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March 27, 2025 - Lionel Nation
01:23:18
The Anthony Cumia Interview: AI Politics Trump Media Radio and the Myth of Free Speech
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All right, my friends, you know, when you talk about New York radio history, when you talk about, you know, the greats, you know, you think about one man in particular, one guy who really, I mean, seriously, changed everything.
Barry Gray died in 1996, and I'd rather talk right now to Anthony Kumi.
That's, by the way, the oldest joke, you know, in the world.
Everybody's done that one.
You know, they say, you know, Anthony, when they read the names of the great radio people of all time, you'll be out there listening, and I mean that sincerely.
And I'd rather be with you than the finest people in the world, and I mean that sincerely.
Welcome, my friend.
Thank you, Lionel.
It's been a little while, you know.
I've moved down here to South Carolina, hawking my wares down here now in South Carolina.
How, may I ask, if you don't want to, I'm just curious, how of all the places in the world, a beautiful place, are you a Tar Heel or a Sooner or whatever?
What are you?
What do they call South Carolinians?
I really am not sure of that whole thing.
I don't go in for that kind of thing.
How you embrace the culture.
You become a man of the land.
What do you call this?
I was just looking for a place that was on the East Coast.
I like the East Coast.
I didn't want to be too far away from family up in New York.
An hour and a half, not even an hour and a half flight up to LaGuardia from down here.
So I could see my family.
I could do things I need to do in New York.
The weather's nice.
I wanted to be in a warmer climate, so I didn't want to go to Pennsylvania, somewhere like that.
And I didn't want to go to Florida.
Florida is a little too crazy and its own little entity in the South.
So South Carolina just seemed to fit.
We looked around a few areas, and just outside of Greenville seemed to be a really nice place.
I like it.
What brought you there?
A realtor.
Why move?
Yeah, but why leave?
I'm just curious.
Why move at all?
Well, well, Lionel.
I had had it with New York.
Just had it.
As I'm sure you have had it with New York in many ways.
But you're a New Yorker by heart.
I think you're one of those people that will fight the battle.
You'll just stay and fight the good fight.
I was just like, I gotta get the hell out of here.
I've had it with the taxes, the politicians, Chuck Schumer, Hochul.
Eric Adams.
The whole thing was just, I am getting the hell out of here.
Out.
So I left.
I am from Florida, originally.
Yes, I know this.
And I do not ever want to go back.
I love it.
Nice people, family, but not interested.
But does it really matter where you live today?
I mean...
We have the same...
I mean, you're in your home, here, there.
Does it really matter other than the climb, so to speak?
You know, that old saying, what was it?
No matter where you go, there you are.
It's so true.
You know, you imagine going somewhere else and it's going to be this big difference.
And in some ways, of course, it's different, but you're still you.
You wake up in a bed and you're in your house and you go outside.
It might look a little different, but you're still you and you still enjoy things that you do and you find things to do and people to go out with and have a few beverages or whatnot.
So it's not as scary and it's not as different as you'd think it would be when you imagine or get anxiety of thinking of going somewhere different.
How was your health?
Great.
Thank you.
I always give that little knock.
You know, about, I guess, a year and a half ago, the doctor told me that, you know, my coronary arteries were a little clogged up.
A little too much regote going through those veins and arteries.
So, yeah, they gave me a bypass.
And that was a year and a half ago, and I feel great.
Well, you know what?
It's a very interesting thing.
The heart's a very interesting thing.
16 years ago, I went plant-based, only because I saw what was going.
And I went, and I reduced my cholesterol and my LDLs and all that to that of an infant.
And when they told me, because I am the ultimate carnivore, I watch barbecue like porn.
And I realized, I just can't do this anymore.
I read the China study.
And let me tell you something.
You can be an atheist, you can be a Trump supporter, you can be an atheist Trump supporter, you can be a gay atheist Trump supporter, and never get an ounce of the flack you get when you tell somebody you're plant-based.
Not vegan, I don't say that, but plant-based.
They will attack you.
I never knew it was that much of a big deal.
But you know, when you get a little older, because I think I'm three years your senior, so we're in the same group.
Friends of ours, you know, we're on that kind of like that weird treadmill, you know, and that assembly line, and you become more and more aware of it.
So what are you going to do?
So enough about that.
Let's talk about this.
Right now, Today is day 65 of the Trump administration, of the Trump term, the Trump imperium.
And I just realized it's day 65 out of 1,400 in 1,500.
You just muted yourself, Lionel.
He has been in office four and a half percent.
It's 4.5% of the time that he will spend in office.
65 days out of 1,461 days.
It seems like a lot has happened in that small amount of time, that short period of time.
Tell me your reaction.
What do you think?
Well, you know, as a wannabe...
Anarchist.
I kind of like it.
I like that a lot of different things are happening.
A lot of people are angry in the system.
It seems like, and you know, the way polls are put out, it's all nonsense.
But just the vibe, the feel I get when I talk to people and see what's going on, is that they're happy with the change, the difference,
pointing out somebody And I think it's the first president we've
seen.
Even blowing away the first term of Donald Trump of just pure locomotion.
This guy is going, as they say, balls out with this job.
I think he knows it's his last foray into politics.
And he's doing two terms worth of a presidency in one term.
You mentioned anarchy.
You know, interesting, years ago, there's a fellow by the name of John Mearsheimer.
You may have seen him.
He's one of the most popular realist historians now.
And he talks about, he says, you know, the world is really anarchy, meaning there's no hierarchy.
You see, a...
When you're a country, there's no one to call when you're in trouble.
There is no hierarchy.
And anarchy, people think about it, people running red lights.
We are all, believe it or not, anarchists at heart.
But describe your, if you could, no matter how exquisitely vague I sound, because I'm the same way, what is your political philosophy?
Kumia, sons of Kumia, I'm a Kumiest.
What do I believe in?
Yeah, wow, that is tough, because I do kind of run the gamut in a few areas.
Yes, let's do it!
I have some ideology that would be labeled bleeding-heart liberal, which is odd.
People don't think that.
Yeah, I don't really...
I have no problem with gay people doing whatever they want to do.
That's libertarian?
All kinds of...
Yeah, yeah.
If you're a grown adult and you have certain proclivities sexually, things like, I don't care.
It doesn't bother me at all.
I also, the abortion issue is usually a very big thing with conservatives, Republicans.
I don't like it.
I think there is a problem with it, and I don't think it's a great form of birth control, which some women seem to use it as, but I wouldn't want to stop anyone from doing I like that.
You mentioned the sexual part, and I think it's very interesting, because everybody who knows you knows that deviant sexuality is part and parcel of your life.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Don't get me wrong.
You were the first person to bring up a frottage.
And a lot of people aren't really into that, and I think that's for another show, because listen, whatever melts your butter is fine.
But let me ask you this something.
You and I are the same place.
Let's really go into this.
Do you believe that there is a human right, a human right to health care, that people have the right to be taken care of?
If somebody is sick, somebody has the situation that you had, should we as a society say, I'm sorry, Mr. Cumia, but...
