Episode 758 - Shep Gordon
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast WTF.
Marc:I know what's happening.
Marc:I know what's happening.
Marc:I'm recording this on Wednesday.
Marc:Wednesday.
Marc:So if anything happens between now and when this posts later tonight in the middle of the night, this is Wednesday morning.
Marc:We're going to post an interview today with Shep Gordon that was recorded before the election, but it's what we do.
Marc:It's a good interview.
Marc:It's a great interview.
Marc:A lot of wisdom.
Marc:A lot of talk about Alice Cooper and Groucho Marx and other stuff.
Marc:But I know that seems irrelevant.
Marc:I mean, everything seems irrelevant now.
Marc:That is the feeling that I got last night.
Marc:We were on set late checking in with election results.
Marc:And
Marc:It was devastating.
Marc:There's no other way to look at it.
Marc:For people that believe in progress and change and cultural evolution, it's devastating for those reasons.
Marc:Whoever you decided to vote for.
Marc:And the feeling last night, there was a selfish panic that, you know, what does this mean?
Marc:How scared do I have to be?
Marc:And then you start thinking, like, how scared do we have to be?
Marc:And, you know, what does this mean?
Marc:And...
Marc:Innately, my first reaction, which is surprising, but not really for me, is to become despondent and depressed and grief-stricken and self-pitying and just defeated.
Marc:The bottom line is there's a fucking gaping wound happening.
Marc:in this country.
Marc:And I don't know how it gets fixed.
Marc:I know that I got to keep talking.
Marc:This isn't fundamentally a political show, but I believe that he was the wrong guy.
Marc:And I believe a lot of people got suckered.
Marc:And I believe that we witnessed one of the longest and most insanely compelling long cons ever executed.
Marc:And who were the marks?
Marc:Well, I guess on some level,
Marc:more than half of this country, maybe the world.
Marc:And this isn't the first time that someone has completely hoodwinked an entire nation.
Marc:There's plenty of racism, plenty of misogyny, plenty of sexism, plenty of anti-Semitism, plenty of the worst parts of any country.
Marc:There's plenty of that, but there was just plenty of people
Marc:whose reaction towards the slow progress of social, racial, and economic change, their reaction...
Marc:was Trump.
Marc:So that means the predominant feeling is, fuck you, fuck change, let's bring it back.
Marc:Let's bring back something I understand, something narrow, something not only conservative, but something that feeds and justifies an entitlement that is shifting, right?
Marc:Don't change anything.
Marc:As a matter of fact, get rid of the change in progress we made because it doesn't jive with me.
Marc:So this is where we're at.
Marc:And you can sit there and go, well, he's not my president.
Marc:Many of them did it through Obama.
Marc:But the truth is that the way it works is that he is.
Marc:He's everyone's president.
Marc:The president reflects the country.
Marc:If you got a problem with him, you got a problem with the country.
Marc:So what do we do?
Marc:Do I sit in the despondent, grief-stricken futility of someone who gives up?
Marc:No, man.
Marc:No.
Marc:This is a shitty time and place.
Marc:He will be a shitty president because he's a shitty person.
Marc:So what does that mean as an American, as somebody who believes in change and wants to try to fight?
Marc:Well, you keep fighting.
Marc:You keep talking.
Marc:You keep tight with your communities.
Marc:And we try to fucking heal this gaping wound.
Marc:Maybe I'm being too optimistic.
Marc:What am I going to yell at people?
Marc:Fuck, I lived through eight years at W. I fought that fight, lost.
Marc:Look, what I do here is I talk to people about struggle, about art, about creativity, about personal problems, personal awareness, about social struggle.
Marc:But I mean, I don't know what else to do.
Marc:So maybe it's time to realize that tweeting is not social action.
Marc:Tweeting is not activism.
Marc:I mean, I got to change my life, too.
Marc:You know, on some levels, you get a little spoiled when you're insulated and you get a little disconnected.
Marc:from what other people are going through.
Marc:Maybe even your neighbors.
Marc:Maybe even you know people that we don't know anymore or that we thought we knew and that we didn't.
Marc:But continuing to talk about these things, it's important.
Marc:I mean, it's the answer, really.
Marc:And that's what I'm going to keep doing.
Marc:And that's what people should be doing all the time in their lives.
Marc:I mean, fucking talk to people.
Marc:Talk to people in depth.
Marc:Feel out where their pain is at.
Marc:Feel out where you have common ground.
Marc:Feel out why we can all live together, but under the surface was all this fucking hatred and anger and just garbage emotions.
Marc:That built up.
Marc:But the weird thing is, is when you get one-on-one or in a group of people, in a circle full of people, things are different.
Marc:Seeing someone face to face, feeling their life in your face and in your heart in that moment, feeling that.
Marc:That makes a fucking difference.
Marc:Now we're all fucking detached.
Marc:We're all floating in our little narcissism pods that we communicate from.
Marc:How do you think so much of this hate took place?
Marc:The fucking phones.
Marc:Now, I don't want to sound like an old man, but these are the extensions of our brains.
Marc:You know, this idea that if you're smart enough, if you're together enough, you can adapt to technology and use it appropriately.
Marc:It's not true.
Marc:It's an illusion of social connection.
Marc:That's innately cowardly and innately limited in terms of human connection.
Marc:It's got nothing to do with it.
Marc:Man, it's like we work together.
Marc:We work with these people.
Marc:These people.
Marc:Who are these people?
Marc:You decide who they are.
Marc:We're all people.
Marc:We've got to fucking talk to each other.
Marc:You can't just tweet at them.
Marc:You can't just like what they posted.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It might be the only way out of this.
Marc:I mean, don't you ever have this fantasy that all that shit just breaks?
Marc:I mean, what is it really?
Marc:That's what I do in here.
Marc:I talk to people and all of my assumptions about anybody.
Marc:Granted, I'm not talking about politics.
Marc:Usually I'm not talking about, you know, social change necessarily.
Marc:But everything I assumed about anybody that's ever sat in front of me was wrong because it was limited.
Marc:by whatever input I decided to focus on to define them.
Marc:And when they sit down as living, breathing, fragile people, everything opens up.
Marc:Because that's what humans do.
Marc:And we've lost a lot of that.
Marc:And this may sound trite, but what else do we got but each other?
Marc:I mean, fuck.
Fuck.
Marc:I've worked with Republicans.
Marc:I've had them open for me.
Marc:I know people and I've worked with people and I am friends with people that think differently than me.
Marc:Drastically.
Marc:That's one of the beautiful things about comedians and about this world that we live in for the most part.
Marc:Is that you can you can have those different views.
Marc:Now, who knows?
Marc:If there's even a context anymore.
Marc:That will harness this shit.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But all we got is each other.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Sounds trite.
Marc:True.
Marc:True.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:Alright, so... For those of you who voted for him, I hope he delivers what you want to deliver.
Marc:I hope you're happy with yourselves.
Marc:And because we're all going to have to go through it together.
Marc:And those of us who didn't.
Marc:that believe in a different type of country.
Marc:That fight continues, and I'll keep talking here, and I'll keep talking to people, and I'll try to keep you entertained.
Marc:I don't want to be selfish here, but it just feels like things change.
Marc:I don't know what the tone of things is going to be as we enter the new year or how everything's going to pan out.
Marc:I'll stay engaged, and I'll keep talking.
Marc:But it is a sad and devastating blow for those of us who believed that, at the very least, social and economic change could happen and continue to happen.
Marc:And it's a scary time.
Marc:But I'll hang out, all right?
Marc:Let's talk about show business, right?
Marc:and wisdom.
Marc:Shep Gordon, he's got a new book out.
Marc:It's called They Call Me Supermensch, a backstage pass to the amazing worlds of film, food, and rock and roll.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Marc:I wasn't sad and despondent and feeling futility and hopelessness when I talked to him.
Marc:Maybe that'll perk you up.
Marc:All right, this is me and Shep Gordon.
Marc:you've been in a recording studio before once or twice you know how that works you've yelled at some producers no no never don't yell never yell yeah you know i saw the movie i saw super mention i you know i enjoyed it but i thought to myself he must have yelled once oh yeah i mean there have been moments i've yelled but i usually yell for theater oh yeah you know it's not real yelling it's theater yelling oh right right right so it's uh for effect
Guest:There are times, particularly doing what I do, you don't have time.
Guest:To yell?
Guest:To do stuff.
Guest:You're in real time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I remember there was a great moment of just one incident of when I had to really get forceful against my personality.
Guest:We played Moscow for the first time.
Guest:With?
Guest:Alice Cooper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was a brand new basketball stadium.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was no seating behind the stage.
Guest:So I told them I had to provide rope or some barricade.
Yeah.
Guest:And when I got back for showtime, about only an hour to go, there was no rope or barricade.
