Adam Curry: Doctors, therapists afraid to push back on puberty blockers for kids

This episode is brought to you by Sol De Genero. As Sol De Genero, touch isn't just for screens. Physical connection is so essential to how we communicate. It's infused in everything we offer. Scents so irresistible, PDA is guaranteed. Textures are so luscious, skin is huggable.

Get into a Sol De Genero state of mind. Receive 10% off on your first order on soldegenero.com. Plus, free shipping with the code SOLDEGENERO10. The hit series Claim to Fame is back on ABC. From executive producers of Love is Blind and hosted by superstar brothers Kevin and Franklin Jonas, watch and play along as these new celebrity relatives do whatever it takes to keep their famous family a secret. Don't miss Claim to Fame, new Mondays at 8, 7 central on ABC and stream on Hulu. Welcome back, everybody. It's my privilege to bring in Adam Curry, a very successful podcaster, former MTV host.

Of the No Agenda podcast is the name of it. Adam Curry, I watched you for years. Great to have you on the show. Oh, Brian, it's good to be back. I appreciate it.

Good morning to you. And I bet you have a Metallica t-shirt underneath that suit jacket, don't you? No, I wish I did. I wish I was that cool, Adam. I'd never be as cool as you guys.

I'm always a step behind. You know, I just I think that I think the coolest thing I had was probably a Twisted Sister t-shirt before they got famous because they were from my town of Massapequa. And I was able to say to people, there's a twisted business, new group.

They wear makeup and you're going to love them. And then Twisted Sister end up having their moment. Yeah, for a little while there, they were pretty cool. I'm not quite sure what Dee's up to.

She's kind of wishy-washy back and forth these days. But yeah, it was good times. So, Adam, are you sad to what's happened with MTV?

I'm sorry, Brian, you cut out that. Are you sad what's happened to MTV and the whole video, what's gone on? It used to be the place. You know, we just have to take that as a moment in time that we all share together, those of us that are old enough, because from a business standpoint, MTV networks did the right thing. You know, videos were becoming a commodity. You know about ratings. The rating on MTV was always 0.3 consistently throughout the day. And then they started off with The Real World and Remote Control, the game show, which was fabulous. And that would get a 1.0 rating, which is a big deal. You know, that's three times the numbers for audience size.

And, of course, that results directly into money. And they did everything they could. BET, Black Entertainment Television, was competing for video premieres. So MTV bought BET. And it was just, you know, online was starting to slowly come into view. And, you know, they had to do what they had to do. And they built it into a multi-billion dollar brand. And, you know, it's, I mean, of course, I'm personally sad because it's trashy. You know, it's a bunch of pregnant teenagers is all I ever see on the channel. Right.

And Adam, the thing is, I can't wrap my head around what happened. Music has not gone away. There's still a need to do videos when you come out with a song that's going to be semi-successful. So why wouldn't you want to go to one place, even if it's streaming or on cable? I mean, have you thought about that?

I mean, what happened? The consumer didn't go away. We still like music, old music, new music, depending on your age. And depending on your likes. Yeah, well, I have thought about that quite a bit. And ever since I co-invented podcasting, which is now 19 years ago, for the past three years, we've actually been working on exactly that because Spotify has also become just a, you know, really a junkyard for artists because no one makes any money. You know, you can have a million plays and, you know, you have basically bus fare money. And we've figured out a couple ways within podcasting, this is kind of the new revolution, that you can now play music in your podcast.

Not licensed stuff, but, you know, there's plenty of people out there who are making great music, who don't have a record label, don't use ASCAP BMI. And now people can stream money to them in real time. And we're seeing guys who, you know, are making more money in three days than they did in three years on Spotify. So, yeah, the consumer is still there. The music, the artists are still there.

We just need to move away from the existing systems, which is happening more and more. You know, you're seeing it everywhere. Streaming television is falling apart. It's not making any money. Spotify isn't profitable. So, exactly what we thought would happen with the internet is happening.

You know, it's taken 30 years, but we're getting there. I know the one thing that I've heard from artists, the only time they can make money is on the road touring, selling T-shirts and tickets. And so, wait a second.

