The Quintana Show

How does social media resemble "The Twilight Zone?" In this episode, Mike and Q connect social media, technology, government surveillance, the concept of iconoclasts, and one of the greatest episodes of TV ever made. We would like to know from you: who do you think of as a free-thinking iconoclast and why?  -  Welcome to Cutting Though from the Quintana Network. Q and former legislator Mike Gatto...

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has dropped the dress code for the Floor of the US Senate.   Q thinks it's the barbarians storming the gates of society, and he and Mike debate what the actual affect is; for both the institution and our society.  Is a dress code really just a dress code? Or does it stand for something so much bigger? And why would we make such a change for a single Senator?...

Today Mike and Q recount the most popular episode of the Quintana Show EVER: our interview with the Colombo Family Capo who simply walked away from the Cosa Nostra - Michael Franzese!! Gatto & Q recount how Michael coolly and bluntly spilled the beans on the Cosa Nostra involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, as well as how the Cosa Nostra ensured J....

In November of 1997, Titanic opened as a smash hit, and Seinfeld and ER ruled the airwaves. The music charts were filled with slow, sappy, forgettable songs - except the song that hit #6. "Tubthumping" by the dyed-in-the-wool anarchist punk band, Chumbawa was a pounding sports/drinking anthem that still reverberates through stadiums today. But the story is so much cooler - learn how an anarchist c...

We have an exciting episode for you today: Max Miller the host of the INSANELY popular  "Tasting History" on YouTube AND newly crowned celebrity cookbook king with the runaway best-seller, "Tasting History"  cookbook.  Q and Max discuss where their mutual love of history comes from, his surprise cookbook success, and some of his best and worst dish adventures. We also discuss the "Max Miller v Jam...

Fentanyl is a poison and a scourge in California and the only solution the Assembly Committee on Public Safety can see is to (drum roll) throw  money at it.  Here’s the problem with that: once people and organizations start to get money to solve a problem they don’t want to actually solve the problem because then the money river will dry up.   Q and Mike have seen this with homelessness, affordabl...

In this episode, Q and Mike talk about the big Hollywood weekend of Oppenheimer and The Barbie Movie.   Q is excited because at least it isn’t another “franchise weekend” while Mike relates that virtually ALL Hollywood storytelling comes from intellectual property instead of original ideas. Movies are no longer based on artistic merit but only Moneyball metric-based content and it’s pretty much al...

In 1969 a pretty-much forgotten R&B group called The Winstons released a hit single called “Color Me Father,” it went to #7 in the pop charts and won the R&B Grammy for Single of the Year.  But it was the B-side of that single that changed music history. “Amen Brother” was the B-side and it had a 6-second drum break that over time took on it’s own life and became the foundation for thousands of so...

Are the Democrats headed for a 1968 Convention problem? Mike and Q review the latest in the current presidential race by looking back at 1968 when the incumbent dropped from the race only months before the convention and the chaos that ensued. Mike only gives it a 25% max chance that President Biden doesn’t run, but if he doesn’t and waits too late to announce - history could be revisited. In Marc...

We have a VERY special guest today, California State Senator Shannon Grove from Bakersfield, California. Barely over 24 hours after Senator Grove pulled back the curtain on what “public safety” really means in the California Legislature. Her bill, SB14, would increase penalties for repeat sex trafficking of minors. Seems like a no-brainer, right? But the bill died in committee, as Democrats played...

Are we alone in the universe? Have aliens visited the Earth? Is the government hiding it all from us? Q and Mike talk about the testimony of David Grush, a former intelligence officer, who claims his old unit had 12 alien spaceships. Well, Mike calls BS! As always, he gives his three rational reasons. Stick around for more about UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster. Mike is willing to bet that...

The presidential election is in 2024 so Q (a lobbyist) and Mike (a legislator) talk about long-shot presidential candidates. Q is “RFK Jr.-curious” but Mike and Q walk through myriad potential candidates and outcomes. Jamie Dimon, Elon Musk, Gavin Newson & Kamala Harris all get their turn in the spotlight.  Welcome to Cutting Though from the Quintana Network. Q and former legislator Mike Gatto cut...