Guest:And I really couldn't allow him to go on.
Guest:I knew, and it was real time.
Guest:People were in the hall.
Guest:I didn't have time to be a nice guy and explain.
Guest:And there was a language barrier.
Guest:And there was a language barrier.
Guest:And what they explained to me was they couldn't afford rope.
Guest:Yeah, really?
Guest:Yeah, this was when it was still communist.
Guest:So it was like in the, what, late 70s?
Guest:Yeah, this was the late 70s.
Guest:I couldn't afford rope.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Which I thought was just fantastic, but I couldn't.
Guest:Did you throw out a few bucks to go get some rope?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:So I got really, you know, intense.
Guest:I said, I'm moving them out.
Guest:The only way you're going to stop us from moving out.
Guest:And I raised my voice.
Guest:I said, we're leaving.
Guest:Get the U.S.
Guest:ambassador here.
Guest:We are leaving.
Guest:And automatically like 3,000 soldiers showed up who were cheaper than rope and they formed the human barricade and we went on.
Guest:Soldiers are cheaper than rope.
Marc:They're all over.
Marc:If we just go down the street, we'll get some.
Marc:Well, you know, so Alice Cooper was your first client as a manager.
Guest:I'm still a client.
Marc:Is he the only one that's still with you?
Marc:Correct, yeah.
Marc:But that's not because of you.
Marc:You got out of the game, right, for the most part?
Marc:Yeah, I got out of the game.
Marc:So you're a Jewish guy, obviously.
Guest:Yeah, luckily.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so what do you come from?
Marc:I mean, I like the whole journey from...
Marc:from New York to Hollywood, but you were at Hollywood, definitely a good time.
Guest:I think I was a typical kid of the 60s.
Guest:Yeah, what town are we talking?
Guest:I was from Oceanside, Long Island.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I worked at a beach club like Flamingo Kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dated the daughter of the guy who was the great card player in Flamingo Kid.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, but his name was Al Feldstein, who owned...
Marc:Was it really based on that guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I don't know if it was based on him, but it was based on... That club?
Guest:That moment in those clubs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Every club had their guy.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They all had a guy with the pinky ring.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Who had the most beautiful blonde wife.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Who wanted poker every night.
Guest:Not gangsters.
Guest:Not gangsters at all.
Guest:Jewish gamblers.
Guest:Mostly in the schmata business.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So they're living on the island.
Marc:They're working in the city.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:And that was the big move.
Marc:That was the big move.
Marc:The post-immigrant step up.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And for the kids...
Guest:um we were the first generation that had some type of economic freedom it wasn't big most of the parents were middle class but it was still something they wanted to give you a better life than they wanted us so we all went to college most of us on some kind of a region scholarship were your parents from uh born here my parents were born here first generation but you had grandparents with accents we didn't read or write it and
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Made great matzo ball soup.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You had that all?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You grew up with the real... Fanny Frank, my grandmother.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Made the greatest latkes and blintzes.
Guest:So you live in the house?
Guest:Always you had to get the chicken from the bottom when you went to the store.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Keys to life.
Guest:The wisdom.
Guest:The keys to life.
Guest:Get the chicken from the bottom, chef.
Guest:Right, because... They put the old stuff on top.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:They move it.
Guest:They rotate.
Guest:I do that.
Guest:I do that.
Guest:I do all the time.
Marc:Reach it in the back, or if it's a bag of greens, always go in the back.
Guest:I'll be at the stove.
Guest:cooking for 30 people and started laughing hysterically because I realized I'm channeling my grandmother, which is completely insane.
Guest:But that's what the beautiful thing about life is.
Marc:About feeding people.
Guest:Yeah, feeding people.
Guest:So that tradition really came through.
Guest:So what did your dad do?
Guest:My dad was a bookkeeper who never took his CPA, so never became an accountant.
Guest:Wonderful man.
Marc:Yeah, and he worked for what?
Guest:He worked for a handkerchief company.
Marc:A handkerchief company.
Guest:Most of the Jews worked somehow in the Shmater, or when you moved out to the West Coast, it was an entertainment business.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When you're on the East Coast, it was somehow, somewhere with the Shmater business, because you always had a relative.
Guest:Yeah, who could get you in.
Guest:Who could get you in.
Guest:Yeah, you can roll the carts around.
Guest:I worked, I rolled the carts, learned a great lesson.
Guest:I learned two great lessons rolling the carts.
Guest:One I learned is you better be really careful if you're going to be good at what you do because you're going to make everybody else look bad.
Guest:And you're never going to get out of that job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you better like the job.
Guest:And the second thing I learned is, which was the technicality only for that business, was that you always had to push your carts around.
Guest:So you could look at a window because people would walk on the other side of the cart that was blind with a razor blade, cut it, and take the dresses out.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:They'll hit you like that?
Guest:So you could tell who the new guys were if they weren't always next to a window.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And coming back with missing dresses and not making the delivery.
Guest:And then you always had a, you couldn't, the place that everybody shipped from was called Gilbert Trucking.
Guest:That's where those racks usually were going to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was Gilbert Trucking.
Guest:To go out to the country.
Guest:10th Avenue.
Guest:Yeah, knockoffs.
Guest:And if you came back in the 15 minutes it took for the run, that was not good because all the guys who had been there 30 years, it took them an hour and a half.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What are you doing, kid?
Guest:So I got talked to right the first day I got my talking to.
Guest:Have some breakfast.
Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Get something to eat.
Marc:You're making us look bad.
Marc:Pissed off union guys.
Marc:Before the union, I guess, was it?
Marc:Was there a union there?
Guest:No, I don't think there was a union for that.
Marc:So New York at that time, that was the New York of great grandeur.
Marc:It was still in it, right?
Guest:It was great grandeur and it was political...
Guest:unrest uh-huh it was the time of the war so this oh so the early 60s early 60s we were taking psychedelics yeah freed our already already in the mid 60s right is when psychedelics like 66 yeah and what hit at the same time was this whole anti-vietnam movement right where people took action yeah and action had effect you burned we burned our cards in the middle of the street you did you burn yeah i did you burned down rotsie buildings but it was this was across the country it wasn't an
Marc:No, I know, I know.
Marc:But like for you, you were politically active.
Guest:I was very active.
Guest:You were?
Guest:I wasn't politically active.
Guest:I was politically destructive.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:So it was more of a what everyone was doing thing.
Marc:Correct.
Guest:Gave you a vent.
Guest:And there was anger.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:But you had personal anger?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Primarily based on the fear of going?
Guest:Yeah, I had fear going.
Guest:Napalming just seemed to me.
Guest:Horrifying.
Guest:Unbelievable how you could do that, how you could wake up in the morning and napalm people you never met.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was unbelievable.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That they made people do it was horrible.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it just, it was a time when I think all college kids thought it was really for people to make money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The armament dealers, it just turned ugly.
Guest:So the information was getting out.
Guest:Right.
Marc:The 50s were over, this is the real deal.
Yeah.
Guest:And we affected it a little bit.
Guest:So I think we all got a little bit empowered that maybe we could actually do something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And who's president?
Guest:LBJ?
Marc:Well, it was right when Kennedy got shot.
Marc:So 63, and that was the beginning of when the anti-war movement started for you?
Marc:And that must have been devastating.
Marc:You remember?
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:I'm 71.
Marc:Okay, so I'm 53.
Marc:I was born in 63.
Marc:This was a baby show.
Marc:I know.
Marc:It's a baby show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I need to learn.
Marc:Come on, Grandpa.
Yeah.
Marc:You better shed some of that wisdom on me, because I'm in trouble.
Marc:But you remember the day John Kennedy was shot with clarity.
Guest:Very well.
Guest:Yeah, with clarity.
Guest:I remember being in a place called Allenhurst.
Guest:I was a freshman at college.
Guest:We all got together in the street in a big circle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Held each other, cried.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:the end of sort of innocence.
Guest:Yeah, I would, for the whole country.
Marc:Yeah, for the whole country.
Guest:Maybe for the world.
Marc:Right, right?
Marc:That someone could be just taken out like that in daylight.
Marc:And then you think of where it's come to today.
Marc:What we accept as normal today.
Marc:Oh, yeah, now we're just numb and distracted.
Marc:I think everyone's in some sort of mild PTSD.
Guest:Yeah, I think it needs, I mean, one of the things I've tried doing this book thing and having an opportunity to actually talk to someone other than my...
Guest:my familiar family, is to say that there's nothing wrong with taking action.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:However you can.
Guest:However you can.
Guest:If somebody really needs to do something, you can't just... Right.
Guest:It's a democracy.
Guest:Let's use it.
Guest:Yeah, you can't sit by and watch this thing go by because you're going to lose... You know, I told...
Guest:The last thing in my book says that just where we dropped out of the womb, you win or lose the game.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Which is pretty true.