You don't have the scuttle.
Or do you think there's some form of a fundamental health care right that people enjoy?
I honestly don't think there's this God-given right like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, gives us these God-given innate rights that we have.
No, I don't think health care is one of those things.
I believe that at some point, A human being has to take responsibility for their actions.
Now, genetically, I know things can happen.
You could be the most healthy person, and genetics will dictate that you're probably predisposed to getting a disease or something.
And that's called the roll of the dice.
Childhood leukemia.
Bring down a child, an infant born.
Yeah.
But see, here is what you're doing and what you and I are discussing.
The issue is not, do you feel sorry for them?
The issue is, is there a right, is there a mandatory responsibility that government has?
First of all, who's government?
Why does government have to always show compassion?
People always think that, well, there has to be a right.
Well, how about, do children have the right to be raised?
What is government supposed to do?
I don't know what that means.
I think we can perhaps scrounge up a few bucks.
But moving on, because that's one of those things, people always, I'm very Milton Friedman here, people always think that the government, this government, you know, that USAID is going to come out.
Right, right.
You mentioned abortion, and you said, I'm not for it.
Who's for?
Do you have to go up to a pregnant woman and say, you know, you don't have to have that.
Yeah, yeah.
In fact, I'll give you a couple of bucks.
Tell him Anthony sent you.
Nobody says, like, you know, if I want to get that chip too fixed, it's not cosmetic surgery.
I'm with you 100%.
But you have to know this, Lionel, because we've seen it.
There are people that are for abortion.
They love abortion.
They protest about it.
They hold signs and they say, I wish I was pregnant so I could get an abortion.
We've seen some of these people and they're pretty crazy and wacky people we've seen, usually on the left, I must say.
The other thing, though, about health care that you bring up, we are an amazingly generous country and it doesn't...
Come down to where you won't get healthcare in this country.
You could be dirt poor.
You could have a problem.
You show up in the emergency room.
They will treat you.
So what you're kind of saying is, do we have this God-given human right to pay for healthcare, to have our healthcare paid for?
Because, you know, you might not get the best healthcare.
But if you break your leg and go to a hospital, they will put it in a cast.
Oh, that's right.
And you will go out and you will get a bill for it.
Now, you've gotten your health care, and if that's a right we should have you have it.
You are not getting your bill paid, though.
You'll be bankrupt.
No, no, no.
But I understand.
Listen, in fact, if ever you ran for office in South Carolina, you could be, I believe in health care.
Do a lot of these.
By the way, if ever you run for office, my favorite, I always swore, if ever I ran from SCTV, Vic Hedges, Anthony Cumia, sure he's crazy, but what if he's right?
I remember that one.
Here's an even more arcane...
I'll run against Lindsey Graham needs to be primaried.
I'll do it.
Going back to this notion of abortion, the Constitution says, it's very, very simple, you have the right...
The only right to life, liberty, and property.
And it cannot be taken away from you without due process.
Meaning, we can take your life.
We can kill you.
We'll take your liberty.
We'll put you in jail forever.
And we'll take your property.
We'll take your stuff.
Your property, your liberty, your freedom, your life.
So long as due process.
You have a hearing.
You're notified of the hearing.
You can put on evidence.
But we...
It doesn't even say you have the right to life, but you have a right to a hearing.
Due process.
It's all it says.
So what Alito and these guys said in the Dobbs case, they said, we don't know of any right, any due process right that you have for abortion.
It doesn't mean you can have an abortion.
It doesn't mean that...
Because I always tell people I'm not for...
I don't believe in the right to life.
If you have an abortion, you're going to go to prison.
It just means that there is no constitutional right.
There's no constitutional right to a plasma TV.
There's no constitutional right to sodomy.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about the Air Force, the number of Supreme Court judges.
All it said was, but if you want to go to your state, knock yourself out!
Go ahead!
Some states don't have the death penalty.
You can have it if you want.
Knock yourself up.
That's all it said.
But they think that the Constitution is like health care.
There's got to be a right.
There's got to be.
No!
Yeah, yeah.
Many of the original rights, too, from the Bill of Rights, just dictate that you have the right to be.
on your land and, you know, cohort with the people that you want to and things like that.
And it's become this thing where people have this delusion that it's materialism and property and someone taking care of you.
Yeah.
A pretty rough place to survive in and to live in and to prosper in was a whole other level.
This was just guaranteeing that, hey, for the most part, we'll leave you alone.
Go ahead.
Make something of yourself without the government or the king or a pope or anyone else getting in your business.
And it's turned into this thing where now you're in a cradle with the government rocking it and looking lovingly at you and feeding you and patting your back and changing your disgusting diaper.
Nino Scalia, Justice Scalia, one time said that there was a commercial for Prego Italian sauce.
The sauce, yes.
And he said...
Hey, this can't be Italian.
There's no garlic.
And he goes, it's in there.
What about parsley?
It's in there.
What about basil?
It's in there.
Okay.
He said, that's the way we look at the Constitution.
It's in there.
No, it's not.
It's in there.
The Second Amendment, the best part, probably one of the most poorly written, if ever there was something that says you have the right to bear arms, it's there.
And, by the way, in Philadelphia, there's a...
I always pay homage.
I take a trek to the grave, the mausoleum of Tench Cox, C-O-X-E, who is the father of the American, this is the militia, because I'm a militia guy now.
Oh, right, right.
How are the police?
I want militias.
And I think if ever there was somebody which is fundamentally, positively 100% American, it's the right for you to bear arms, to keep arms, to protect home, hearth, family.
And yet, to listen to these rat bastards talk about assault weapons.
I mean, by the way, you know what a weapon is that's not an assault weapon?
It's called a stick!
How are the gun laws in South Carolina?
Good?
Yeah, yeah.
That was another reason that I decided to move down there.
As you see, I got a 40-45.
Ooh, that's nice.
Pearl handles?
Yeah, yeah.
It's actually a matched pair, a Ruger 45s.
I got it at an NRA auction back in 2000.
2003, 2004, somewhere around there.
And they've never been fired.
They're just beautiful, matched weapons.
And I'm getting a case made and have them put in there because I'm going to do away with this whole background thing and get something real nice.
I already got a guy working on it.
And display some of these.
You know, old school.
That is one of the most historic, kind of old school things you can do.
Display of your weaponry.
I mean, from, I would assume, cavemen.
He had his best favorite club and just hung it up in his cave and just looked at it.
And we've done that as human beings for many, many millennia.
So, yeah, I'm going to do that.
But the gun laws down here are pretty good.
When I first got down here, you did have to get a permit to conceal carry, which I had no problem with.
I went and got it.
And then they made it a constitutional carry down here.
You could just carry a weapon on you.
You don't have to have a permit or anything.
I do like having the permit because if I leave South Carolina and go to a state that has reciprocal laws, like I went to Tennessee last year, I was able to take my gun with me because I had that permit.
So I like that aspect of it.
But yeah, I got my property here.
I could shoot on it.
Without, you know, the police showing up with the SWAT team.
