Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-27-25_THURSDAY _6AM

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Some news headlines, super survivalist EJ Snyder (Naked and Afraid show) is on talking about his latest Emergency Home prep book. Disney Snow White not just woke but bad. Great talk with filmmaker Greg Rabidoux from S. Carolina, interesting take on it.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at www.clouserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Ten minutes after six, it is Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Join the conversation, 7705633. 770 KMED. Email Bill at BillMeyersShow.com.

The Facebook.com feed is up for as long as it lasts. I don't know. Sometimes they just dump out. It could be Metta doesn't like what we talk about. I don't know, but I like what we talk about. You can join that conversation. Hey, I wanted to just give a quick note here to just a moment to recognize Joel from the Iron Gate.

Joel Carpenter, I think was his last name, had mailed him a couple of times over the years. I was informed yesterday that Joel ended up passing away day before last night. He would call the program every now and then. And he was not a young man, of course, and I didn't know if there were any particular health problems going on with him, but we all shucked the mortal coil at some point. And Joel just wanted to say RIP. And thanks for the contact and keeping us informed with what was going on over at the Iron Gate.

Just wanted to recognize that. Joel Carpenter. Have some good news here I wanted to mention this morning. And like I said, you're always looking for some green shoots in the state of Oregon, because Oregon, as I mentioned yesterday, and nothing like that has changed. It's still bat guano crazy for the most part. That's just the way it is.

But Department of Housing and Urban Development announced yesterday that non-permanent residents are no longer going to be eligible for FHA mortgages. In other words, illegal aliens will no longer be getting FHA home loans. Okay? I'm sure Attorney General Dan Rayfield will probably be filing a lawsuit about this too because I swear that's all that Attorney General, Diane Rayfield, knows how to do. It's like, Trump is doing something. He's being mean. He's not going to give FHA loans to people buying houses in Oregon. No, people buying houses in Oregon can still get an FHA loan. You can't be an illegal alien.

But we're a sanctuary state. That's your problem, Dan. Actually, it's our problem too, for that matter. It would be really interesting if the Trump administration sours the federal milk to the point where maybe even the state of Oregon will decide maybe that sanctuary state kind of stuff isn't going to be working. You know, lack of money and cutting off the sugar from Uncle Sugar probably will have a way of sharpening the mine, don't you think?

Or likely could have a way. Well, I don't know. Do you think Oregon is, when I talk about Oregon, I'm not talking about you and me. I'm talking about the state power structure, democratically controlled. Do you think if you cut enough money out of the Oregon budget that they would actually – you know, maybe we can't be so insane. A fellow can dream, right? Oregon budget that they would actually... you know, maybe we can't be so insane. I felt like a dream, right? It is conspiracy theory Thursday. All right.

Now then, another executive order of the Trump administration that Dan Rayfield, once again, Dan Rayfield I think has like just a stamp says, suing Trump, suing Trump, and then he puts it on the speed dial and then he puts it out in the press releases. But Oregonian reporting that President Donald Trump, his far-reaching executive order Tuesday would require individuals to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and prevent states like Oregon from counting mail-in ballots received after election day, which I say... Again, common sense. And so now they're going over this right now. Secretary of State Tobias Reid, who oversees the Oregon elections, says the fundamental aim of Trump's order was to make it more difficult for people to vote.

Now I would rephrase that. Now of course, Secretary of State Tobias Reid is a rabid partisan, even though he's considered a moderate, as far as Democrats are going. But make it more difficult for people to vote? No. I would say make it more difficult for Oregonians to cheat. Or maybe it's for Democrats to cheat. Although who knows? It could be Republicans doing election cheating too. Cheating is not a monopartisan kind of thing. It's definitely a bipartisan thing, but Tobias Reed says, we know voter ID laws have a pretty chilling impact on voter registration. Well, yeah, if you don't ask for any ID to vote, you get lots and lots of registration, lots of fake registration,

lots of foreign people. This is the state that registered illegal aliens routinely. They finally admitted it. Well, they've admitted to a few of them. Something tells me there's a lot more to it. I don't know. So they're going to sue against that too. Most likely going to face election challenges or court challenges. You know, I can't wait to see Tobias Reed and the Dan Rayfield types, you know, up there in front of federal judges, trying to explain why in a world that requires all sorts of ID, even just to cash a check or to open a bank account to get your benefits, all these various other things, that somehow the burden to prove that you are a legal citizen is too much. We have to do it to do

state ID. In fact, real ID is going to be cranking up here May 7th. It's going to be the deadline, all these kind of things. But hey, they're not saying anything about that. That's all right. But for somehow actually providing identification in order to be able to vote is just beyond the pale. Now I know what they're going to say. They're going to say things like that, well, you know, having to jump through hoops for our constitutional right, that's bad.