Guest:I mean, think about it.
Guest:90% of the country, you drop out of the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You drop out of the womb, you're not going to be you or me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm not going to be sitting here with this microphone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you drop out in Somalia.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So just that.
Guest:And do we want to give that up?
Right.
Marc:oh my god like wow exactly yeah there's a you know luck of the draw the cosmic draw the draw and don't give it up man you are the luckiest people on the planet I don't I think that there is a lack of gratitude and I you know I'm probably guilty of it as well but you know I'm doing all right for myself so that temper some things but I do think that people lose sight of just what an amazing country just watch the news for five minutes it's like yeah just watch or go travel somewhere yeah you know and see what's going on the fact that
Guest:i mean that i could be here having an interview with you having written a book that you could be here interviewing me yeah how many places in the world with this and we can say what we want to say completely which is unbelievable right so even if you had the opportunity and enough money to buy headsets and there was a radio station that would broadcast we're not hiding doing it the possibility sure you know no i agree i think that's a good way to frame gratitude
Marc:But so you're a Jewish kid.
Marc:You're angry.
Marc:You're burning draft cards.
Marc:You're running around tripping.
Marc:When was the first time you took acid?
Guest:I actually didn't take acid until my second year in college.
Guest:The San Francisco Mime Troupe came through Buffalo.
Guest:And they had the acid?
Guest:They decorated my Christmas tree with sugar cubes.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:With sugar cubes.
Guest:I said, what is that?
Guest:And Peter...
Guest:who's the famous actor now, who was one of the San Francisco mime troupe.
Guest:He said it's... Coyote?
Guest:Peter Coyote, thank you.
Guest:It's LSD.
Guest:Watch LSD, he told us.
Guest:We sort of heard about it.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:That was the good shit.
Marc:So he brought it from Owlsley.
Marc:That's like in the mid-60s.
Marc:That was like the first few batches.
Guest:And then I became, maybe would you say, his representative for Buffalo?
No.
Guest:Coyotes or Owsley?
Guest:Somebody, I don't know who, somebody.
Guest:But you were getting it in?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you were making the cubes, you were getting the liquid?
Guest:No, no, I was getting it all.
Guest:By the time I got it, it turned to paper.
Guest:So blotter, yeah.
Guest:So blotter was what I, and it was much easier to handle.
Marc:And what was your experience?
Marc:Because at that time, I think that the acid experience was not hackneyed.
Marc:It was original.
Marc:Those were the original acid experiences.
Marc:So people who do acid in the last 30 or 40 years are basing what should happen on you.
Marc:So when you took it, the idea was mind expansion, that there would be truth given, and it must have been a little nervous.
Marc:What?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:Did it change your perception?
Guest:I think it had to have.
Guest:I can't tell you exactly that it did.
Guest:I know peyote really, peyote I took before acid.
Guest:Really?
Marc:That was around?
Guest:I was in Mexico.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And I took the actual cactus.
Marc:What were you doing in Mexico?
Guest:I went down there for, I wanted to be a gigolo.
Guest:I was a failure.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was 18.
Guest:I decided I was going to be a gigolo.
Guest:In Mexico.
Guest:An American gigolo, an 18-year-old Jewish kid from Long Island.
Guest:By the way, I completely struck out.
Guest:I completely struck out.
Guest:How did you even start that?
Guest:But I did get really lucky because I had been there once before, and I had met this guy, Rubio, who was a beach boy, and his life's so romantic.
Guest:He slept on the beach.
Guest:Women took him to Carlos and Charlie's to eat.
Guest:In those days in Acapulco, it was mostly school teachers.
Guest:Wait, so did you go there on vacation with your family?
Guest:No, I went there in school because I was in the pharmaceutical business, so I procured my stuff there.
Guest:Weed?
Guest:Yeah, I gave it to my teachers so I didn't have to take tests.
Marc:You gave weed to your teachers so you didn't have to take tests and you went to Mexico from Long Island on the money that you... From Buffalo.
Marc:From Buffalo with the money you made for selling weed to get more weed.
Marc:So you're running pot to Buffalo from Mexico, bribing your teachers.
Marc:So you're ready for show business.
Marc:I'm ready for show business.
Marc:Here I come.
Marc:So the gigolo thing.
Marc:So you just... You met Rubio.
Guest:But really funny because there was a girl that... I had enough money to get along.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had maybe $700, $800.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:But I used to take this peyote, which was horrible tasting, and you'd cut it up and put it back in your tongue and put it in on a raft with water in front of the Hilton Hotel.
Guest:That was sort of my spot.
Marc:Okay, so you'd drop peyote and go sit on the raft.
Guest:And this really pretty girl ended up there one day.
Guest:Her name was Susan.
Guest:She was a schoolteacher from Brooklyn.
Guest:We got friendly.
Guest:We never had a romance.
Guest:And she ended up buying me every day a Big Boy hamburger.
Guest:They had a Big Boy hamburger stand.
Guest:In Mexico?
Guest:Remember that stupid sign?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Vips.
Guest:Vips Big Boy.
Guest:Or Bob's Big Boy.
Guest:Bob's Big Boy.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And years later, Glenn Buxton, the original guitar player in Alice's Band, shows up with his new girlfriend at the Fillmore.
Guest:And it's Susan.
Guest:That the one?
Guest:The Brooklyn school teacher who bought you hamburgers?
Guest:I went out and bought her like a thousand hamburgers to pay me.
Guest:How is that possible?
Guest:But in those days, you couldn't stay in touch with people.
Guest:There were no cell phones.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was no emails.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You had a hard line and a snail mail.
Guest:So I was completely... And she just showed up.
Guest:Just showed up.
Marc:It was one of those weird coincidences.
Guest:Just completely weird.
Marc:So did you finish college?
Guest:Finished college.
Guest:With what degree?
Guest:Got a Bachelor of Arts.
Guest:Went to the New School for Social Research for a few months.
Guest:Studying what?
Guest:Didn't know what.
Guest:Sociology.
Guest:Didn't know what I was going to do, really.
Guest:My cousin owned a place called Divine Garments.
Guest:that sold dresses for funerals and suits for funerals.
Guest:In the city?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had no backs.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So I worked there for a few months and every client was crying.
Guest:Every client was crying.
Guest:There wasn't one happy client because they were buying for the people.
Marc:So they'd be referred by the funeral parlor or the funeral home to go to the place and pick a dress.
Guest:And they didn't have to make an emergency run once in a while if the dress or the suit didn't fit.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Back door at the funeral parlor.
Guest:That didn't last long.
Guest:But a recruiter came in to the new school looking for candidates for the parole system of California when Reagan was the governor.
Guest:And, you know, they come to schools to pitch people to apply because they need workers.
Guest:What was the gig?
Guest:It was to be a probation officer.
Guest:Sociology?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, sociology.
Guest:Sociology.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:Sociology could only be a probation officer or a social worker.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was the job path.
Guest:So the states went around to the schools.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pitching to, you know.
Guest:Where are you bright guys who have a big heart?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, you know,
Guest:This is my moment.
Guest:I always want to go to California.
Guest:I'm going to be a probation officer.
Guest:I'm going to go on a big white horse, save these kids.
Guest:I had long hair.
Guest:Reagan was a tyrant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I come out of the 60s where I thought I could really affect stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I could really go out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And do something.
Guest:And do something.
Guest:Really cool.
Yeah.
Guest:And went out.
Guest:Outside selling acid and weed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're still selling because I knew it.
Guest:But anyway.
Guest:So I get there and it was horrible.
Guest:I got beat up the first day at the jail.
Guest:A place called Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall.
Guest:Because it was all Reagan cops.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was a long hair with hair down in my head.
Guest:Who beat you up?
Guest:The cops?
Guest:No, the kids.
Guest:They put me in a softball game.
Guest:They had me take the kids out for softball.
Guest:All the other guards left.
Guest:So these were not adults?
Guest:All Latino kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not one kid spoke English.
Guest:Did you speak Spanish?
Guest:Spoke Spanish, but they were very kind to me.
Guest:When I look back at it, they could have really hurt me, and they didn't.
Guest:They just wanted to teach you a lesson?
Guest:No, they wanted to do what the guards, I think, made them do, which was get me out of there.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, never discussed, but when I came back in, I looked at the guards, and I said, you guys want me out of here, yeah?
Guest:Why'd they want you out?
Guest:I had hair down in my ass.
Guest:Oh, so it was just- During the Reagan era in California.
Guest:So you were a hippie.
Guest:Yeah, they were so embarrassed by me.
Guest:Just like so embarrassed.
Guest:I was the guy they wanted.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you were just sort of basing your ideology on the hippies and the guys doing Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden, Abby Hoffman.
Guest:Yeah, do some good stuff.
Guest:Do some good stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Live in the light and really try and fight this thing.