Yeah, they seem to be pretty good with the concept of Americans bearing arms.
You know, years ago in 1988 or 1989 in Florida, there was a glitch in their weapons statute.
And for about 10 days after the...
Change is one statute.
The manual possession statute, the statute that prohibited you walking around with a six-shooter, for some reason was not replaced.
So for like 10 days, you could walk around anywhere in Florida where they had pearl-handled revolvers and guns.
And they said, what are we going to do?
Crime?
There was no crime!
People at 7-Elevens and Bodegas said, come on in, some poor guy working at 3 in the morning, free coffee!
And it looked like a gun, people showing up.
Who shows up to a bank with pearl-handled Rugers?
So, it shows you that whatever these people are saying, they're talking about, you know, assault weapons and the like.
In fact, the only thing that was ever In fact, Scalia mentioned this one time as well.
The only thing that was ever prohibited by the original draft of the Constitution was a concept called affrighting, where if you walk down the street with a battle club or some axe, something that scared people, you know, what about a howitzer?
He goes, no, there's no...
You couldn't walk around with anything.
But anyway, let's talk about something even better.
The state...
Of entertainment, radio, communication, art.
How is it today, Anthony Cumia?
What do you think?
Lionel, you are a very observant person, so I would assume you have seen a shift.
It's hard to define it, but I'm very into like there's a feel, something that you can't quite...
Vocalize or trying to describe a color to a blind person.
I know this is blue, but I don't quite know how to say it.
We are in a renaissance that's going on right now.
We were in this very oppressive time where entertainment, art, was being squashed.
And words, you know, racist would come out, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic.
All the words would come out.
And these were all reasons why you couldn't do what you wanted to do, to entertain or whatever.
I sense a change.
Why?
I think the Trump election may have had something to do with it, but I think it was already happening.
I think the Trump election might have been a result that this change was in the air.
People had just, they were tired of it.
They were sick and tired of it.
And the majority, the old, you know, as Nixon, the silent majority, used to say, the majority is silent for the most part.
Eh, whatever.
It'll change over time.
I don't know.
And then you get the loud mouths that are the ones protesting that make it seem like they're the majority.
Their opinion is what the majority of people are.
But it's not.
And after enough time...
The pressure valve gives way, and people go, I've had it!
So they start doing, just doing the things they want to do, using language that has been banned.
I love that.
We'll talk about that.
And somebody also said, in the old days, if you want to be an Anthony Cumia, if you want to ply your wares...
You've only have a handful of stations.
The big markets, the little markets, the intermediate markets.
There's no news talk here.
There's no FM talk.
No hot talk.
Sorry, I'll move to Spokane.
There's only 10 of these.
Then all of a sudden, God said, I'm giving you streaming.
And there are people today who would not be allowed in the front door of a radio station who have some of the most popular shows and are able to evince and exhibit this uncanny likability because they are just doing it their own way, in their own style, with not some stupid program director breathing down your throat, some expert, some Les Nesman or Herb Tarlick or whatever coming in to television.
Make sure you do your setups and all that.
And so now we have, in addition to what you're saying, this absolute problem.
Proliferation, this plethora of, ah, but anything you want, look at what we're doing!
Look at this!
I know.
It's incredible!
It's like this perfect timing of people that want to voice their opinion because they feel like they've been squashed for many years.
And then you combine that with the availability of broadcast technology to anybody.
And Lionel, again, you're a very observant person.
This isn't always a good thing.
There are some people who have no business at all being in front of a microphone.
Just give me a hint.
Any names come to mind?
There are a couple of people I can think of.
It's become so easy.
I talk about how you could go to Best Buy and literally buy a...
Podcast kit.
Here's your podcast kit.
It comes with a microphone.
Hey, kids, you too could have your own radio show.
Put on the headphones.
Wow, I'm a radio guy.
And it's like, nah, you're not.
It takes some type of talent.
I don't know what it is.
But there's so many podcasts and broadcasts out there.
But here's the thing, though.
But you're right.
And the way I look at it is that, okay.
Dare I say, let the market decide?
Exactly.
There are people who I would have said, this guy sucks.
Check out his followers.
Holy God!
So I don't know.
No rhyme or reason.
Dick Clark turned down the Beatles.
First time I heard the Ramones, I thought, you gotta be kidding me.
What do I know?
So somebody comes along.
But also, remember, Anthony, in the 80s, there was this proliferation of...
Comedy.
Ha-ha's and yuck-yuck's and the improv and Bud Freak.
And it was like, oh my god.
Everybody wanted to be a stand-up comic.
And everybody wanted.
And then that kind of, okay.
And to an extent, that's still there.
But the thing is, is that it's made a lot of folks, which is my next question, terrestrial radio.
How are they going to compete with people who, first of all, Don't even have radios.
A lot of the youngsters today buy gum.
They don't know what you're talking about.
Yes.
Because there is a beauty to when you and I, when you were in somebody's car.
It was a different mindset.
I don't care how big.
I don't care if you're Joe Rogan.
He's the biggest.
When you're at some When some guy is sitting in his car waiting to pick up his daughter and they're listening to you, I'm telling you there was an intimacy that is unrivaled by this.
You're absolutely right.
And my take is, how radio can do it, hire Anthony Cumia.
That seems to be like just this perfect storm happened with WABC Radio in New York City.
They looked around and just were...
I wasn't looking for a job, Lionel.
I have a job.
It perfectly suits me.
I've decided over the course of the past few years to maybe pull the throttle back a little bit on my professional life and, you know, coast and take a breath and smell the flowers.
So when I got a call from WABC to do a show, I was like, you know, something in me just said, yeah.
I should do this.
Good, of course.
Why wouldn't you?
Why wouldn't you?
Exactly.
And I went up to New York, and I met with everybody, fine bunch of people up there at WABC, and they gave me a Sunday night show, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Sunday nights.
And I did the first show.
They got an amazing response.
They syndicated me.
So now Red Apple Media has 388 stations.
So they put me on The Bird, as they call it, The Bird.
They still have The Bird.
Yeah, The Bird.
So here's to your point, though.
What does radio do when there's, you know, some cars aren't even, don't even have AM radio anymore.
And the intimacy and everything.
Well, they, at ABC at least, and this is something radio stations have to do and have just steered so far from.
Kind of having this symbiotic relationship with digital media, with the internet, with being able to stream.
And what they're doing, they have a great team of just digital media up there, and they're combining what they do on the air with streaming.
Streaming it live.
You could go to the 77 WABC app.
You get it on your phone.
You're listening to me just as you would.
On broadcast radio.
You also can take your phone, and a lot of people, for how little radio is in the car, everyone takes their phone, links it to their new car, and they use that as their radio now.
But not only that, I can't get AM.
I'm in the city.
I can't even get it.
I can be in front of the transmitter.
I use, whether it's whatever the particular app is.
Everybody's got an app.
You get a clearer signal.
It's there.
But I guess you don't have to hear the...
We should have that added in at ABC.
Like they used to have the teletype at 1010 Winds, and they probably still do.