Oh, OK. Can we get rid of the background checks in here to buy a firearm? Shut up! You know, that's how that would go, right? Yeah, what about all the hoops that the Democrats want, we people who have a second amendment in this country, to actually go get a firearm? We'll talk about that more too. Kevin Sterrett will rejoin me with the latest in the carnage and some of the battles going on, including the federal courts.

Even the federal court decisions right now are not looking particularly good. Ghost guns. Oh, I love that. You know, they talk about ghost guns. Here it is. This is a country in which people have built guns and made homemade guns from the very beginning, the very founding of this nation. And the Biden administration ended up saying, oh no, you can't do that. And the Supreme Court went along with it. administration ended up saying, oh no you can't do that, and the Supreme Court went along with it. Sometimes I wonder if you get the feeling that the fix is in even on the so-called conservative, conservative Supreme Court that we're always told to be, oh man at least we got the Supreme Court. That ghost gun thing makes you wonder doesn't it? All right so we got Rayfield, we got the deporta- oh!

This is the other great story too. That judge that ruled against Trump in the deportation flights, James Boesberg, who by the way I think was a Bush appointee, right? Not Obama. Could be wrong about that. I'll have to look that up again. But the same judge that ruled against Trump in the Venezuelan deportation flights thing, and of course the Venezuelans ended up getting deported anyway. They're just gone. But he is going to handle a brand new lawsuit alleging that Trump officials violated federal law by talking about that attack in the Signal Chat. This is the Pete Hegseth lawsuit. I guess there's been a lawsuit that was filed. The new lawsuit alleges that the Trump officials' use of Signal, of a platform that allows messages about government business to be erased, is a violation of record retention laws. Huh. All right, so before anyone in the Trump administration

would be able to get together and chat about. Now, see, this was a chat. I didn't think this was an official government meeting, but apparently there may be some law about this. Can officials no longer get together and chat about something off the record without submitting it to a federal judge? I guess we're going to find out with James Boberg

and his case over the next few weeks. Oh my gosh. Like I said, just mentally ill news every day is kind of like you get some good news and then you get the mentally ill news and it's all in there, alright? Nineteen minutes after six, E.J. Snyder is going to join me here in just a few minutes. One of the world's number one extreme survivalists. He was one of the premier people on Naked and Afraid. That's a brave soul to go on Naked and Afraid. But I'll talk with him here in just a few minutes. Hi, I'm Lisa with Kelly's Automotive Service and I'm on KMED.

E.J. Snyder, world's number one extreme survivalist, adventurer, 25-year retired, decorated Army combat veteran. I don't think he's the type of guy that writes children's books, unless it's children's books about how to get home safely. Actually, he has a brand new book out here called Emergency Home Preparedness. E.J., welcome to the show. How are you doing, sir? Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Welcome America for having me as well. Thanks to everyone out there who've been big fans of mine and supported me over the years and thanks for having me, fellas. Now, E.J. Snyder, you were on Naked and Afraid. So you were like one of the first people, were you the first people on it, the first ones to get naked for the camera? I was recruited by Discovery actually for that reason 12 years ago. We filmed the pilot episode chance of the Africa myself Woman, I didn't know Kelly Nightlinger a couple items and we were out there. Nobody not us not the crew Nobody knew what we were doing and we we soldiered through it or lack of a better term

No pun intended. Yeah, and now we have a series that I've been on six times 206 days no, and I've never quit and won right to appear testicle. Oh, well good. Glad to hear that. Thank you for the testicle reference here. Hey, just one other touch in here. Do you think the military training, a little bit on your military background if you don't

mind, do you think that helps on that kind of a story? You get together on a survival story but you're naked there. If you're in the military, you can't have any shyness about the body, right? Would that be a fair assessment how that works? Very fair. The military is not a job for the weak of heart. That's just it. Yeah, I would imagine not here. Hey, what is different about your emergency preparedness book here, E.J.? Because there's a lot of them and I know a lot of people will read emergency books and I think this is great. I love to collect them and so I'm adding yours to my collection. But what do you think makes yours different? I have an idea. I have a thought that makes it different, but why don't you break it down for me if you could. Well, it's very, this book,

you know, I've been training survival and I'm not looking to make the next Bear Grills or Cody Lundin. I want to make you the best you you can be. So I trained and do everything in survival, whether it's a live class or writing or books or podcasts, and I talk at the level of the everyday George Jones. And so after the pandemic, we learned that the U.S., 90% of the U.S. just stayed home. And they really weren't prepared to do that after the pandemic.