Marc:Okay, so then you get your ass kicked to juvenile prison.
Guest:Decide I'm going to go to L.A., leave the juvenile hall.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I drive down the freeway.
Guest:I get off at Highland Boulevard.
Guest:I get off at Highland.
Guest:There's a motel on Highland Boulevard.
Marc:The 101.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to drive on the 101.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Past the Hollywood Bowl.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Going to the first motel, too expensive.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I'm in the right lane.
Guest:I can't go straight where the track is going.
Guest:I have to go the right onto Highland.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I take the right onto Highland.
Guest:I see another vacancy sign.
Guest:go in that i could afford it was 24 25 a night yeah that was the hollywood landmark so right check in now it's probably 12 30 yeah i've been beat up i don't have a job right i've just come from a jail and you got acid i got acid i go to my my uh deck it's got it's a it's hotel california yeah it's two stories around the swimming pool sure everybody's got a balcony i go to the balcony i drop some acid
Guest:I hear a girl screaming.
Guest:I've just come from a jail.
Guest:I'm like this Jew on a white horse sitting in the world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, my God, there's a girl getting raped.
Guest:Put on my cape.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Run down to the pool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Separate the two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The girl punches me.
Guest:They're making love.
Guest:She happens to be Janis Joplin.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:In the morning, I find that she's Janis Joplin.
Guest:And she's sitting with all these rock icons.
Guest:What, is she like 20?
Yeah.
Guest:21?
Guest:I would say 21, 22, 23 would be my guess.
Guest:Looked a little older, had years on her.
Guest:Old soul.
Guest:Yeah, old soul, very old soul.
Guest:So is she sitting at the pool with?
Guest:She's sitting with the Chambers Brothers.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And Jimi Hendrix and a guy named Paul Rothschild who produced The Doors, great producer.
Guest:Bobby Neuwirth who was Bob Dylan's road manager and a folk singer.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:They were all just hanging out?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So this was the place?
Marc:This was sort of the place, yeah.
Marc:Because it's 68, so Hendrix has already made his break, right?
Marc:No, this was sort of the place.
Marc:Two years, a couple years in, they're all.
Guest:Sort of the place.
Guest:She introduces me.
Guest:To Jimmy?
Guest:To the gang.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Because this is the guy I told you about last night.
Guest:That I hit.
Yeah.
Guest:A, I get embarrassed, but I also think, oh, my God, I've just hit, as a pharmacist, the greatest customer base in the entire world.
Guest:Ka-ching.
Guest:A pharmacist.
Guest:And, you know, what any of you happen to like?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so maybe two or three weeks into living there and starting to make some money and do well and get friendly with everyone, they all became customers.
Guest:Right, but are you tripping with Jimmy?
No.
Guest:No.
Guest:Chambers Brothers, yes.
Guest:Oh, you tripped to the Chambers Brothers.
Guest:I mean, it may have been in the place with him, but never took it with him.
Guest:Were you getting high with Janice?
Guest:I never sold her any.
Guest:I don't know if she took it or not.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:May have.
Guest:She was a boozer.
Guest:Yeah, her road manager, John, lived there with her, and he was very protective of her.
Marc:because she was already spiraling I bet and but like well that's the other question I mean you know there's a like the story is a good story but like you know there's the dark side of it did you feel that at all or you just you were just white light guy yeah not at all I don't think any of us I mean one of the things I talk about in the book is none of us had any thought of consequences
Guest:For anything.
Marc:But was there dope around?
Marc:Were people shooting dope?
Guest:I don't know if anyone was shooting.
Guest:Oh, you didn't see it, huh?
Guest:Not around you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But no one had consequences.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:Being drunk was funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sex, there was no HIV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was free sex everywhere.
Guest:Sure, but everyone's getting a clap every other week.
Guest:But then Matty had pills.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:You know, A200 and the crabs.
Guest:It's an old school idea.
Guest:The guys who got you laid in the 60s and 70s are like, yeah, well, you just go to the pill.
Guest:You had your road kit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody had a road kit.
Guest:With antibiotics and... Yeah, antibiotics and A200, I think it was called.
Guest:For the crabs?
Guest:The staff for the crabs, yeah.
Guest:Prepared.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so one day after a couple of weeks, one of them said, Jimi Hendrix, or Chambers' brother, said to me and my partner, Joey,
Guest:You drugged your pharmacist partner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Come from Buffalo with me.
Marc:But that's all you're doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I said, what do you guys do for a living other than that?
Guest:And we said nothing.
Guest:And they said, you Jewish?
Guest:And we said, yeah, you should be a manager.
Yeah.
Guest:Makes sense to us.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we had a friend in management who managed at a group called the Left Bank, Walk Away Rene.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Had been our fraternity brother in college.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And when he got out of college, he got hired at this company.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we had a front.
Guest:We said, yeah, we even have a friend.
Guest:He'd probably give us cards.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He made up little cards for us.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And Alice was living in Lester Chambers' basement.
Guest:Alice Cooper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Lester came to Alice.
Guest:Alice says, and said, we found the judicial man.
Guest:Medigen.
Marc:And off we went.
Marc:But this was like, you know, in terms of like- This was 69.
Marc:So you're going in but not really knowing anything about the music business, not knowing anything about show business.
Marc:And it's sort of a pivotal time in music and movies and everything.
Marc:Everything's shifting.
Marc:The business is shifting, so there's a window.
Marc:There's no real business.
Marc:Right, because the whole model had broken apart because the old guys didn't know how to sell anymore.
Guest:You know, I look back at like an Alice Post when we headlined at 72 Madison Square Garden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:$2.50 ticket was the biggest ticket.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but that was the numbers then, wasn't it?
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:It wasn't a business.
Guest:There were no business people in it.
Guest:There were record companies.
Guest:In the touring business.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:But the managers weren't really.
Marc:So the business was primarily, you know, make a big bill so we can sell records.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:It was all about selling records.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you meet Alice.
Marc:And is he with Frank Zappa at that time recording?
Marc:No.
Marc:The next week he starts with Frank Zappa.
Marc:After you signed him.
Marc:Did you sign him?
Marc:We never signed.
Marc:We still haven't signed.
Marc:We agreed to work together.
Marc:You have no company.
Marc:You just have a partner.
Marc:And now the drugs, the dealing, does that secede?
Guest:Eventually ends because people started getting arrested.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we stop and we sit down with Alice, my partner, and I and say, listen, we got to get serious now.
Marc:But he was a boozer, right?
Marc:He wasn't a drug guy.
Guest:Never did drugs.
Guest:Old school.
Guest:Yeah, old school boozer.
Marc:So at that time when you meet Alice and you're getting into management, because it seems to me that, because I've never interviewed a manager.
Marc:I've had many.
Marc:I've had three.
Marc:I understand what they do.
Marc:I understand personal management.
Marc:But the notion of getting into it as a business and then what your job is, I think you sort of set some standards.
Marc:You sort of invented something in terms of rock management.
Marc:Because Alice Cooper was not an easy sell.
Marc:at the beginning right so what did you do you had this guy what compelled you to to stay with alice cooper who was you know you know kind of off the grid in terms of what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it um off the grid was great for me because it was a front yeah so i you know i we a drug to protect you for your drug sales and then when i decided not to do it we had we got to get serious and we you know we
Guest:Alice is a realist.
Guest:I'm a realist.
Guest:The show was not great.
Guest:It tended to drive people away.
Marc:What was he doing initially when you saw him?
Marc:What was the show?
Guest:They were doing, you know, a minute and a half song would have 300 changes in it.
Guest:So it'd be today, today, mola, mola, mola, mola.
Guest:Today, today, today, today, today.
Guest:That's one of the songs on the album.
Marc:So he had one album out when you met him?
Guest:No, nothing.
Guest:No albums.
Marc:So you're listening to it at practice space?
Guest:No, I go to Venice to Brucemas, Lenny Brucemas.
Guest:He opens for the doors and empties the room.
Guest:Lenny?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Lenny was dead.
Guest:Lenny Brucemas used to run at Venice Beach at a place called the Kaleidoscope every year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jim Morrison was headlining it that year.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Alice went on as an opening act at that show.
Guest:And walked the room?
Guest:Everybody walked out.
Marc:Before the doors?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They didn't even wait for the doors?
Guest:Everybody walked out.
Guest:The only ones left in the room were me and Frank Zapper and my partner and three or four other people.
Yeah.
Guest:Did you like Frank?
Guest:I never really got to know him.
Guest:He signed him that day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were the manager.
Guest:You were there.
Guest:And I was there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But that didn't turn out.
Guest:He thought he was signing him to manage him.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And record.
Guest:He didn't know that I was going to manage him.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Alice told him the next day, oh, by the way, we got a manager between when we talked to you three days ago.
Marc:Yeah, and that relationship wasn't great, right?