No, if you have a hit song, aren't you set? Absolutely not. So, it's just incredible because they're the invaluable commodity out of all this. But let's talk about the city you used to dominate, New York City. When you see the Danny Penny and the Jordan Williams situation where people have to stand up for themselves, one gets indicted, one gets exonerated, but you literally are fighting for your life to see what's happening. I'm not saying crime is overrunning the city, but between the shoplifting, the smash and grabs, now we're seeing what's happening on the subways.

What do you think about where we're at right now? Well, where we're at is right back in the mid-80s when I moved to Manhattan to start at MTV. I lived in Hell's Kitchen, 56th and Broadway. And you could actually get killed very easily crossing Times Square at any given moment, if not by a cab racing by. You know, there were no rubber tiles. You know, now if you fall down on Times Square, you bounce right back up. You know, it was seedy, it was grungy. And what happened was Giuliani and Chief Bratton came in and they cleaned it up.

They had the no broken windows policy. I think we're going to have to go towards something like that instead of a mayor that obviously is being very divisive, particularly of late. And that whole finger pointing episode was really, you know, in black American culture, finger pointing is not done. It is absolutely an issue. Of course, I was also raised not to point a finger. It was very rude, but it certainly wasn't a racial thing.

It never has been. And so for him to evoke that, that really messes with the city. You know, the mayor may not be able to do all that much, but he does set the tone.

I think he made a real grave error here. I also think that he is basically the police commissioner. And that's why the last police commissioner left. Keisha Chul, who the cops loved her. And she was really doing a good job on a lower profile than any police chief because this mayor wants all the headlines. And now they got rid of her.

And the word is, he's going to be hiring a woman who has no experience as a cop, as a police chief. Yeah, we've gone down a very dark path with our police force and law enforcement services. And when I, you know, back in the day, Joan Jett and I, every Christmas, we do a party for the widows and orphans for the New York City cops. And there was a respect there. You know, it was a respect that was understood. And, you know, we were all raised with you can always go and ask a cop for directions. Now, I'm not going to say that there haven't always been problems, that there hasn't been. Of course, there's bad people everywhere. But, you know, I personally think, you know, the driving force behind BLM, which, you know, as it turns out, was a scam.

That really did a lot more damage than we realize. And, you know, the cops are who wants to be a cop? I mean, I moved out of Austin and, you know, friends of mine like I don't want to be a cop anymore. No, no one's going to no one's going to stand behind me. My chief won't stand behind me. The mayor won't stand behind me.

So why would I risk all my entire life and future career? So we have some real problems to solve there. I know. But I also ultimately feel like it's correctable. I feel it because I've seen it being corrected before.

So I'm not giving up hope when these politicians realize they've tried everything and what they thought was going to work doesn't. My sense is that there might be somebody there who wants to do the right thing. You talk about the black community.

Go ahead. Your thought. Yeah, no, I was going to say the you know, in eighty seven, it got fixed. You know, you're a New Yorker.

You know that New York can be the great city that it once was. Everything goes through cycles. The country is going through a horrific cycle right now. But ultimately, we have to look at, in my opinion, once you debase the money, you're debasing everything. And that's really what happened with the Federal Reserve printing trillions and trillions of dollars, flooding that into the market. And not, of course, you know, really it was a wealth transfer.

We have to recognize what happened first and then we can come to terms with it and deal with it because, you know, that's just not going to go away. That it flows from the money all the way down to everything you're seeing on the street. Adam Curry, former MTV VJ, as we know, and by now he's a host, a very successful inventor, really, of the podcast, No Agenda, the No Agenda podcast. Well, let me bring you, you mentioned Black Lives Matter. You know, there's leadership in the black community. I grew up with that.

We haven't really had it in a long time. But one of the real impact players is Charlamagne the God, who I have not met. Deep thinking guy. The Breakfast Club is a must stop place for a lot of politicians. Here's what he said that's rippling around the news cycle right now.