And then 10% bugged out. Half of them just bugged out, so where else to bug in? And they were still in the same situation. Then there was the other half there like me that could go to the woods with just a knife and live out there. We started with a video. As we got the video out there, the ultimate bug in home defense guy, people loved it.

They were like, is this in a written form that we can have it on the shelf, look at it and get ready? We realized, hey, let's put this in a book. Let's make it in a format that's easy to understand, step by step, and it's done very well. And when you read it, it's easy to read, you've got good lists in there that help you get ready. And we just want people to be prepared

for whether it's the next pandemic, civil unrest, war, natural disaster, or the zombie apocalypse. Yeah, do you ever look at the news and think that your book is going to get used sooner rather than later someday? I do. And the big problem is people, after the whatever it was, that passed, whether it was the pandemic, the fires in LA,

the hurricanes that hit North Carolina, once they get the smoke clears and people think, oh, or a tornado comes through town, oh, that's not going to happen again. And then they just put it on the back shelf, and then all of a sudden it happens again. They're like, I should have did better. And we have a motto at Survival Mastery, one of my companies is called, don't be scared, be prepared. When you're prepared, you have confidence, you instill confidence in your family and

your loved ones, and it's just smart. If you stock up your garage full of shelves with these supplies and you never get to them, at least you have them when you need them most. Then all of a sudden that day comes and you're like, I'm so glad I got EJ's book and got ready. Yeah, exactly. The one thing that I really liked about your book is that many people talk about bug out. Bugging out, bugging out, bugging out.

Now in certain cases, yeah, that might be the case, then you end up being part of a huge refugees. You're a refugee essentially is what you are at that point. Yes you are. Yes you are. But 90% plus of us I think, in fact the subtitle of your book, Emergency Home Preparedness, is the ultimate guide for bugging in during natural disasters, pandemics, civil unrest, and war, because most people don't have a bug out cabin, but most of us would probably have to

stay home. And I thought that was what made your book a lot different. And I appreciated that because I think that's where most people are. What say you about that take on it? No, that's a solid observation. That's exactly why we did it, because like I said earlier, we know that most of the US, they were forced to stay home in many cases, but they did. And your home is your castle. Your home is where you mentally feel safe, where you mentally feel you're safe, you're confident, it's familiar, and it's already could be a tough situation.

A lot of people don't do well with tough mental challenges or they're put to task. I'm the opposite. You tell me I'm going to be locked in my 3,600 square foot house, all of a sudden that becomes a 10 by 10 cell to me. I'm going to run to the woods. I'm going to go where it's open spaces and I can handle my own situation. But a lot of people, they got to get the basics together and they don't put the right timeline. They think, oh, I just need 72 hours.

I knew your commercials about your survival foods. You need 72 hours or that's what the CDC recommends. No. You need a minimum of three weeks. And then once you get three weeks, get to a month, then get three months, then get to six months. You've got a six-month food supply with food and water, and you can stretch it out. If you go one meal a day, you've got six months, now you have 18 months. Yeah. One thing about that though is... That's what we talk about.

Now, would it be fair to say a big mistake that people make is talking about it? It's kind of like a fight club. If you've got your big pantry and your big supplies and things like that, you don't talk about it, do you? No, you stay the gray man. I just was seeing a little clip last night on Instagram, which is something I preach is, if your house is outside, let's say this thing's getting really bad, well go break a few pieces of furniture, throw that out in your front lawn, throw some trash out there, throw some sheets out there, make it look like someone's already looted through your house, so you're putting up the facade so that you don't become a target of potential looters and people wanting to do bad things because that's going to come

up. And another big mistake people make is prescription drugs and eyeglasses. I always say have a backup to the backup, but there's not going to be any drug stores if the world flips, so you better make sure you're prepared with whatever medications you have long term. Hey, I got to tell you, that is a big takeaway on that too from emergency home preparedness. By the way, what is it? Two is one and having one is none, right? That's the way you attend. That's a Ranger term that we use in the Army. Yep, indeed. Great book. I think this is a winner. I like the fact that

you're helping people prepare to bug in. That's where most people are and it's not necessarily get out of town bag, a get home bag, you know, that sort of thing. It's the ultimate guide for bugging in during natural disasters, pandemic, civil unrest and more. Available at the usual suspects, but you can also head to your website ejsnyder.com and you'll sign it for the folks, right? Oh, absolutely.