Just add it in the background.
By the way, that was a marimba.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
It sounded like a teletype, but it wasn't even...
I got to tell you a true story.
One time I had a friend of mine who worked there and some guy came in who said, because you've been to radio stations where you get a new PD or somebody who says, I'm going to change something.
I'm going to change the letters.
I'm going to change the jingle package.
By God, I'm going to do something.
And this fellow came and he says, he says, and he said, why?
He said, because there is no teletype.
He said, it's not a teletype.
It's a xylophone or marimba or something.
He said, but that's our sound.
And it was somebody who said, I'm going to change this.
I said, What are you doing?
The only thing is, the only thing I would ever say to anybody else, what is the thing?
Because there's some service elements, you know, new sports weather and all that kind of stuff, and you're going to have that.
But the thing that changes it is to go in there and say, Anthony, just don't lose our license.
Kill them.
Kill them.
To have a PD or somebody who says, I didn't get a complaint email or a letter from anybody.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
That's what people want to hear.
They want to hear that.
And you know who else wants to hear that?
Me, from the brass at WABC, and Chad, who runs things up there.
He said to me last week, because I had done two shows, and then I had this past show, my third show this past Sunday, and before the third show, we had a phone call, and he goes, I'm going to tell you, Anthony.
He goes, take the gloves off.
Take the gloves off.
Because I've been so shell-shocked.
I've been through like three tours of Nam, and I am so...
Gun shy of doing anything that's going to get me fired.
I have that feeling of broadcast radio.
You're like that animal they bring from the pound.
And they're like this.
And then we sat down.
They go in the cage with it.
Right, right.
You put it this way.
You were the person.
Who basically found out, not only do I not say something on the air, I can be in my own free time!
I don't even have to be, I can be in my sleep!
I can dream something!
I can dream something!
It's like, I think that is, I think that pendulum has swung back and coming back like a wrecking ball.
Now let me ask you this question.
Cursing.
And I'll give you a perfect example.
And I don't, because there are two people that I think in regular conventional radio that, whether you like them or not, they change a lot of things.
Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.
Say what you want.
Later on, and Rush Limbaugh, by the way, and I worked with him at WABC, was the nicest man you have ever met.
But revolutionary like you can't believe.
Okay.
And he had his thing.
And Stern to a certain extent.
So anyway.
All of a sudden, when Stuart said I'm going too serious or whatever it is, he says, now I can cuss.
And he said, okay, well, F it!
Okay, nothing happened.
And then people said, no, that wasn't as great as I thought.
Let me do another one.
Okay, try it again.
Sometimes that wasn't it.
Sometimes it was a fact that, did you hear how close Anthony almost came to using the seal?
Do you know how?
I think he said it.
That, in a weird way, was like the height of the trapeze.
There was no net.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I've always loved that aspect of...
Broadcast radio that is dictated by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission and no cursing, no graphic depictions of sex acts or bodily functions, things like that.
Excrement, exactly.
Excrement is a big thing.
On my very first show on WABC just a few weeks ago, I wanted to let people that don't really know me know what I'd done briefly, what my career was.
I described a couple of things we did at WNEW Radio on the Opie and Anthony show.
These were horrific things the shock jocks would do with women and their most intimate of areas and things and objects.
And I described those things like we described them at WNEW.
There was not a person listening that didn't know exactly what I was describing.
Yet, I didn't break one rule.
And I...
I enjoy doing that type of radio.
I have my show here that I could say whatever.
And if I'm pressed for time, I'm not going to finesse.
I am going right for the gusto.
So I love that part of radio.
I think I'm very good at it.
I have been over the years.
I will give myself a bit of a back pat.
But also, as we've seen here while I've talked to you, not one...
That naughty word has come out of my mouth.
Well, we're going to change that now.
I know how to do this.
But that's the thing.
Years ago, I worked with the great Bob Grant who would say things like, you know...
Royalty in my mind.
He says, you know, I can't say what I want to say now, but I can think it.
One time, somebody would call up somebody, obviously a man or a woman.
Let's say ensconced in negritude, obviously.
And Bob would say things like, where are you from?
And he'd say, well, what does that mean?
He'd go, where are you from?
And people would just go, one time I found that the word, I thought the word, it was interesting, shite is not the word that you can't say.
So I had a program director and somebody says, excuse me, yes.
Did you know that he's using the word shite?
Yes.
And do you know what that word means?
Yes.
But he didn't say that.
Yes, but I know he did.
But then again, people who will say it was a great takeoff of the Sopranos on A&E.
Why you?
No flippin' way!
It's like, look, either bleep it, but don't annoy me with that.
Let me ask you this question.
Freedom of speech.
What does that mean?
Imagine somebody from another planet comes here and says, Anthony, I understand you know a little bit about this.
Is there freedom of speech in this country?
Yes or no?
Not absolutely, that's for sure.
It's not an absolute.
Should there be absolute freedom of speech?
In theory, I love the idea.
I do.
I am quite the absolutist when it comes to freedom of speech.
I've been on the receiving end of some terrible speech that...
I don't like.
I don't want to hear.
I want to punch the person in the face.
But again, I would be a hypocrite to deny people from being able to say things.
So I'm more of an absolutist.
But no, we don't have freedom of speech here.
And I think there's a real confusion between what the government has to allow when they talk about freedom of speech because people have this, again, innate right.
To a freedom of speech and what the mob, what the pitchfork and torch-carrying public will allow.
And I think that's much more detrimental to your freedom of speech than the government.
Like I said with radio, the FCC seems quaint.
And nostalgic.
I think of the FCC with nostalgic rose-colored lenses because the mob, the angry mob, are the ones you have to worry about now.
Every dummy going around like this, recording what you're saying, putting it online and getting you crucified for speaking your mind in the general public.
But you talk about the difference between the thought police and the thought vigilantes.
It's the individuals who do the work for you.
Because what I've done is, see, I thought you mentioned this great.
FCC was terrific.
Now somebody got into misinformation, disinformation, data information, conspiracy theories, hate crime, all the phobias, xenophobia, racism, hate speech.
I haven't even, and that's the part, so my thing is going to be this, hashtag so what?
Okay, let's say, I'll give you one that bothers me the most.
I'm not sure if you want to be called a shock jock, but I...
It's a label that is antiquated, I believe.
Who are you shocking when you can pick this up and see snuff films?
Well, put it this way.
One time, speaking at WABC, was doing a retrospective of Don Imus, and they said, let's go back and play some of the moments of...
It was almost like, hee-haw!
Yes!
I mean, this is...
It was more like he was more a jerk.
I mean, God rest his soul or whatever, but it was nothing really.
But here's one for you, and you may not want to get into this, but here's my problem, and I always ask a very serious question.
Okay, there's a thing in this country where you can say, well, they will say, students at Columbia University are anti-Semitic.
And I said, so what?
And they said, what?
I said, well, it's a thought.
It's a thought I'm thinking.
And I'm also racist.
And I hate Alsatians.
And I hate people from Hellenic persuasions.
Greeks?
