of strong IP: when he explains it, nobody says it's a bad idea, and most people who are even partially in the market for it want it immediately. 🤖 AI is like discovering electricity. What stays valuable no matter what: people's time and attention. Whatever you're building, that's what you're actually competing for. 🕹️ He built disability gaming tech — and a company buried it. Voice control layered on top of any game, no extra hardware required. A procedurally generated audio-description track for blind and deaf players. An NSF grant. A $500K acquisition that paid in pre-IPO shares. An IPO that never came. ⭕ Tic-tac-toe is a strategy game — if you put it in the right arena. The Worldwide Tic-Tac-Toe Championship launches to 100 million players via Facebook, YouTube, and Samsung TVs. Grand prize: $0. The system is incorruptible. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 — Intro: Victor Varnado and Supreme Robot 01:35 — Growing up in Gary, Indiana and the Jackson 5 04:40 — Richard Pryor vs. George Carlin 06:15 — The histology class that changed everything 09:30 — Bombing at the HBO Aspen callback and going solo 11:30 — UCB, the Hammer Cats, 20 years of NYC comedy 13:50 — Battle Ish: 7 years of rap battle comedy at UCB 18:30 — Supreme Robot explained 21:10 — AI and what stays valuable when everything changes 24:40 — Opening for Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall 26:40 — Opening for Gilbert Gottfried at Caroline's 29:20 — Norm MacDonald on Sam Kinison and what comedy is about 31:55 — The Worldwide Tic-Tac-Toe Championship 37:55 — The NSF grant and the disability gaming tech 40:10 — The $500K he never got 41:40 — Neuralink and the medical future he actually wants Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez

I sat down with Jason Gagne, fitness trainer and creator of the 90-day beginner program Good 2 Go Body. Jason has been training people for over 20 years and specializes in beginners — the people who've been told they're not in good enough shape to start working out. Check out Jason's 90-day program: https://good2go.podia.com/?coupon=LOU  (Every sign-up puts a few bucks in my pocket. Thank you. 🙏) TOPICS INCLUDE: Why 20-day intense programs set beginners up to fail The three basics everyone skips: sleep, water, and walking Consistency vs. intensity: why 25% every day beats 90% three times a week Gym functionality vs. functional training — what's the difference? Pilates, yoga, and the small muscles nobody talks about Fitness influencers, gear, and the Instagram trap Nutrition: don't change everything at once The 85/90 rule — and why the Twinkie is fine How 40-year-olds today look nothing like 40-year-olds used to LOU'S LINKS: Book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r Website: https://www.thelouperez.com Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez Watch full episodes and more on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ

Lou Perez sits down with investigative journalist and TV producer Rob Rosen, whose debut book Crimes of Omission: Distorted Justice, The Media's War on Truth is available for pre-order now. Rob produced A Reasonable Doubt on HBO Max, which led to nine wrongful conviction releases, and spent years at KCBS covering the OJ Simpson trial alongside Harvey Levin. TOPICS INCLUDE: How newsroom monoculture shaped anti-police coverage Ferguson and Michael Brown: what Eric Holder's DOJ report actually said The full Michael Brown story the media buried — including his mental state Hands up, Don't shoot: why it never happened Philando Castile, Diamond Reynolds, and what the dash cam showed The stat: how many unarmed Black men did police kill in 2019? A Reasonable Doubt on HBO Max: nine people released, the system mostly works The Serial podcast, credulous journalism, and how Reasonable Doubt was born Weaponized empathy: Norman Mailer, OJ Simpson, Luigi Mangione Suicidal empathy and Queers for Palestine BLM: what their own website said that journalists refused to report Defund the police was literal — Hawk Newsome said so on Rob's own podcast Why we don't have a shared reality anymore and what journalism has to do about it GUEST: Rob Rosen — Investigative Journalist and TV Producer Pre-order Crimes of Omission: https://amzn.to/4triFFV Watch A Reasonable Doubt on HBO Max LOU'S LINKS: Book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r Website: https://www.thelouperez.com Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez Watch full episodes and more on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ

Lou Perez sits down with Stu Smith, investigative analyst at the Manhattan Institute, who has spent months infiltrating DSA meetings, Zoom calls, and internal channels to find out what the Democratic Socialists of America are actually up to. TOPICS INCLUDE: What most people get wrong about the DSA The DSA's internal "right wing" — people who just believe in elections The Red Rabbits: DSA's new armed security task force The Doctor Phil clip: Black Redguard's origin story DSA's global travel: Cuba, Colombia, Sweden, Brazil, and beyond The F-35 supply chain and DSA as a quasi-national security threat Salting: how DSA plants operatives inside companies to organize Zoran Mamdani, the Overton window, and how DSA took NYC DSA's youth wing: getting a Cornell student on Ithaca City Council The Calla Walsh pipeline: from DSA delegate to Hezbollah apartment in Lebanon North Korea tourism, tanky influencers, and where the far left is trending Bill Ayers is still active — Stu has been on Zoom calls with him What to watch: Mayday, upcoming primaries, and the Socialism Conference GUEST: Stu Smith — Investigative Analyst, Manhattan Institute Follow Stu on X: @thestustustudio Manhattan Institute: https://www.manhattan-institute.org LOU'S LINKS: Book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r Website: https://www.thelouperez.com Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thelouperez