Yep. They go up there, they can get a signed copy. And like I said, all things survival. I teach survival, they'll find classes over there. And then my new company, survivalmastery.co, if you lose a little EJ2025, you get a discount and we are over there teaching people survival outdoor skills online in lots of classes, not just survival, but everything mindset, preparedness as well.

So yeah, don't be scared, be prepared. All right, E.J. Snyder, thanks for being here and having that particular set of skills, okay? You be well. Take care. You guys stay safe. I sure will. E.J. Snyder, once again, emergency home preparedness. I'll put the information up. I think I'll have access on my KMED.com website again. Been having a problem with the login, but we'll get the blogs going again for sure. This is the Bill Myers Show. Thanks, Jan. I'm out here on location looking at a roof that needs to be replaced. Here's your future weather forecast if you have a roof like this one. Brought to you by our new sponsor,

Fontana Roofing. And they're right on time. Nice. Excludes tax license title and 250 dealer doc fees. See dealer for details. The Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. 637. Every now and then I get a chance to talk to someone I've never had a chance to speak with before. It's great to have an E.J. Snyder on a few minutes ago talking survivalist. And now we're going to get into the culture battle here a little bit and with a gentleman who I have not had the pleasure of speaking with before but a friend of mine Sandy got me set up with

Greg Rebedew and he's an award-winning filmmaker and author and has a website you can check him out and see what he's up to it's Gregthefilmmaker.com Gregthefilmmaker.com I I like that. It's pretty simple. Even I could remember that here, Greg. Welcome to the program. Good to have you on. A pleasure to be here, Bill. Thank you. So you've decided to to expand beyond, I guess, beyond filmmaking and then getting into the culture wars and maybe punditry about that. Tell me a little bit about your background. What kind of films have you done? Is it documentary?

Is it drama? Just break it down if you could, please. Yeah, no, absolutely. So we've been specializing really in documentary films the last several years. And so we've been looking at things like Stolen Babies, Smuggling, Sex Trafficking, some tough stuff. One of our films, Stolen Bab, smuggling, sex trafficking, some tough stuff.

One of our films, Stolen Babies of Spain, focused on that, which was going on for decades. And then we kind of helped shed a real spotlight on it. And it did get some legislation and it did get some more focus. And then we focused on one person that was trying to find his own biological background and his biological mom. And it brought us all the way to the Vatican and the Pope, the current Pope that's been Francis, that's battling illnesses and all. And so we filmed a meeting between him, the Pope, and this other gentleman in that film.

And then we looked at some things. We have a film that we're doing, a docudrama and also a script. So a narrative film based on it and it's based on a local story here. And when I say here, I'm in Myrtle Beach here in South Carolina of a very, let's just say highly suspicious, very emotion packed incident which ended in the death of a young woman who was married to, at that time, a pastor who was in an evangelical, leading an evangelical church, and it's caused a real big uprising here and it got some national tension. So we've got a script on that. We're doing a docu-drama on that story as well. And

then we've also done some comedy, some light-hearted stuff. You got to... Yeah, because everything else you've been done some comedy, some lighthearted stuff. You got to kind of... Yeah, because everything else you've been talking about here, Greg, sounded like serious as a heart attack, supposedly, right? Yeah. So you got to go, okay, before I just wake up crying every morning, it'd be nice to do something funny. So we did a short film about basically a college grad who's hanging out, sitting at the couch playing video games, and his mom gives him ultimatum. You got five days, get a real job, or I'm booting your rear end out the door. And he basically goes Basically a college grad who's hanging out, sitting at the couch playing video games and his mom gives him ultimatum. You got five days, get a real job or I'm booting your rear end out the door.

And he basically goes to his friends, not such a good idea. And his friends were doing the same thing for advice. And then that's kind of that comedy. And so we've got that in the works. And so, but we're looking at that other script right now. And you know, part of it is you, as I'm sure you you know Bill, a lot of it is you can write wonderful scripts, you can have all the great crew, talent, vision, you gotta get investments, you gotta get the back.

Well yeah, you gotta be able to make it. Absolutely. Yeah, you gotta be able to make that pencil. I wanted to ask you, since you've made so many documentaries, and by the way, before we get on to the documentaries in Snow White, I especially wanted to talk with you about that, given this has been a big bomb and a stinko in the media, get your take on it.

Comedy is much harder than a documentary, wouldn't you say? I shouldn't say harder, but comedy's hard, isn't it? Really? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. You had, you know, Charlie Chaplin, who was sort of the father in some ways of certainly the silent films, but the comedy, a lot of physical comedy. Yeah. And he was always asked about this too.