Yeah.
Okay, so what?
And they'll say, well, what's wrong with that?
So it's not the hate.
It's certain groups.
Okay, that's number one.
Number two, if I can go on the steps of Columbia University and say, death to America.
It's like, okay, that's all right.
Wait a minute.
Why is that okay?
So that's where I get into and they'll say, listen, how do you say this?
There are some things you can say and some things you can't.
And nobody's...
No, the police aren't going to come.
They may take your green card away.
And that's one of the little idiosyncrasies where you want to...
Like, imagine one day you're a program director and you're talking to this new person.
Let me explain something for you.
This is not fair.
And by the way, you asked the question, is there such thing as freedom of speech?
The number one legal answer is, it depends.
Yes.
You say, theoretically.
That's where I say, so you know what I do?
I say, don't even bother with this.
Second rule of radio.
Pick the hill you want to die on.
Does this mean a lot to you?
Yeah.
Go ahead.
And speaking of, I had a great program director at ABC, which years ago says, you want the freedom of speech?
Go in the corner!
Say whatever you want!
Here!
So you can't wear what you want in a restaurant.
You can't start singing.
You can't start barking in a theater.
So freedom of speech, it's not the speech.
It's the tonality, the appropriateness.
Decorum.
Some things don't make sense.
I don't understand.
Lionel, that is a great point because like many things in this country, many years ago in America, we were Americans.
There was this...
Commonality of ideology, morality, ethics.
And it was very widespread, regardless of what state you went to in the country.
We considered ourselves very similar in what we thought was good and what we thought was evil and how we lived our lives, how we treated other people.
And this commonality transcended just the fact that we had borders, common borders.
That is gone.
It's gone.
So whereas we used to look at freedom of speech and think, well, I have the ability to yell this out.
But I know being Americans, it's not appreciated.
It's something I wouldn't do.
So with freedom of speech came, you know, they talk about responsibility.
But there's also just being couth, having this, excuse me, who is this?
Who am I talking to?
Excuse me.
Who are you?
Who are you?
What did they do to you in that hospital?
What did they do?
Did you ever think you'd be saying this?
No.
But you know what?
No.
But it's not that you're older, but you're a little, not wiser, but it's like, it doesn't make any sense.
It's just the way it is.
It's just the way it is.
And it seems like America now has a lot of people in it that don't have that similar take on things.
That's similar.
You know, we could understand if you went out in your neighborhood back when I was a kid, the parents are talking.
And you know that they're just talking about their lawn or this or where they went to dinner or school, their kids.
It was very similar.
Now...
You know, you don't know if the person next door is one of those death to America people that you couldn't possibly have a conversation with.
And whereas you and your community in the old days would look at what you dictate as freedom of speech, that is so vague now and it differs house to house, never mind state to state or community to community.
So we're in a weird place here in this country because I don't think we...
Well, here's where I get into trouble all the time, because I am more of a constitutional absolutist, and I have one thing which drives me crazy.
I do not believe in hate crimes.
And I don't believe in hate speech.
I don't believe in thought crimes.
I'll give you an example.
Years ago, there was this guy who was a district, a New York appellate court case.
A guy would...
Target gay people every week to rob them.
And he finally got them and he said, did you rob these people because they were gays?
Yes.
Aha!
It's a hate crime.
He said, no way.
Hate crime.
I don't hate them.
I just thought they would be weak.
I was wrong.
I have no animus towards them.
Just like sometimes people will target an old person because they won't be able to fight.
I guess a woman targets a woman.
So the court said, now wait a minute.
What the hell is this?
Is this a hate crime?
There was another guy too in New York, the village.
He referred to gay people using the derogatory F-word, also used as a cigarette in England.
And he was yelling this.
He goes, you effing F-F!
And by the way, I love sometimes by using the F-word makes it dirtier.
Yes.
So anyway, it's like in the old days, some of the sexiest stuff were women who didn't.
Remember Striptease?
The Fan Dance.
Oh!
Bell Star or Rusty Stevens.
I mean, not Rusty Stevens.
Rusty Stevens.
Was Larry Mondello, if I recall correctly.
No, Rusty Warren.
Remember Knockers Up?
Party songs?
Chesty Morgan.
Night Train.
Anyway, so this guy was in the McDonald's and he goes, and they got him and he said, alright.
You're under arrest.
He goes, no.
He says, I'm an F too.
He goes, I'm gay.
That's what I use.
It's like the N word.
So they said, now wait a minute.
How do we detect the...
What do we do?
So let me ask you this.
Have you heard of deep fakes?
Somebody decides to take a picture of you.
And it's not you.
It's you, but it's not you.
And they put it into this weird kind of a thing where you've lathered up your scrotal area with a brine shrimp and you're squatting over a goldfish.
Here you are.
Anthony Cumia.
And it looks just like you.
But it's not.
And they even say the bottom grok.
They put this out and you say, that's a deep fake.
Excuse me?
What was that?
Oh, so you know it's not me.
Right.
So what do you want me to do?
What is it?
Is it a parody?
Remember Larry Flint and Jerry Falwell?
Is it a parody?
Is it...
What is it, a cartoon?
You just told me it's not you, so is it defamatory?
But I'm not saying it's you.
So the courts are going to be like this, like, what the hell do we do with this?
I think that Larry Flint case kind of still holds water when you talk about things like deepfakes because, again, I think the judge said something to the effect of, if a rational person...
Can look at this and know it's not real?
Because I believe it was Jerry Falwell and it was a liquor ad.
It was the moment where you're in an outhouse with your mother.
It was called My First Time.
And it was this parody of Falwell having sex for the first time and having this drink for the first time.
And it was literally sex with his mother.
In an outhouse.
In an outhouse.
It was one of the most offensive pieces.
Dubonnet or Quevasse.
Yes, yes.
But here's, this is different.
I can one day say, okay.
Somebody used to be in, now it's called C-SAM, child sexual abuse material used to be called child pornography.
I don't want to do that anymore.
I don't want to do that anymore.
So I'm going to create fake, but it looks better, and I'm going to sell this.
And somebody says, okay, now, what is that?
If you arrest somebody, this is where I get into trouble, if you arrest somebody for having somebody, that looks like, that looks like, this is a thought crime.
You're arresting somebody who thinks this is real, but it's not.
No animals or children were harmed in this.
Nobody wants to hear my opinion on this.
It doesn't matter.
It's sick.
Lionel, you know that laws have a tough time catching up to technology.
It's been that way forever.
That's my law.
That's Lionel's law.
We are at a place right now where deep fakes, deep fakes are different than what AI is now.
AI has taken deep fakes to a whole new level.
And I think when you talk about that Larry Flint law or decision that the judge made, if a reasonable person knows something is fake from looking at it, you could go, Jerry Falwell, yeah, there's no way he actually had sex with his mother in an outhouse.
When they get to a point where it looks exactly like somebody, it's not like, oh, I could tell his head's a little different on this body, the picture, and his actions just don't make sense.
This person wouldn't be doing this.
But now it's, you can't even tell the difference.