Marc:No.
Marc:The record, who had the rights got... It was horrible.
Guest:It was just... It's one of those horrible stories in life that you just... It's like, why?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:I can't tell you 100% what happened.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I don't think we'll ever really know, but the facts that we know... Yeah.
Guest:Then...
Guest:Alice's hero was Frank Zappa.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Hence the many changes in the songs.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Frank Zappa told Alice he had made a label deal with Warner Brothers Records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he could sign them to two albums.
Guest:And he signed Alice, Wild Man Fisher.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You could be the only person in the world to know Wild Man Fisher.
Guest:Yeah, I had that record.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Mary go, Mary go, Mary go around.
Guest:Boop, boop, boop.
Guest:Had a picture of his mother stabbing her to death on the cover.
Guest:I loved Wild Man, but he lived in an insane asylum and wasn't a musician.
Marc:Did he actually live in it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The GTOs, who were the girls together outrageously who weren't musicians or singers or writers.
Guest:They were groupies who were fantastic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dressed like pirates.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Miss Cinderella, Miss Christina, Miss...
Guest:What did they do?
Guest:They had a stage show.
Guest:They dressed like they gave Iggy his look.
Guest:They gave Bowie the look.
Guest:They took Alice to a thrift store where we bought by the pound ice capade all outfits.
Guest:Those are the dresses, metallic dresses Alice always wore.
Marc:Their ice capade outfits?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they knew Iggy and they knew Bowie?
Guest:Everybody, yeah.
Marc:So they were known to go shopping with them.
Marc:Yeah, do your makeup.
Guest:Cook for you.
Guest:They were the greatest.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So when the Stooges were out here in the late 60s, early 70s?
Guest:Ask any of the pop stars of that era about the GTOs and you'd get a smile.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were really, really cool.
Guest:So they got signed to the label.
Guest:And it was weird because none of them, including Alice, really had any audience at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Had anything that anybody liked.
Guest:We couldn't quite figure it out.
Guest:So anyway, we showed up for the first album.
Guest:We had never done an album, Alice, or I.
Guest:out at Whitney Studios in Burbank going to record for Frank Zapper Alice's Hero yeah and Frank's brother is there Frank comes in and he says this is my brother I'll come back at five and pick up the record okay so we don't know really they leave no producer just and the group's rehearsing uh-huh they think they're rehearsing no one ever says stop or start or and Frank comes back at five o'clock and says great man album's done
Guest:Really?
Guest:And that was the first album.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:If you listen to it, you will understand it.
Guest:It's really just like a... It's a rehearsal of guys who didn't have songs.
Guest:Oh, now I got to go back and listen to it.
Guest:Yeah, it's for you.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It's wild.
Marc:And you were like, what the fuck?
Guest:No, because we didn't know enough.
Guest:We just thought it was really... You didn't know nothing about music.
Guest:We thought it was really weird that he...
Guest:that he didn't spend five minutes in the studio, that he never wanted to hear the songs, that there weren't songs.
Guest:So now Alice is a little disillusioned, I would imagine.
Guest:Yeah, not really.
Guest:So we try and make it, and we're trying to go, and I end up going to Toronto to get him on the John Lennon Festival, and I run into David Briggs, who managed Neil Young, who produced Neil Young.
Guest:And I tell him how he did the album.
Guest:He says, that's not how you do albums.
Guest:I said, really?
Guest:He said, no, no, actually you write songs, you listen to the songs, you...
Guest:Shit, would you do that for Alice?
Guest:And he said, yeah, of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I didn't even tell their company went in with David Briggs.
Guest:That was the second album.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they wouldn't use his tapes.
Guest:They took the rehearsal tapes from David Briggs, made that easy action.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And none of us could figure out what's going on.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Frank did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:None of us could figure out what's going on.
Guest:First album sold maybe 300 copies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Second album maybe sold 150 copies.
Guest:Now...
Guest:I realized that I got to do this without the record company.
Guest:You got to take it into your own hands.
Guest:Yeah, I got it.
Guest:So I sit down with Alice and who makes the best records?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Guess who?
Guest:The group.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:American Woman.
Guest:The Guess Who from Canada.
Guest:For us, those were the best radio records you could get.
Guest:And you have to remember-
Guest:Alice is a group that doesn't even think about writing music.
Guest:It's theatrical.
Guest:It's Salvador Dali.
Guest:There's no such thing as a three and a half minute song.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's an artist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, we sit down and say, okay, let's forget who you are.
Guest:How do we get a number one record?
Guest:What are the best number one records?
Guest:And I don't, please, I manage Burton, so Burton, if you're listening, don't take this the wrong way.
Guest:Burton Cummings?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who's an insignificant artist?
Guest:Who's not the Beatles?
Guest:who gets number one records all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Beatles, we get.
Guest:Rolling Stones.
Guest:Yeah, sure, sure.
Guest:Guess who?
Guest:Who are they?
Guest:Nobody knows who they are.
Marc:But you weren't managing them yet.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:But every record goes to number one.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's got to be some genius involved with this group because they're nobody.
Marc:It was American Woman and it was before Bach Returns.
Guest:Five or six of them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like five, six, gigantic ones.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I look on the back of the record, it says Jack Richardson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nimbus 9, Toronto.
Guest:I get on a plane, go to Toronto.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:yeah with my partner we sit in the office take some acid and say we want to meet jack richardson jack doesn't want to you know he's heard he he's found out we're in the waiting room they we said alice cooper he's called the warner brothers the last thing he wants to do trouble yeah but this new kid comes in bob ezren first day of work and jack says go get those kids in the office out of here that's your first job yeah
Guest:And we hooked Bob into it.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You talked him into it?
Guest:So when we did our first record with Bob, the first track was 18.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That's the third Alice Cooper record?
Guest:That's the first record we do with Bob.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm up in Canada doing this John Lennon thing, and I start hearing about Canadian content.
Guest:that there's a canadian content rule that canadian radio stations have to play a certain amount of records and tv stations have to use canadian product uh-huh shit we qualify right so i find out who the program director is on the biggest station in canada it's cklw yeah i've i'm sort of controlling john lennon at this point you are yeah because i'm doing a festival with him called the toronto pop festival
Marc:But was that the only relationship you had with them?
Guest:It's the first one that the Plastic Ono band ever did.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so I say, listen, I think I'd probably get you the exclusives on the concert, but you got to play this record for me.
Guest:They play 18, it's a hit.
Guest:Smash.
Guest:Phones light up.
Guest:I called Herbie to tell him, isn't this fantastic?
Guest:We got a hit record.
Guest:He said, get it off the air.
Guest:I'll sue you immediately.
Guest:That's that guy at Warner?
Guest:That's the guy who owns Frank Zappa's label.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I go to Warner's.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Guy named Clyde Bacchimo.
Guest:I said, Clyde, CKLW, we're the number one record.
Guest:He said, you're kidding.
Guest:That's the biggest station in the world for breakout records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:We don't have any records pressed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I called Herbie.
Guest:He said he doesn't want us to put the record out.
Guest:He said, you're kidding me.
Guest:Who did it?
Guest:I said, Jack Richardson.
Guest:We've been trying to work with Jack Richardson for three years at Warner's.
Guest:You know how much money we've offered him?
Guest:I said, I got it.
Guest:He stole money from somebody else's recording budget.
Guest:I think it was the Doobie Brothers to let us finish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The record goes to number one.
Guest:Frank Zappa sues Warner Brothers for putting the record out.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And to stop and to cease the record.
Okay.
Guest:I don't want to get too complicated, but what we discovered is that it's basically the producers.
Guest:Warner Brothers gave Zapper and his manager millions of dollars to sign three artists, two albums each.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The only way that Frank, like our first album cost $6,000.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The only way Frank would ever have to give us any of those millions of dollars is if we sold a lot of records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because then we get royalties.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If we don't sell any records, he keeps all the money.
Guest:It's the producers on Broadway.
Guest:So it was a cash grab.
Guest:Got it.
Guest:And all of a sudden, so we went to court.
Guest:The label changed like 12 times on that record, and we ended up in court for five years straight because we got a number one record.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:So he he signed these guys that were just freaks.
Marc:And he's like, fuck it.
Marc:No, these guys are going nowhere.
Marc:And I'm going to walk with a few million bucks.
Marc:Fucking show business.
Marc:Show biz.
Marc:But you earned it for you.
Marc:You know, that was a pivotal turning point as a negotiator and as somebody who instinctively knew how to, you know, do a deal.
Marc:You know, on the fly.
Marc:For you to say, look, I can set you up with the Lennon Festival for an exclusive if you play this.
Marc:And they're like, yeah.
Marc:And people love that, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the same with Ezrin, right?
Marc:How'd you charm that guy?
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:It sort of happened, I think, on its own.