And what he said still holds true today. You know, great comedy looks easy, looks simple, but it's the hardest damn thing to do in the world. And I would agree in the sense of like when we shoot comedy themes, so I do a lot of the original script writing. So in my head, in my you know fevered warped brain, I see something and I think it's hilarious and then I'll try to get it on paper and then we'll do a usually an early reading and I'll just try to get a feel for what people other than me think. And if they go yeah this is funny, the process of getting it from your head into paper, from

paper into filming is hard and the timing is really challenging. So you end up having to do a lot of usually a lot of takes until it just feels right. And it's always you always cross your fingers with this kind of stuff and hope that audiences go, yeah, that's really funny and they share it. And that's why when, in one hand, I understand why the big studios go with the brand names and they go with something like the Snow White because they think, hey, of course,

everybody's Snow White. But when you go from a classic animated, phenomenal movie for so many reasons in 1937, which really put Disney on the map. I mean, they had the little steamboat Willie in the little animated cartoon that introduced Mickey a few years earlier, but it was Snow White that really built the house of Disney. And then you go from that to a live action with diverse transgender dwarfs and then you go CGI. Now I did not see the movie. No, hold on, hold on, hold on. I just want to make sure.

Greg, I did not read up much on this movie because I had no interest in going to see a Disney movie. I haven't had an interest in going to Disney for a long long time. Disney destroyed Star Wars as far as I'm concerned, okay? You know, all that baloney of, you know, even Luke back in the original had to do some studying and training and then when they get to the female Star Wars stars then it has to be, I'm just born with all this knowledge, isn't this great? The Force was born within me I but anyway so I just I don't go to Disney films period I hear you now yeah you're telling me

really transgender dwarfs yeah so what they did so what they did initially and this is why the film started to already get some well-deserved ad press and karma okay was already what happened. This is normal. You've developed, well this side's normal, you develop some things, you do some still shots, you do some publicity still shots of on set casting, you start doing a few things and you send that out. You kind of send that to the press, start wetting their appetite.

What they did is they did this of the dwarfs but the dwarfs they chose they basically said what kind of rainbow in terms of society can we get for dwarfs and I guess from their viewpoint virtue signal just as much as possible. Well I mean that came out and there was a lot of backlash and basically a lot of people going what in the world are you doing? Okay now here's how bad it got though. You may not know who by name the actor Peter Dinklich is, but he is a dwarf. And so he knows a thing or two about dwarfism.

He is one of the actors that was in Game of Thrones. Okay. And so it gets bad when he says, YVF, I'm cleaning it up a bit, did Disney decide it was a good movie to take the classic 1937 animated, update it to 2025 and stick a young woman in a dark cave with seven dwarfs and then decide not even to use live dwarfs and go CGI generated. That's how bad it got.

When you lose your dwarf constituency on a film about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you're doing something wrong. I mean, is it too hard to hide dwarfs? Is it that rare that there aren't many dwarf actors? I don't know. Good Lord, no. Okay. No, and the point he was making, and the larger point is that it's always a risk when you go from, and full disclosure, I'm not a big fan of going from classic animated that is really successful and strikes a nerve and the sense of it's beloved and a lot of families can go to it and it's family friendly and a lot of kids love it, to okay, let's go live action.

I mean, that's why I didn't like Lion King animated going to live action. I don't want to see live, you know, that's why I don't turn on like, you know, the national, the old National Geographic type docs, documentary films on, you know, lions fighting in the woods. I don't want to see it. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to experience it. So what I want is the magic and the make believe world of the animated. So already it was risky. And let's face it, The Lion King, as an example, was a perfect film, as far as I'm concerned. It's like, why do you mess with perfection?

Why bother? Unless, maybe what's happened here, Greg, by the way, I'm speaking with a filmmaker, Greg Rabideau, and is it just that we have run out of ideas at this point and all anyone can do these days is to Replum or redrill into past successes. How do you see it as a as a filmmaker yourself? Yeah, it's an excellent question and I'm gonna tell you it's natural to think that but I'm gonna I'm gonna take a contrarian point Of view a little bit which is no, I don't think we've run out of ideas I think what happens is when studios get myopic and they say absolutely we're not going to take any kind of risks and so we think however wrong we think that

the name Snow White alone is going to make X amount on our big opening weekend then we're not going to look at fresh ideas and we're just going to try to reboot. Which is basically what they did. But if you're going to do that, Bill, and you're going to spend, which they ended up spending $272 million on a budget. Now wait a minute, $272 million on a Snow White Disney budget and they didn't even have to hire dwarfs and they spent $270 million, where did it go? It goes to crew, it goes to marketing, it goes to actors, it goes to all of the technical behind the scenes, all the cost incurred with making a huge film like that.