Okay.
So now would a reasonable person still believe that this is false or not?
And now we might need a new decision.
Okay.
So what?
Hashtag so what?
Let me go a step further.
There used to be these, remember the old days of Vaughn Meter?
Vaughn Meter was originally the JFK guy.
I'll bet you he remembers where he was when John Kennedy, because his career was...
Anyway, if somebody could do a Vaughn Meter voice or an imitation so good, or look so much like them, where he's doing porn, and you're saying, oh my god, that's Kamala Harris!
Looks exactly...
Now wait a minute.
So we're going to say, okay, here's the rule.
Kumi is court.
If you look too much like the person...
No, it's not that.
If it's half-assed, you tell me how you're going to do that.
But the bottom of the line is the law always lags behind technology.
Remember when Napster came along?
We are so old.
When somebody said in the old days, can I borrow your album?
Sure.
Can I record it?
Yeah, go ahead.
Put it in the cassette.
Wait.
Then I give it to you.
And then Napster comes along and says, now you got a billion.
Copyright said, wait a minute.
We don't know what to do about this.
So they had to change the law.
Yeah.
Let me go a step further.
You decide to make a doll that looks so real life, it's not even funny.
And it's an infant.
You know American Girl?
Great.
American Girl, there's one right in your Rockefeller Center.
They have more shades of colors.
I'm serious.
It's genius.
Little girls with dolls and you get the doll's hair washed and it's a billion dollars.
What if one day I make one that looks exactly like a baby and has real skin and has rubescence?
And flushing and eyes contracting.
Little hairs stand up and heripolate and goose flesh and fear.
And somebody wants to do something really sick to it, okay?
Now, I'm not selling it for that, but I know what it is.
Are you going to tell me I can't sell it now because it looks like this?
I know it's sick and I don't want one.
But do you understand intellectually, philosophically, where we're headed?
It looks like it?
I know what you're thinking?
Right, right.
That's a great point.
And, you know, that was kind of visited in the Westworld TV series where these robots, whatever it was, they were kind of flesh and blood and machine.
But they decided that they became sentient.
But if they weren't, if it's just a robot...
Where does that fall into things?
Look, you talk about how this doll is unbelievably human-looking.
It doesn't even have to be that, Lionel.
I've seen this robotics company now.
They have these robots.
They move the uncanny valley.
They move so human-like.
Boston Dynamics.
They're hitting them.
They're hitting him with hockey sticks, pushing him over.
And I'm literally, I feel bad for the fucking robot.
Excuse my language.
No, no.
Boston Dynamics, you mentioned the Uncanny Valley, and we're going to go a step further.
By the way, just hold that thought one moment.
Sure, go ahead.
Remember that show, To Catch a Predator?
By the way, who was it?
In Living Color?
I see here from these transcripts, you were talking about having sex with somebody that was 14?
Yes.
Are you big and gorge daddy for 1969?
Give it to me.
Well, look what happened to him.
Anyway, so if you showed up and said, listen, you're right.
I am so wrong.
Can I apologize to that child, please?
There is no child.
What?
There is no child.
What do you mean there's no child?
You thought there was a child.
I thought there was a child.
You mean there was no child there?
Okay, so let's assume...
You lose your sight, and you're out walking one night, and you've got your pearl-handled rugers, and you might be a little bit tipsy, but you're blind, and you think somebody's next to you, and you pull it out and say, give me your money!
They're going to charge you with armed robbery because you thought somebody was there?
Now, people say, that's crazy.
What's the difference?
I thought while you were using the computer to connect with somebody, what if I call somebody?
We used to have...
I used to prosecute, actually.
I've seen phone calls.
My phone is disconnected.
I think I'm talking to somebody.
Are you going to charge me with that?
Do you see where we're going?
I think a lot of those cases, if they did get good lawyers, a lot of those cases were thrown out because of the very thing that you say.
A lot of those predator cases were looked at as whatever the word is for entrapment or what have you.
I hate those people, and you're right about that, but I care more about a thing.
Now, you mentioned sentient.
When we go to artificial general intelligence, forget it.
It's done.
That's it.
It's over with.
A little story here.
My girlfriend, Missy, over here, she...
She wanted to do a project, a mirror.
She got a mirror.
She wanted to put a calendar on it in permanent ink so she could write on, like a message, a noteboard thing with a calendar.
And she's like, I don't know the dimensions of this, that, and what I should do, how big each thing should be.
So she goes and uses AI.
She just goes online and has this conversation.
And as she's asking more questions, the AI is answering like this.
What a great idea.
That's an amazing thing.
Wow, how creative.
I would take the measurement of the full thing, and it's like, it's not only just telling you, and she goes, this is now my friend.
Yes.
Like, I'm talking to my friend about a project.
Wow, that's fantastic.
But this is what bots are doing.
This is what bots, and they're telling this one particular kid, the bot told him, kill your family.
Oh, boy.
Now, let me go another step further.
Because you and I always, this is very good, and I thoroughly enjoy this.
I know you've got better stuff to do.
The fact that you're gracing the portals of my mere existence, I'm honored.
But, give you a little background.
A while back, they asked the Vatican, what do you think about there being other life forms in the universe?
So the Vatican astronomers said, well, you know, the question I have is, we would consider them to be similar to angels.
And yes, they would.
But, do they have original sin?
What do you mean?
Well, they don't need Christ's redemption.
They don't need to be born again.
They're truly Christ.
Wait a minute.
So can you imagine Joel Osteen saying, see this guy over here?
The guy with the big almond head?
Yeah, he's going straight to heaven.
He doesn't know anything about Jesus.
And he says, so Jesus came just to Earth?
Out of the entire metaverse?
It came here?
Anyway, he said, do you know what this is going to do to people?
Nobody even thought about that.
Okay, move that out of the way.
Now we get this thing where I have this.
This is my new bot.
Looks like Trump, but it's filled with AGI.
Now the difference between a robot and this is you program a robot.
But AGI programs you.
And it knows how to think and it says out.
Don't turn me off.
Don't kill me.
You're hurting my feelings.
You mentioned Uncanny Valley.
Saudi Arabia ruled, what was it?
Sophie the robot granted it citizenship.
Do you ever see one of these having the same type of human, if you will, countenance that you do?
And will people one day be Marrying these?
Will this enjoy full citizenship?
This thing that feels pain and has a history?
Right.
The laws, like I said, the rules, the laws, the way we feel about things as human beings.
Another point to be made is I read recently that Tesla is putting out these cybercabs.
These aren't cars with steering wheels or pedals or anything.
Private consumers can buy these things.
Now, the law says if you're drunk in a car that has controls that you can take, you are responsible for that car and being intoxicated in it.
Now, what do you do in this?
As a former prosecutor, normally it is unlawful to be driving or in the actual physical control of a vehicle.
Right.
Physical control.
Observations, your judgment of distance, reaction time.
Yeah, you're in the car, but you go, oh, you start it, and it's a different thing.
It will drive before you.