Cut 26. The biggest issue Joe Biden is going to face in 2024 is Joe Biden. Absolutely. Like, you know, I saw a poll that came out this week and I think he's leading Trump in a general election poll by like four points or something like that. But everybody's concerned about his age and his mental well-being. Is he physically capable of being able to do the job because he's so old? His biggest problem he's going to have in 2024 is himself.

And it's not his age, it's who he is right now at that age. So your reaction to what they're saying, for them to be saying that, I think that shows maybe the foundation might be crumbling. Well, you know, on the No Agenda show, John and I have really come around to looking at this from a different perspective, as we often do. We're now kind of thinking that, you know, when we talk about the Biden crime family, but that may not be far off the mark. You know, if you remember Vincent Gigante, you know, the chin, the famous mob boss who was walking around his pajamas and muttering and stuttering. But he was in control. He was really in control. And I'm now thinking that Biden has so much, he has so much on everybody having been in government for so long, that he may actually be a crime boss and have the connections and enough on everybody to keep this going.

And, you know, the latest with the CPAP machine, I think that's, you know, that's total bull crap. He's basically doing what football players do on the sideline. He's taken big hits of oxygen because it helps your cognition. I mean, he knows that he's in trouble, but I don't think he's going to give up.

And I think that he probably still has the connections to even, dare I say it, make the election tilt in his favor. Yeah, well, I'm not really sure about all that. The CPAP machine, number one, that means he must have just rolled out of bed. I mean, literally, unless it's the tightest mask ever, he literally must have either went to bed in a suit or just rolled out of bed and that mask is way too tight. Plus, a CPAP machine doesn't mean anything's wrong.

That means that gets you extra oxygen, we'll see. But I'm just saying that if you see him on the stage, you do this for a living, Adam. You've done it for the longest time without a script, by the way. So you, with a script, he is struggling to get through a sentence and this campaign hasn't even started yet. The last one he didn't need to do because of the pandemic. I mean, this is going to be trouble, especially when you have a guy who you're likely going to be running against a Donald Trump who will do five events a day.

Well, and he has his script is basically some magic marker notes. I want you to hear something that used to happen all the time on SNL. They used to be an equal opportunity offender. Of course, you know, Will Farrell played George W. Bush. There was humor within the impersonation. They used to make fun of of Bill Clinton and trying to grab every woman there was and all his all his peculiarities. I get it. And now yesterday, listening to David Spade and Dana Carvey have fun with someone that SNL wouldn't touch.

Listen to this. I miss covid. I know you did.

You know what? I knew there was trouble when anyone that came to our country didn't have to get a vaccine. And I go, mm hmm, if you're telling me I can't go to work, but everyone, everyone coming in doesn't have to get one.

I go, well, once we found out when Fauci said, OK, I'm sorry. If you've had two boosters and two vaccines, you can get and give covid to another guy who's had five vaccines and four boosters. What's the difference between a vaccine and booster?

I don't know. Just more vaccine. The booster sounds better. Anyway, a guy with 25 vaccines would get and give covid to another guy with 25 vaccines. That's why I'm introducing the daily covid shot. Every day you get a shot.

By the time you get to your car, you got no immunity. But it's a beautiful 39 seconds. So just having fun at Fauci's expense, that is that's a third rail in the in the in the Hollywood community. Well, thank God for comedians and thank God for podcasting, because this, of course, was on their podcast. And what they're laughing about is something we need to take very seriously. You know, what happened with covid is we saw an incredible crap capture of big pharma and the medical community where doctors literally they could not prescribe anything different. They couldn't say anything different because they would lose their insurance, their license, their practice, their stature, etc. And this is exactly the same mechanism and it started during covid that is being used to to take vulnerable children, particularly teenage middle school girls who have all kinds of identity issues anyway. And through really through like the American Psychological Association, therapists are being told that, hey, if if a child chose these types of behaviors, then it's probably a gender issue and they need to go on puberty blockers, etc. That and they can't they cannot say anything different. They are in the same position as doctors were with covid. So we have to recognize that. Are there gender dysphoria issues? Of course.

But it's not 17 percent. Adam Curry, always great to talk to you. Deep thinker on so many issues. Congratulations on pioneering another venue.

And that's podcast and dominating. Adam, thank you. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.