But if you're going to spend that much money, then you got to do with Sam Goldwyn of the Metro Golden Meyer, the old days, right? The old studios used to say, look, all my actors can have opinions and they can have wonderful thoughts as long as they keep that to themselves. When you get Rachel Zegler, who's sort of this, at the moment she's one of the it girls. Yeah I don't know much about her but what pretty mouthy from the looks of it and a Colombian actress right? Yeah so she was in the West Side Story reboot that's and she can she can act some and she can certainly sing so but she was being a sort of the hot property so she coming off a West Side Story I'm sure Disney thought oh she's a hot property right right? It doesn't matter. We're going to cast her because the name and

people are going to know her from that. And then we're going to put her here. But when you start coming out, I mean, put it this way, when Disney released their film trailer, which is a big launch, sort of a point, number one on the process to really build and the buzz around a film. So you release your film trailer. On the day they released the film trailer, she took it upon herself, Rachel Ziegler, to make sure the world knew that she wanted a free Palestine and by association Hamas. And then she had also tweeted the typical, right, F Trump and F after supporters and may only harm come to them and may hit

They know no peace. She's out there Firing all this stuff up at the same time Disney is trying to market her in the movie as pure and virtuous and innocent and beloved so I Get believe me that people, you know, actors are people just like Goldman said, they have their opinions and thoughts, but it's a business, right? So if someone's paying you millions of dollars and they want you to portray a certain character both on and off the camera, at least as long as the film's being marketed, right, to keep

that magic going, just do it. That's the business you're in. But she couldn't resist, she couldn't help herself. And I guess what made it worse and got even worse depressed, if you can imagine, and a bigger backlash is, do you know the name Gal Gadel, the actress, the Wonder Woman actress? Yes, and she was and she was essentially blacklisted for her political views, right? Right. So she's Israeli born. She served in the Israeli armed forces. She's been an outspoken critic of Hamas. She was after October 7th. She seemed like she stood almost alone in the wilderness of Hollywood saying, hey, we need to put some resources towards the victims of October 7th, and not

just what many of you are doing is saying, you know, let's look at both sides. And she's then she's saying, where's the other side to this terrible slaughtering of October 7th? So her co-star, Rachel Zegler, who has said, hey, Gal Gadot is a mentor of mine, I admire another female actor that's made it big. So that's how you repay her or that's how you express that worship or admiration by posting that when you know your co-star is having her stance and her ancestry. It's almost like, hey there's an open wound, let me throw salt on it. Yeah, lots of it.

And rub it, by the way. Rub it in, not just throw it on there. And oh my gosh, rub it in with steel wool, I guess. Filmmaker Greg Rabideau with me this morning. Hey, Greg, I'm wondering what role social media plays in this because now it has just become so easy that that people are just supposed to vomit their thoughts out without a whole lot of thinking and do you think that even Rachel Ziegler even even though I think she's kind of

an anti-american screed maker or whatever but do you think that that that social media makes it much much easier to screw yourself over like Rachel Zegler apparently did. Yeah, no, it's a great point. I mean, let's say I use the sort of the analogy where let's say you and I are having a coffee or something, we're just chatting and we're throwing, you know, we're BSing to each other and then we don't think anything more of it, right? But if everything that you and I BSed about we're all of a sudden just thrown into an open platform everywhere. Exactly, exactly. So you and I talk a little bit and then it's done, it's gone and on to the next day. Well, especially the

younger generation, 15, 16, 18, you know, into the 20s are so used to living, breathing like oxygen with social media and the cell phone constantly. I mean every thought, every movement, hi I'm brushing my teeth today kind of thing, you know gets 2 million views. So they're so used to that, that is their form of expression. So there is a chance to just be so used to it was like maybe just gossiping with a couple of her gal pals but the reality because at some point you got to grow up, right? You got to know the reality.

The reality is you are the face and star of a $270 million film and a multi-billion dollar franchise. So it's kind of like being the star of a team. And you know, let's say you just came out of college and you signed this, you know, $25, $50 million contract and you're now the star quarterback for whatever team you want. Well, you do more than throw a ball, right? You are the face. You're the face.

So if you go out and do something stupid or say something stupid or offend half your audience, which she did or more by saying that about the so-called Trump supporters. And I don't mean to digress real quick, Bill, but can we stop with the Trump and his supporters? It's more than half of Americans. So when you say that, it's not like a small niche movement. Yeah. Well, it's all of a sudden like you're setting fire to half of your potential audience. And you're burning through half your audience. Like with that star quarterback, you already upset maybe half the ticket holders. So yeah, I get what you're burning through half your audience, like with that star quarterback, you already upset maybe half the ticket holders. So yeah, I get what you're saying with the social media.