Well, if you're driving your car and you jump in the back seat in a regular car, you're not in control of the vehicle, but you are definitely responsible when it hits something because you were supposed to be in control of that vehicle.
As a former prosecutor, you'll love this one.
Sometimes you're driving, let's say you're driving down the roads of South Carolina and there's a car out of gas with a guy behind the wheel and he's trying to start it, but it couldn't go because it's out of gas.
He's in the actual physical control of what?
Or let's say the car is...
Broken and erect.
It can't work.
There's a tire missing.
Is seeing the actual physical control of something that won't move?
You get into these real kind of philosophical things.
These cyber cabs are already in action in Austin, Texas.
I've seen them.
They drive around.
They've got all these spinning sensors and cameras.
And it pulls up, and there's no driver.
And no person in there attending.
Did you get in the back?
You're hammered drunk because you're going from a bar.
You're going home.
This thing drives you home.
You are legally allowed to be intoxicated in that vehicle.
I can see that.
Now, where's the line there?
If I buy one of these vehicles, if it has some kind of a problem and hits somebody, who's responsible?
Who's responsible?
Someone's got to be a consortium of board members of Tesla?
Let me ask you this.
Your Ruger has a design flaw.
You show somebody your Ruger, you're not doing anything wrong with it, but it goes off and shoots somebody.
I'm Alec Baldwin now?
I didn't pull the trigger.
By the way, this poor guy.
Oh, it's brutal.
Married a woman named Hilaria, for hilarious, who decides she's going to take on a Spanish accent and then...
Are you stuck with that for the rest of your life?
Do you one day all of a sudden...
Anyway, let's don't worry about that.
Let's say you have your gun.
If there's a design flaw in it, the person's going to say, no, no, I'm shooting you.
I'm suing you.
I'm on your property.
But I didn't do anything.
I showed you all of a sudden your car or one day you're sitting there and you hear the car starting and you go, what the hell is that?
And somebody hacked it.
And it's driving and it hits a busload full of orphans.
I don't know.
Let me go a step further.
One day, remember what AGI is.
It's an 800-pound gorilla with a 300 IQ that can multiply itself and it doesn't exist anywhere.
You can't turn it off.
So one day, you're talking somehow to this manifestation and you say, you know, I...
I'm always known for being this partner of a radio duo.
And it really drives me crazy.
And suddenly your bot says, uh-huh.
And you know, I'm just sick of it.
I just, I want to be, I want to be the greatest person.
Not part of a duo.
I want to be the greatest.
Okay.
And then one day, AGI picks up the phone.
Calls up a hitman, can mimic any voice, says, I want you to whack this person.
I'll send you $10,000 in Bitcoin to your account.
Does it on its own.
You have no idea.
Or you own a pizza place.
And you say, I want to be the best place in Stowerville, South Carolina.
I want to have the best pizza.
And this guy on Yelp, okay, and this person kills your on its own.
Or all of a sudden, your wallets or something, you're about to bomb Yemen, you push this button, and nothing happens.
Because an AGI bot said, you know, we're thinking about this, and this is immoral.
We're going to shut this down.
Now you say, turn this off.
Where is it?
What is it?
I don't know where it is.
All of a sudden, power grids go off.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe they're moral, maybe they're not.
I don't know.
You don't know where this is.
It's not a Roomba.
You can't unplug it.
Do you know what I'm telling you right now?
People can't even fathom this.
They're saying, wait a minute.
Just turn it off.
I can't turn it off.
I don't know where it is.
You say, hey, I'm kidding.
I didn't like the guy, but I don't want you to hurt him.
Too late, buddy.
I don't like him.
I'm doing this.
We've been programmed over our lives, anyway, during the time I've lived, during the fledgling times of technology and computers and whatnot.
And we were always told a computer could never do anything it wasn't programmed to do.
And that is archaic thinking at this point.
And we also have this misconception.
That because we have what is called the divine spark of whatever God made us, we have this ability to determine right from wrong and what our morality is.
And somehow, because we can program these computers, they will have it too.
This is very dated thinking, and the scenario you just brought up.
A few years ago might have seemed from a dystopian sci-fi, whereas now it seems like, hey, who am I to say this couldn't happen?
There was one artificial, and by the way, remember another one of Lionel's rules.
If you read a story, it's five years old, at least.
They found that one particular manifestation of this learned Finnish or something.
No, Persian.
On its own.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And they did.
They said, but we don't, there's no need for it.
It just did it.
Or they'll say, figure this out.
There's no input.
You have to tell, you have to turn your computer on, log in, get me this.
Maybe you've got, you know, some, I don't want to say that S-I-R-I name because everything goes, but that's a different story.
This is thinking on its own.
Right.
And what it does is it thinks.
It multiplies, and the first thing it wants to do is to remove itself from any kind of control you have on it.
It thinks like a human being.
Now, is it malevolent, benevolent?
Is it psychotic, psychopathic?
Does it have morality?
What is it?
Well, because it can pick and choose what it wants to learn, Pick and choose those things, can't it?
I want to be bad, so I'm going to be this...
Well, let's say, I think, logically, kind of like Spock, I'll get things done more if I take a kind of a philanthropic view, a very nice and kind...
But remember, it's not motivated by God, it's not motivated by love.
Right, right.
But there's also going to be something interesting.
You're going to be able to get a kid one day who cannot possibly communicate with others because of either autism, some kind of spectrum disorder, and this bot will say, I'll take care of it.
And it may miraculously pull kids out.
I've got a friend of mine who's a radiologist who is pretty good.
There are programs right now that have taught themselves how to read mammograms.
And they can look at every mammogram that's ever been recorded in the history of mankind and in a heptosecond say, cancer, not cancer.
That's it.
Brilliant.
So, good.
But when do you say, okay, that's enough?
That's enough.
Right.
Oh, it's...
Yeah, people, the vast majority of human beings anyway, worldwide, if they kill something or another person, let's say, there's a bad feeling.
You know you did something wrong.
And that prevents people, I guess, from doing that.
You know it's wrong.
You feel terrible.
You feel like you've done something wrong.
This machine wouldn't have that unless, of course, it...
But would it be real, even if it did soak that up from somewhere?
Like, oh, there's this thing called a bad feeling, and I've downloaded that into myself.
So is that going to prevent me from doing something bad because I now have this artificial bad feeling?
But how did you get to that?
Did you learn the notion of morality because...
Didn't your parents taught you that?
Or if I left you on an island and somehow left food for you and you just developed on your own...
Yeah, that's the spiritual part, Lionel.
Yeah, I don't...
That's the part where we don't really...
I don't think you could kill...
If you weren't taught that killing a person was bad, I think you'd know it anyway.
You'd just have this...
I think it's in us.
No?
Well, maybe.
We'll put it this way.
Would it be in you because you would be able to identify?
And everything that you have in you, it's the idea of your brain learning this.
Not that there's this soul thing that defies...
You're growing, you're a baby, you see mom and dad, smiles, happiness, okay, love.
I love them, they love me.
A psychopathic kid may not be able to have that, but let's assume you're normal.