How the #$@! Was That Hit has never done an album until today!  At the beginning of 1976 Dog Day Afternoon was the #1 movie, Gerald Ford was President and the Pittsburgh Steelers were about to beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X. By the end of 1976 it was all about Charlie's Angels, JAWS, and a live double-album by a relatively unknown guitarist, “Frampton Comes Alive”.   Peter Frampton was se...

See those cute little goats cleaning up the highway or local fields in California? Enjoy them now because it may not be for much longer! Learn how new California labor laws, unless something is done immediately, will absolutely drive this industry out of the state. Why is this happening? Is it organized labor overreach? Bureaucratic ineptitude? Or, a nefarious plot by "Big Sheep"? Learn more on th...

CA’s biggest cities are losing major retail, streets are packed with tents for the homeless, large retailers will not enforce theft crimes and small retailers have given up on operating all over - how did we get here!? Mike and Q discuss how Proposition 47, the Safe Neighborhood and School Act, was anything but safe for California as it drastically lessened penalties for many crimes like shoplifti...

Reports are coming in from across the county – Airbnb properties are falling off a cliff. Investors who sunk millions into Airbnb properties are now bailing. So what is the truth? Is the Airbnb bubble about to burst? 62% of the 1.2 million Airbnb listings in the US have only been around 3 years. Is there a glut of new properties on the market – with the big guys about to eat the little guys? We ha...

It's March of 1984: The U.S. and the Soviet Bloc were engaged in a Cold War and fear of WW 3 was at a fever pitch - and the #2 song in the US was "99 Luftballoons" by a completely unknown German group Nena. How did a song about the end of the world sung completely in German with multiple tempo changes become so popular in America? Largely by a simple mistake. Learn more on this episode of "How the...

Joining us just in time for a royal coronation we have the popular British historian and TV presenter Helen Carr. We get into the complicated love-hate history between England and France, how the Plantagenet Dynasty was always in the middle of all of it, and why she chose to write the definitive history of John of Gaunt - the hub for almost all of the 14th-century medieval spokes. Helen also gives...

YouTube comic and hip-hop star King Neeko had a misspent youth in and out of prison but now he's blowing up on social media! King tells Q  about how he fell into “the life,” how he was able to pull himself out, and why he wants to help others escape as he did. But we also get into the nitty gritty details of jail vs. prison, how to survive your first week, who the prison “MVPs” are and so many way...

This episode of How the #@&! Was That a Hit is "Fight for Your Right (To Party)" by the Beastie Boys. The Beastie Boys are a groundbreaking hip-hop trio from New York City that blended rap, rock, punk, funk, and more in their innovative and influential music. And "Fight for Your Right (To Party)" took the punk roots of the Boys (did you know they started as a hardcore punk band with a female drumm...

Our audience's favorite guest, Detective John Cabrera, returns to the Quintana Show! Today we cover another forgotten serial killer: Juan Corona. In 1971, a year that saw Patty Hearst, the Charles Manson trials, and the Zodiac Killer, the deadliest killer in US history was in the sleepy river burg of Marysville California. Juan Corona killed at least 25 down-on-their-luck drifters in the course of...

The year was 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time, Doc Gooden won his only Cy Young award, NBC's the Cosby Show was the most popular TV show and on November 16th, THE WORST ROCK SONG EVER hit Number 1 in America! We Built This City by Starship (not Jefferson Starship) rocked up the charts on the backs of nostalgia, great production and brilliant management but 20 years later is consid...

Anna de Rothchild was a wealthy heiress to the European banking dynasty and real estate developer networking with other high society folks at Mar-a-Lago. She played rounds of golf, took photos, and hobnobbed with the cream of the American political elite. But, turns out, she was a complete fraud bc and simultaneously running from the Russian mob!    Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Sallah...

It’s September of 1983: Martina Navratilova wins her first Wimbledon, Vanessa Williams is the first black Miss America, and the #4 song in America is… Puttin’ on the Ritz by Taco?? How and why did this song from the 1920s regain popularity in the 80s and should it have been a hit? Tim and Q break down Dutch-Indonesian rock, and MTV music video selections, and, for the first time, agree that they d...

Cher is waaaaay bigger than you thought! She has been a pop star, fashion icon, Oscar-winning actress, and cultural phenom since the mid-60s but didn't have her biggest number 1 until she was 52 years old! Regrouping in London after being dropped by her label Cher worked with an innovative producer and a brand new technology: Auto-Tune to create the smash dance hit "Believe" which became not just...