It is dangerous. It can be very dangerous and it lives on forever. But Disney realized this. So they sent, I don't know if you know this, they sent, like in the old days used to happen, a handler. And he flew out from New York to LA to basically sit with her and give her the riot act and say, look, you can't do this. This is why you got to stop it.

You got to restrain it. But you know what I checked as of today, this morning before you and I talked, she still has the tweet up about the free Palestine and all of this stuff. So either she stopped or slowed down, but she sure didn't go up and kind of clean up the mess on aisle seven. So who knows if she's learned her lesson. She's on to another movie. I think she's doing Romeo and Juliet reboot now. So we'll see if what she does about Romeo and Juliet. Maybe she'll fire up some tweets about how much of a terrible writer

Shakespeare was. who knows? Yeah, well, or white supremacy, whatever the case might be. I can't help but think of the late Elvis Presley, who was once asked about politics. He says, you know, I'm just an entertainer. Thank you. Thank you very much. Although he certainly had an opinion, and you end up finding about some of those opinions later on there, but he didn't wear it on his sleeve. Sometimes there's a little bit of wisdom in that. When it comes to films though, is there any hope for Disney? I look at so many misfires in the Disney world like this here, Greg, that I can't help but

think that it is baked into their DNA right now to be all woke, all island of misfit humans, not really worrying about any kind of tradition whatsoever. If we don't have the island of misfit humans elevated and starring in the show, we can't make this film. It's almost like the public education system too in which mostly white, young, liberal women have come up and have lived in this cultural stew here for the last 20, 25 years or so. And that's all there is. What do you say?

Well, I say this. When we talk culture, about any kind of, let's say, company, for example, right? So early on, the culture clearly was imbued by one person, Walter Disney and his brother Roy, Disney to a lesser extent, and they had a very clear vision and he was all about family and entertainment. Now, don't get me wrong, he was a tough SOB. He was, he could be ruthless, he could be cutthroat, he could be he was super efficient with resources, but he had a clear vision and He basically only wanted people around him that shared his vision So as they built he certainly got rid of folks that were in it for themselves or didn't share that vision and everything was about

Disney magic Entertainment creating memories bringing people and family back to Disney, whether it was amusement park or movies. Okay, great. So we got that. So what happens is the culture tends to die off literally because the people with the vision like him die off. So it's got to be kept by people and safeguarded and shepherded through by people that share the same values. And I don't think it's going to be kept alive by a particular CEO bean counter type. No, no, no. That's not, that's, it's not just one person anymore.

You can't replace Walt Disney. You can't. But what you can do is you can try to surround yourself with people like he did that share the same vision, that have the same values. What Disney did is similar to what I would say is the modern Democratic Party did is they started to become completely hostage willingly to a small, very loud, very active, very well-financed, very well-angry portion of their party. So Disney started to hire people who openly posted videos about how excited they were that they could now push whatever agenda they wanted to push in every single film. I mean,

I recall one video from one of their artists saying she was so excited because she said, in every damn film we make, I'm going to be sure that there is a lesbian in the film. So what you started to get replaced with the Disney magic and family friendly, and it's all about entertainment was, hey, Disney is a great spot to land if you want to make a political narrative agenda and if you want to make policy via Disney. So then again, like you were just saying, and I was just saying, if you burn half your audience right away with your tweets, well, if already you start making all your movies very heavy with a narrative that only speaks to maybe

5 or 10% at most of who would go, what are the other 90% going? They're going somewhere else. They're going somewhere else. And like Bud Light, to your question, Bill, I'm not sure they ever come back. Maybe a percentage comes back, but you might have burned them so bad that they are going to get their entertainment or family friendly films. And we already see this happening with other films and other subjects that are not Disney. So you really just basically threw a whole lot of rotten poison apples on your Disney magic. I'm not sure it comes back, certainly ever to where it was, but they're going to have to root out, they're going to have to change their culture and focus if they want to get back close to where they were. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, that does make sense. I'm still wondering why so many parents or grandparents are paying for Disney+. I don't get it. Do you? The name, the brand. I think they're... So otherwise, they're playing replays of 1980, right? Or 1970 or 1960. Movies are a cultural touchstone to many people. I'm sure you can think when you're younger, if there was a movie or a show that you really loved and you go back and you want to get that same good feeling from it. Well that's again why in 1937 when Snow White first came out, it was a phenomenal movie in many ways. The color, the sound, the script, the technical progress in animation, right? You had Judy Garland,