Guest:I got him a ticket to New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We played Max's Kansas City.
Guest:With Alice.
Guest:With Alice.
Guest:And I thought it was just a magic night, and he sort of got it.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:So it wasn't like that afternoon in the office.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:It's his first day on the job.
Marc:So he's a new guy.
Marc:And you're saying like, we got the next thing.
Marc:This is the next biggest thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now you got Alice.
Marc:You got a hit record.
Marc:So you're moving.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what happens next?
Guest:Next, I decide I want to see if I had anything to do with it.
Guest:Oh, if it was your skill.
Marc:Did you actually have a skill set?
Guest:Did I actually have any skill set other than taking acid?
Guest:So I was up in Canada doing this John Lennon thing.
Guest:What was your relationship with John?
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:It was a fellow who owned the biggest department store in England, Eaton's Department Store, got the rights to do this concert with John Lennon.
Guest:I have no idea why.
Guest:But he had never done anything.
Guest:Did he do the?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a friend who had a friend who thought I knew what I was doing because I told him I was a manager in Hollywood.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what was he?
Guest:So you were the promoter?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they brought me in as the talent coordinator.
Marc:And what was John like at that point?
Guest:I didn't really get to meet him.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:I set him up with a fellow, Rabbi Feinberg.
Guest:And they did the bed-in in Montreal.
Marc:You set him up with that guy?
Marc:With that guy.
Marc:What did Feinberg have to do with the bedding?
Guest:Was he a hippie rabbi?
Guest:Rabbi was a hippie rabbi who ended up doing an album on Vanguard Records.
Guest:I was looking to promote his album.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:Was it Klezmer music?
Guest:What the fuck was it?
Guest:It was pop music by a rabbi.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:Everybody's got a dream.
Marc:Everybody's got a dream.
Marc:So he's the one that helped put together the bed-in as a protest.
Marc:As a protest.
Marc:And there's that famous picture.
Marc:All right, so that's interesting.
Marc:So now you've got to see if you have a skill set.
Marc:So you sign who?
Marc:Ann Murray.
Marc:You're really trying to challenge yourself.
Marc:I'm challenging myself.
Marc:But you loved her?
Marc:I loved her voice.
Marc:Thought her voice was beautiful.
Marc:Where'd you hear that?
Marc:You were in Canada?
Guest:I was in Canada.
Marc:She was a Canadian star.
Guest:I remember her.
Guest:What was her hit?
Guest:No, she wasn't a Canadian star at that time.
Guest:She was a gym teacher in Nova Scotia.
Guest:And she sang this Gene McClellan song.
Guest:Where'd you hear it?
Guest:Snowbird.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was on a summer replacement show that this fellow, David Briggs, who was producing Neil Young, had worked on.
Guest:In Canada.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it became a big hit in Canada.
Guest:And it looked like it was about to be a hit in America.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:It was just starting to go.
Guest:And he said, this is another great client.
Guest:You should get this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I said, you know, let me see what I can do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But she was like kind of not conservative, but not, you know, a powerhouse of a... She was the opposite of Alice.
Marc:She was a pure instrument with no frills and thrills.
Marc:From a folk tradition in a way?
Guest:Yeah, just from a vocalist.
Guest:Because I remember her from when I was a kid.
Marc:What was her big hits?
Guest:Snowbird.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Put Your Hand in the Hand.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:And then she had a Kenny Loggins song that was very big.
Marc:So this was 1970, 71?
Marc:Yeah, this was 71.
Marc:So you bring her down here?
Guest:I bring her down to L.A.
Guest:We do a big show in New York and L.A., Central Park.
Marc:But who are you booking her with?
Guest:Those record companies were very powerful.
Guest:It was a very different thing.
Guest:The economics were gigantic.
Guest:So the fellow named Sir John Reed, who was the chairman of EMI, I love Danny.
Guest:So he brought people from all over the world in to see her, and I put two shows together.
Guest:Who was on the show?
Guest:Just her?
Guest:Springsteen and her in New York.
Guest:It was Springsteen's first show.
Guest:Was he just playing guitar or did he have the band?
Guest:He had a band.
Guest:Yetnikoff called me, asked me if I'd put him on the show.
Guest:He did, I think, 15 minutes to open.
Guest:How was it?
Guest:It was weird because it started drizzling and it was outdoors.
Guest:So I had to try and get him off.
Guest:But did you see the magic there?
Guest:You didn't?
Guest:No.
Guest:You know, music's never been my thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just not, so I, magic is, I don't let that interfere with my music business.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You were just in it.
Guest:That sounds weird, I know, but.
Guest:After Alice and Anne Murray, I took a couple of icons on.
Guest:I took Groucho and Raquel, Groucho Marx and Raquel Welch.
Guest:As a personal manager.
Guest:Yeah, just because it was, how can you not, they asked me to.
Marc:They asked you to?
Marc:How does Groucho find you guys?
Guest:Groucho got friendly with Alice.
Marc:What?
Guest:Yeah, they got really friendly.
Guest:Where, New York?
Guest:In L.A.
Guest:They'd watch TV together and stuff.
Guest:They just got really, Groucho, all the old guys, Jack Benny,
Guest:um carson they all loved alice because they saw him as vaudeville oh they did so they got it they got it completely like when we took george benny george burns to see alice get hung on stage yeah when alice came off george said to him oh yeah i saw charlie do that in chicago in 38
Marc:So Alice has this weird relationship with these old comedians.
Guest:Yeah, I come walking into Groucho's house for the first time, and Alice is in bed with Groucho, and they're both wearing Mickey Mouse ears that say Groucho.
Marc:And so he's living out here in L.A., and Alice is hanging out with Groucho, and Jack Benny likes him.
Marc:So you see these guys.
Marc:You see Benny and all these guys.
Guest:Alice does much more than me.
Guest:But that must have been a thrill for a Jewish kid from- How sweaty my armpits got.
Guest:I started to learn not to wear green shirts.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Always wear black.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So when Groucho approaches you... I'm a complete groupie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, you got to be a fan.
Marc:Yeah, so... Yeah, I feel that too sometimes.
Guest:Groucho, I could never... I couldn't even say anything to him.
Guest:I tried to think of what to say, and I never could get words out of him.
Guest:I'm managing him, and I can't get the words.
Guest:It's Groucho Marx.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So you were Groucho... You were a Marx Brothers kid?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:My dad.
Marc:But at this point... Your daddy's the level?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So at this point, what's Groucho doing?
Marc:Groucho's doing nothing.
Marc:It's a talk she's popular on The Carson Show and stuff, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, not really.
Guest:He did that album on A&M at Carnegie Hall.
Guest:The Groucho Files?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But what I did was get the show back on the air.
Marc:Which one?
Guest:I helped to get You Bet Your Life.
Guest:You Bet Your Life, yeah.
Guest:It was all actors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they all were SAG members.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So in order to get it back into syndication, they had to give reduced rates.
Guest:So it was negotiations with the estates to get reduced rates.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And that's how the show got back on the air.
Guest:How long did it stay on the air?
Guest:Not that long.
Guest:How old was he?
Guest:He was old.
Guest:It was funny.
Guest:There was a girl in his life named Erin something.
Guest:She was actually the manager.
Guest:She's the one who hired me.
Guest:When she was in the room, he was tall and lucid.
Guest:When she'd leave the room, he'd get short and not too lucid.
Marc:So that was, so you say, Groucho says, what can you do for me?
Marc:And you say, well, what do we got?
Guest:Yeah, well, no, it wasn't that.
Guest:She said that we've run out of money for our second shift in nurses.
Guest:We have to generate some money.
Guest:To take care of him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I looked at their world and the TV show was.
Guest:That was possible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what did you do for Raquel Welch at that point?
Guest:Raquel, I put together a song and dance act.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:She was very honest with her.
Guest:I really like her a lot.
Guest:She was raising two children on her own and realized that she was an aging sex goddess and needed to make a living.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And asked...
Guest:if there was a way to do it.
Guest:It seemed an obvious highway that Anne Margaret had developed at that time.
Guest:For Vegas?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's what I did.
Guest:I put together.
Guest:Did it work?
Guest:Yeah, it worked great.
Guest:We signed long-term at Caesars Palace.
Guest:It was the first HBO music special with Raquel Welch live in Vegas.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:So you negotiated that too?
Guest:Yeah, no, it was very funny, yeah.
Guest:Michael Fuchs was running HBO for Time Warner.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was a very small company.
Guest:And the only thing that was really working on paid TV was pornography.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I would always pitch him an Alice Cooper concert or a Blondie concert or a Teddy Pendergast.
Guest:I just want porno.
Guest:Leave me alone.
Guest:Fuchs was wanting porn.
Guest:And then I said, what about Raquel in a very low-cut dress?