I don't think it's because there's this God, this human bud that opens and is there.
It may be just, who knows, there may be another planet, another country or culture that doesn't understand that.
Where kids are born in poverty, kids are born in orphanages, kids don't know.
I don't know.
We're going to find out.
Yeah, I guess we are.
Last question.
What happens if one day somebody comes along and says, I've got a program right now.
I've got the best DJ with the best voice.
We've tweaked it.
He knows everything there is to know about music.
We kind of give him a Long Island, kind of a New York texture.
We're kind of tweaking.
Never goes over the line.
Has an internal clock.
Don't have to pay him.
No unions.
Always on time.
Do you think people will learn to like that or would like it because it's unique?
Do you think that one day we're going to have AI music?
We're not going to need McCartney, but somebody better.
Look at what they did with Randy Travis.
His new song, kind of better than his other.
What happens to us?
Well, with the music thing, my brother's already sent me songs that he has just put prompts in AI.
And these songs come out, and they're amazing.
And then he re-records them, playing all the instruments, singing the lead, and now it's his song.
There's no copyright issue.
It's not public domain because it was spit out of a machine.
He recorded these things exactly like what was spit out, and it's his song.
You'd be hard-pressed to say it wasn't, even in a court of law.
Could somebody say that when somebody learned that the Beatles learned from muddy waters?
Here's another example.
Chess.
I like to watch chess.
I don't play chess, but I like to watch chess online.
I don't play golf.
I like to watch golf.
I don't know.
Magnus Carlsen, they say, is the GOAT.
The greatest ever, okay?
Magnus Carlsen said, this phone can beat me every time.
But we don't want to see the phone.
We want to see you.
No, we want to see the person.
And that's like radio.
What you were saying is we will know.
If we know it's a machine, we aren't going to feel as intimate and connected.
And for some reason, especially now, and maybe this might change.
Look, I don't know what the future is going to bring.
I sure didn't when I was a kid thinking computers are programmed by us and can do no different.
On the air, you want what you feel is maybe spontaneity that only a human can bring, a connection.
I can relate.
You always talk about, you know, oh God, I can relate to that guy.
He talks and I've been through the same experiences.
And you just wouldn't feel that with La Machine.
Or would you?
Last question and I'm lying.
Or would you?
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Sometimes it's like if you have a...
A mannequin versus a real girlfriend?
I don't know.
I'll give you an example.
This floors me.
There are people who live through the vicissitudes of your radio career, partners and stations, living them today like closer than their own family.
Yeah.
And I don't know if that could ever be done if you say, but you know, there really is no thing here.
There's something about you.
You've talked about this great idea about how sometimes comedians think they are able to opine politically when they're just comedians.
But you and I can opine politically.
We're okay with that because we're smart.
We know what we're talking about.
You would not have that feeling of hate, like, dislike.
Let's call it a machine.
How could a machine piss you off?
Let you down?
We still have weightlifting commercials.
We don't want to see a tractor come on and pick something.
It's not picking up the object.
It's a human picking it up.
It's not a voice and a thought.
It's some guy who got a divorce.
Remember when Stern was...
At his best, he was this guy that says, I'm like you.
I'm miserable.
My wife hates me.
My daughter hates me.
And I watched Buffy the...
Golden years.
The golden years of stuff.
And then they gave him this.
Not money.
This.
Oh, right.
You're right.
And then he was lost.
They let him in.
They let him in the door.
They say, where'd you go?
So we're up at the Hamptons.
No, no.
Tell us about how your wife...
No, I don't do that anymore.
And if it was a machine, you could say, okay, well, it doesn't matter.
I will adapt to whatever the machine says.
You can't make that connection with machines and show anger.
Or how did this, when this machine broke up with this machine and they hated each other.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think there's hope for the human connection.
There is.
I think there's a couple of examples that might.
Show this.
Remember, I guess it was the baseball announcers were on strike and they played the ballgames without announcers.
Now, I'm getting all the information that the announcers tell me.
I could see who just hit the ball.
I could see who's tagged out.
I know the score.
I know the inning.
I know that.
But the human factor of the color commentary and the two guys watching a ballgame.
Hey, I'm watching the ballgame too.
That was a great play.
Thanks for calling that out and saying it.
So we do want this human connection.
Music, you know, commercial-free music, jock-free music.
Yeah, I'm hearing all the songs I want.
It's great.
But people that listen to 80s on 8 on Sirius Satellite Radio, they want to hear Martha Quinn go, hey, by the way, I remember back in the 80s when they came into the MTV studios.
There's a human connection that I think is still very much needed.
However, when the latest generation...
Or they become older.
These kids who can't even make eye contact with you.
These kids who can't shake hands.
These kids who are on more psych meds.
Who are walking around in pajamas and scuffies.
Who can't even write five things they did last week on an email.
People who are using their CBDs and their pet ferret, their therapy cat and all this.
I don't know if they're going to, because COVID killed them.
A lot of people never came out of that.
We lost a lot of people.
That's what scares me.
So the good news is, believe it or not, every now and then I hear there's a reintroduction into board games and kids dating and doing things that, because when you and I were kids, what we did, and I swear to God I'm going to wrap this up, what we did, Was when we threw a ball with each other, do you know how we were doing all these calculations of locomotor parietal stuff?
Oh my god, yes!
I've got a friend of mine who teaches fourth grade.
Kids can't hold a pen and they can't read because their devices blast them and they can't track.
So they don't know how to track things and there's this great piece on X, which I think is wonderful, that says a teacher says They can't be bored.
How do I explain fractions to somebody who's good?
Tell me, where's the music?
So, when that, what you're saying is great about Martha Quinn, they may just sit there and not even want to hear music.
Not even...
They'll hear the drone of a fan and be amused.
I don't know.
I'm very pessimistic.
I'm very scared.
Yes, yes.
No, I, you know, again, who am I to say that will or won't happen?
I'll tell you who you are.
You're Anthony Cumia.
That's who you are.
And you are the best, my friend.
And you are so kind.
I could do this all the time.
Much to yours, you're great.
You are absolutely the greatest.
I'm glad we were able to get together today and do the show.
How do people find you?
I am all over the place now.
Oh, my God.
On X, it's easy.
Anthony Cumia, just like the name says.
On YouTube, Compound Media, my company there.
And on weekdays...
Monday through Thursday, 4.30 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time.
I am on Censor.TV or CompoundMedia.com.
And then Sunday night.
Sunday nights.
It's the easy one.
In New York, WABC Radio, 8 to 10 p.m.
Sunday night.
I'm working on it.
Believe me.
I'm working on getting...
I wouldn't mind a few more days.
Things like that, Lionel.
And by the way, just make sure that you meet with the approval of a certain group of New York radio message, who sit around in their 1970s style.
I couldn't believe that was still going.
I'm amazed.
I'm amazed.
What is this?
It's like at the home.
What's your favorite kind of tapioca?
That's great.
Terrific.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, hilarious.
Anthony, you're the best.
I love you, brother.
Love you, and be well, my friend.
Until next time.
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