you had Marlena Dietrich in the live Carthage Theater, the old theater in LA, stand-up, standing ovation. They had a great feeling about it. Judy Garland says later, years later, she would re-watch it, just what you said, to get that same feeling again. So I get why people initially are like, well Disney, I'm sure it's got to be great. They're trying, there's a few baby steps into some shows where they, you can see where they're trying to go back, but they're still I think overwhelmed or at least myopic in getting the advice maybe around the table when they screen these and green

light certain projects of that, I think, smaller percentage of folks that have a very different worldview than their audience. And that's always dangerous, just like Bud Light. That was not the worldview or the politics of the overwhelming majority of people that like Bud Light, and they did it anyway. And when you do those kinds of things it's self-inflicted. That's what Disney's been doing for the last at least two decades. In the streaming world that we have now, I don't know if there's as much power with the central studio as it used to be. Do you find that as a filmmaker and do you

see more democratizing of this in which you know it's no longer going to be the Disney dictating what's going to be the next child hit etc. How do you see it? I see it yeah no no I think that's an interesting point as a filmmaker as an indie filmmaker we're always looking at the new model the new business model is really your collaborative so for instance the script I mentioned before about based on the scandal here where we're at in South Carolina. So what we're looking for would be a collaborative effort of a number of smaller co-production companies that want to do something

and have a vision, but they want to do it pretty much the way they want to do it. In other words, they don't necessarily want to say, hey, we really want to tell this story much the way they want to do it. In other words, they don't necessarily want to say, hey, we really want to tell the story. And then by the time it gets to a studio, they say, no, we're going to replace live dwarfs with CGI. Exactly. You don't want to do that. So you're able to get like, wait a minute, that's not even close to the story. I think the big studios, whenever you can throw around a quarter to a half a billion or more, you're gonna have leverage and power, but it's over only certain stories.

I mean, look at what dominates the theaters now are essentially superhero comic book stories. And I think they're running out of ideas there, seriously. It's not- Well, when you start seeing, you know, Well, when you start seeing things like the Wolverine 5, we're going to go back to a reboot of the origin story of Wolverine, we've already seen three different origin stories of Spider-Man, to your point, you're starting to scrape it. You're starting to scrape that bottom, perhaps.

So maybe they'll look at other ideas, but the streaming democratization, I think is the word used, which is spot on. It at least gives folks like myself and our film studio. Yeah, you have a shot now at least where you go back 20, 30 years. No way. Right? No, no. If you didn't get through, you know, somebody at Paramount or you didn't get through somebody at Paramount or you didn't get through it somebody at MGM, it wasn't going to get made. Well, now the technology is such that you can make cinema quality films for a much lower price. We're not talking about 1940s onset Beverly Hills with a big movie camera that can't even be portable. We're not talking about that.

And then we're talking about there are a lot of other opportunities to have your show be seen. That's the good news. The not so good news is because there's so many, you can end up on a live stream or channel where how do you cut through? Yeah, just a few people might be watching, but at least it's a start and at least it gets you a little bit of the audience to tell your story too. So you got the big, big tent films, the Mission Impossible franchises, the Avengers, and then

you got the reboots of Disney that seem they just don't get the message A lot of people don't want to go animated classic magic to real-life action And then you get a lot of potential opportunities to tell a variety of stories on a lot of these streaming channels So that's what keeps us going and excited at least Because you know, we're not we don't have the wherewithal to do a quarter of a billion type film. But we can hook up and collaborate with other smaller production companies where we might share a vision and we might be excited about the same story and pool our resources and have it see its light today, which is our goal and our vision.

Greg, it was a pleasure meeting you. You ran a little bit longer than I thought we would, but you know it's kind of... I'm not involved in your industry and so I find it fascinating and then especially your commentary on how you know Disney and some of these other studios just go so wrong and can be so off the mark. You can find out more about Greg and his work at Gregthefilmmaker.com. GregtheFilmmaker.com and you have commentary up there too along with everything else you're doing. Fair enough? Yeah, fair enough. I appreciate what you do. Thanks so much for letting me talk on about

it. Alright. I hope to have you back sometime. When I have questions about cinema, I'm going to you, okay? We'll talk to you later. See you, Greg. I'll be here for you. Be well. Greg Rabidoux. It is KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. In 2005, John and Dan acquired Drake's Paint, your local Benjamin Moore dealer, from their fathers. More important than the assets was the cherished family business name. The cousins

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