Guest:He said, hmm, see-through.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:And that was before, that was at the very beginning, because he eventually kind of invented the comedy special, the hour comedy special, I think, with Robert Klein.
Marc:With Alice, too, how did you elevate, you know, like, I know that you talked about it in the film, and I'm sure you do in the book, the mythology of Alice and the animals and the chickens and the bite.
Marc:I mean, I guess it's Ozzy who bit the head off a...
Guest:chicken but what you got the credit for it yeah they said we did it at that toronto festival with john lennon yeah we threw a chick i threw a chicken up on stage just because where'd you get the chicken it was a feral chicken who was just running backstage really yeah a feral chicken in toronto yeah yeah it was weird there was five or six of them back there
Guest:Really?
Marc:And you just threw one on stage?
Guest:Yeah, I threw it on stage.
Guest:We were using feathers at the end of the show.
Guest:We used to rip open a feather pillow and put CO2 on it, and it made like snow.
Guest:Right, so then they got a chicken, and what happened?
Guest:He threw it out to the audience, and the audience ripped it apart, and the next day the paper said that Alice bit the head off of the chicken.
Marc:And you were like, this is the best thing.
Guest:The best thing that's ever happened to us ever.
Guest:We had the ASPCA at every show.
Guest:We had mayors.
Guest:We had everybody bitching.
Marc:And he just milked it.
Guest:We milked it.
Guest:We still milk it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And his stage show got more ornate and more kind of macabre, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he became better at what he did.
Guest:As a showman.
Guest:As a showman.
Guest:We became better storytellers as writers.
Guest:Billion Dollar Babies was a big record, right?
Marc:And then... School Down was a big record.
Marc:Billion Dollar Babies was a big record.
Marc:Killer.
Marc:Killer was a big record.
Marc:I just, like, you know, what you're saying to me is interesting because I was at... I talked to him briefly.
Marc:Maybe I even saw you.
Marc:Were you ever at Conan with him when he did the... He had the cane?
Marc:You know, he did the top hat thing.
Marc:You know, and I talked to him because I think we had talked about doing one of these before.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just met him briefly.
Marc:But, you know, the whole sort of like, you know, kind of vaudevillian, you know, he's got the top hat and a cane.
Marc:Like, you know, he's sort of aging into this.
Marc:You know, it was a very self-aware thing he was doing.
Marc:You know, like, I mean, how old is he?
Marc:He's your age, right?
Marc:He's 70.
Marc:69.
Marc:Yeah, so he's sort of like, I'm the song and dance man.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I like those dudes because I feel like that way with Dylan, too.
Marc:I really think that Dylan is just going to sort of like die in a hotel on the road somewhere because he doesn't want to get off the road.
Marc:Yeah, it's wild.
Marc:It is.
Marc:But there is this sort of like, I'm a troubadour, I'm a song and dance man.
Guest:Alice is that way, too.
Guest:Alice told me the other day we were talking and he said, you know, the only time...
Guest:that I'm really comfortable where I know exactly what I'm doing the hour and a half when I'm on stage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's the time.
Guest:He said, for me, that's almost like meditating.
Marc:I can see that.
Marc:It's because you're completely present.
Marc:You have complete control of the environment.
Marc:It's your world.
Marc:It's his world.
Marc:He said he loves that moment.
Guest:And you made Anne Murray a star.
Guest:How?
Guest:I mean, she was really good and good techniques, but also I got her in a picture with John Lennon and...
Guest:Harry Nielsen and Alice Cooper and Mickey Dolenz at a time when she needed to be made contemporary.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:She could have dropped one way or the other.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, she could have.
Guest:Got to make her hip.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we had to make her hip.
Guest:And that opened up the door to Midnight Special and Rolling Stone.
Marc:All those shows.
Guest:All those shows.
Marc:And so what's Hollywood like at that time?
Marc:What are you, hanging out at the Troubadour, Dantanas?
Guest:Hanging out, no, not so much.
Guest:Dan Tan is a little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A place called Roy's, which is where the House of Blues is now.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, that's gone now, too, across from the Comedy Store.
Guest:Rainbow, gigantic.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Oh, so that was the beginning of the rainbow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right upstairs from the rainbow, there was the Vampire Lounge, you know, where Alice and John Lennon and Harry hung out.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:And they were there every night.
Guest:So the rainbow was along that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were there every night.
Guest:They were there every single night.
Marc:And who were the club owners then that you must have had a relationship with?
Guest:Mario and Elmer still.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Same owners.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mario's still around.
Guest:He's still in 92, 93.
Guest:There were policemen from Chicago, supposedly Capone's bag men.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Big cigars.
Guest:Hey, kid.
Marc:So they were connected guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was there a lot of that here?
Marc:Not a lot.
Marc:Because it doesn't feel like that.
Marc:It doesn't feel like New York or Chicago.
Guest:It wasn't really part of it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Those are just great characters.
Guest:I don't know if they're connected or not.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You can be whatever character you want.
Guest:Always munching on a cigar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But they were great to everybody.
Guest:They fed us, and they really took care of everybody.
Marc:I mean, when I was the doorman at the comedy store in the 80s, the rainbow was still pretty much like a place where you could go eat in a way.
Marc:Like they had pasta.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I used to go up there with Kenison sometimes.
Marc:He used to hold court up there.
Marc:It kind of held its own as the metal place, the hard rock place.
Marc:It still does.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Lemmy was there every day.
Marc:But then you get involved with R&B acts.
Guest:Yeah, I loved my passion in music is R&B.
Guest:Teddy Pendergrass, Wake Up Everybody, Harold Melvin.
Guest:That was sort of my song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also it was, you know, it really fit my riding in on the white horse, the Jew on the white horse to save the day.
Marc:Civil rights guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Sort of hit that.
Marc:You wanted justice for the black entertainer.
Marc:Absolutely, yeah.
Marc:And did you have to fight some fights for that?
Guest:Yeah, it's been pretty good.
Guest:It came, it was...
Guest:How'd you meet Teddy?
Guest:Met Teddy through Goddard Lieberson, who was the head of CBS and the executor of Groucho Marx's estate.
Marc:It's weird how everyone's connected.
Marc:He's got a friend who knows what.
Marc:Was Teddy a nobody at that point?
Guest:No, Teddy had just... Howard Melvin was gigantic.
Guest:What I was saying before is that after I went through my Ann Murray thing with Alice and did my...
Guest:Then I decided, you know, now that I know I sort of know what to do, I only want to deal with artists who also know what to do.
Guest:They have a vision for themselves?
Guest:That have been vetted already, that have been successful and still survive.
Guest:You didn't want to start anyone out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my criteria was a number one record.
Guest:Right.
Guest:that's what you wanted yeah or else I wouldn't with someone who was seasoned yeah who had been vetted who sort of could take the heat right and Teddy was that guy Teddy was the first one yeah and did you get your number one record yeah he had number one when I went to see him uh-huh it was his first solo record and I went to see him as a manager and there was like every Jewish manager in the world waiting for him and so I just left
Guest:I never went after signing anyone.
Guest:They'd always call me.
Guest:So I didn't go, and then he called me and asked me how it went.
Guest:I told him that there were plenty of competent managers waiting to see him, that he'd be okay.
Guest:He said, no, no, this is an important asset to me.
Guest:I think it can be really long-term.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know you'll extend the career and please go meet him.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So I had to go back down and I decided I'm going down.
Guest:I'm going to make sure that this is the last time I have to go see him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was pretty outrageous.
Guest:I mean, there was a ring of truth in it, but I went up to his apartment and I said, listen, man.
Guest:Sorry to take up your time.
Guest:There's very few things that I'm sure of in life.
Guest:One of the things I'm sure of is that you have no idea how to differentiate between seven great Jewish managers telling you what they're going to do for you.
Guest:There's no way.
Guest:So I don't want to be the eighth.
Guest:So here's what I know.
Guest:I can get higher than you.
Guest:I can get drunker than you.
Guest:I got more beautiful women than you.
Guest:And when you collapse and there's cash in your pocket,
Guest:I'll be there to take the cash out and make sure nobody steals it.
Guest:And he just looked at me like I was, and I expected he'd throw me out of the place.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he said, okay, when are we meeting?
Guest:And I was like, oh, shit.
Guest:So we actually met two weeks later in New York in a two-bedroom suite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he went at it.
Guest:Where did we go at it?
Guest:And I managed until he died.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I actually never would have told the story, except in his biography, which blew my mind, because Teddy was the proudest man I've ever met.
Guest:I love Teddy.
Guest:Teddy's like, I can't even describe how close I became to him.
Guest:But in the book, he talks about how this little white kid, Jewish kid from Oceanside, smoked and drank under the table.
Marc:That was you.
Marc:That was me.
Marc:You might as well own it.
Marc:You brought him through another couple of hit records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I brought them through a bunch of hit records.
Guest:The thing that we did, I think both of us were proudest of, is that what I didn't realize is black artists were really being treated differently than white artists.
Guest:There was a thing called the Chitlin Circuit.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And it really existed.
Guest:It was a real thing.
Guest:Yeah, there's comics too.
Guest:Yeah, with real people and real guns.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:real consequences and we broke it.
Guest:But his last manager got shot to death.
Guest:What do you mean you broke it?
Guest:Which means what?
Guest:Which means that there's no more Chitlin circuit.
Marc:Oh, so they had a hold on the black audience and they had a monopoly on the venues.
Guest:What they had is a monopoly on the black artists who were successful.
Guest:So if you were a Teddy and you came into Baton Rouge as a white artist, you would make your choice of who promoted your show based on how much money someone gave you and how professionally they were in doing the show and the production value they could give to your audience to make you look good.
Guest:In the Chitlin circuit, if you went to Baton Rouge, you had to deal with one promoter.
Guest:He paid you whatever he wanted to pay you.
Guest:If he paid you.
Guest:If he paid you.
Guest:And he provided whatever services he felt like providing you.
Guest:You didn't send the rider.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You got what he wanted to give you.
Guest:So my first date with Teddy, where I didn't know this existed...
Guest:These people from the Holiday Inn showed up with a Shure microphone system in an 8,000-seat hall.
Guest:For you who don't know, I mean, a Shure microphone system is something you use for maybe 150 people.
Guest:And they said, we've got to have it back in an hour and 10 minutes.
Guest:We're back on again at the Holiday Inn.
Guest:And we had 7,000 people in the hall.
Guest:So this was a promoter or a gangster who got some friends.
Guest:Who rented the system for an hour and a half.
Guest:And we didn't get paid.
Guest:And when I went to Teddy, he wasn't surprised.
Guest:So how'd you get the money?
Guest:We didn't.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Did you ever have to fight for money?
Guest:I got a ring from the guy that's as good as I could do.
Guest:But Teddy, you know, it didn't affect him at all.
Guest:I said, you know.
Guest:Can't do business.
Guest:I can't do this.
Guest:This is not what I do.
Guest:So I can leave or we can break it.
Guest:And that's what he told me as the last manager.
Guest:He got shot to death.
Guest:I said, nice time, very nice time for you to pick to tell me.
Guest:It takes a lot, pal.
Guest:So how'd you break it?
Guest:We did some shows for white promoters.
Guest:They picketed it.
Guest:We did Radio City Music.
Guest:Who picketed it?
Guest:The Black Promoters Association.
Guest:They were very organized.
Guest:The Chitlin Circuit was very organized.
Guest:So the Black Promoters Association picketed.
Guest:Promoters picketed.
Marc:Knowing that they were treating artists badly.
Guest:They didn't think they were because they were getting hit records.
Guest:They had their rented Cadillacs.
Guest:Yeah, but you just said he didn't get paid.
Guest:It's all in the eye of the perceiver.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, it's not like... He's saying it cost us this much.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, so it's all questionable stuff.
Guest:So once you had success with the right promoters and they... So what happened is we did the shows.
Guest:We got picketed.
Guest:It got pretty heavy.
Guest:People show up at my office.
Guest:I had a couple of incidents happen.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And things you don't like to talk about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because people are still alive.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we finally made a deal.
Guest:And they saw I was serious.
Guest:And I was having some other acts, sort of jumping aboard Earth Winded Fire, then went and booked with a white promoter a show.
Guest:Oh, so you made that possible.
Guest:I didn't do it, but I saw they did it.
Guest:So their system was starting to crumble.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they came in, and we talked story, and they tried to get very heavy with me.
Guest:And I basically said, listen, what you see is me.
Guest:My mother's dead.
Guest:My father's dead.
Guest:I don't have kids.
Guest:I don't have a wife.
Guest:I don't even have a mortgage.
Guest:yeah the i could buy you the bullet please put it in my brain yeah because i got nobody who loves me all i do is work i'm a miserable fucking guy and i'll pay you to kill me so if that's really what you want to do let's do it you know if you want to do some business i'm happy to do that and uh
Guest:It's a unique approach.
Guest:Please.
Guest:Yeah, just kill me.
Guest:Kill me.
Guest:And we worked at a deal, and the deal, which they were very honorable to and I was very honorable to, was that if...
Guest:If a building was owned by an institution like the Greek theater, was owned by the city, Radio City was owned by someone, then that promoter had the right to do the show.
Guest:And we would force them to give a percentage of the show to the Black Promoters Association.
Guest:If it was an open promotion, we would use our promoters and force them to be 50-50 partners with the Black Promoters Association.
Guest:So they kept their money.
Guest:They kept their pride because their name went on it.
Guest:We got to deal with people who paid us and provided the services we needed.
Marc:And it probably sort of tempered the unorthodox cowboys.
Marc:Nobody was thrilled, but everybody was making a lot of money.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it probably pushed some of those guys back who were basically pimps for show business.
Marc:Correct.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:And I stayed very friendly with most of the black promoters.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, still to this day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We actually worked it out as gentlemen.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I was really impressed with the way they stuck to their word.
Guest:And we were able to really make... Nobody got hurt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The artists got everything they should have gotten.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The two promoters who were basically promoters for the most part have to be criminals to make money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because the artist squeezes them so hard that if they're artists, they can't make anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:They each took half of their what they steal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was perfect.
Guest:And what other black acts did you work with?
Guest:Luther Vandross, Stephanie Mills, Ben Vereen, Rick James.
Guest:As a manager?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:I went into an African period where I just loved Magic Feshy, King Sonny of Day.
Marc:Did you do that first, the big attempt at the American record with King Sonny a day?
Marc:Yeah, I tried.
Marc:I tried hard.
Guest:What was it called?
Guest:Juju Pop?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:I tried really hard.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Didn't take.
Guest:Couldn't get it across.
Guest:One of my times, I wasn't too happy about my job.
Guest:I just could not get, I couldn't get anybody to buy in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Only colleges.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Only people would buy in.
Guest:But he was a beautiful man, really elegant, beautiful man.
Guest:And then stuff like Gypsy Kings, which were.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:You did that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow, so at this point, do you have a big operation?
Guest:Yeah, I have about 60 people maybe.
Guest:I'm doing a lot of movies.
Guest:I always wanted to... What's a manager's involvement in the movie?
Marc:Because how did that structure?
Marc:How were those deals structured?
Guest:Well, it's different.
Guest:I had a film company called Island Alive.
Guest:So we were the first independent.
Guest:For me, making movies was like everything else was protecting the artist.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I did six Alan Rudolph movies.
Guest:Oh, those are interesting movies.
Guest:Yeah, Choose Me, Trouble in Mind.
Marc:Those are kind of difficult movies.
Guest:Yeah, we did Coyanna Scotsy.
Guest:We did El Norte.
Guest:We did Stop Making Sense.
Marc:So that was really pre-independent film, independent movies.
Guest:We distributed, financed, and produced.
Guest:We were the first independent film company in America.
Guest:Island Alive, but that was not related to Island Records.
Guest:Yeah, it was a joint venture of Chris Blackwell and myself.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:He did start making sense?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was a big movie.
Guest:None of them were big.
Guest:I think our biggest movie was Kiss of the Spider Woman did maybe $4 million.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's it?
Guest:That's it, yeah.
Marc:Because they're challenging movies.
Marc:Not Stop Making Sense, but Alan Rudolph.
Guest:You have to remember there were no art theaters.
Marc:I remember seeing Choose Me in College at the Nickelodeon in Boston, like at an art theater.
Marc:Great movie.
Marc:It is a good movie.
Marc:$890,000.
Marc:David Carradine, right?
Guest:Keith Carradine.
Guest:Keith Carradine, right.
Guest:Catered it out of my truck.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So you're on set?
Guest:And Teddy on the soundtrack.
Guest:It's a really interesting story of how that moved, why that movie exists, and why Teddy's on the soundtrack.
Guest:This was all...
Guest:That movie was five years of work to get Teddy money after his accident.
Guest:And one thing led to another.
Guest:One coupon led to the next coupon.
Guest:And the last coupon was Alan Rudolph calling me up.
Guest:Two years after he had written this script for me of a thing called Choose Me, Luther wrote the song.
Guest:We needed to make believe Teddy was going to do a soundtrack.
Guest:We all thought he was going to die.
Guest:but I had someone who would give him a million dollars for his family if we could pretend he was going to do a soundtrack.
Guest:So I went to Luther and asked him to sing a song making himself sound like Teddy.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and he wrote Choose Me and made himself sound like Teddy on it.
Guest:I went to Alan Rudolph with the song and I said, you need to write me a script of a movie that will never get made, but I have to put in a file somewhere.
Guest:to protect this guy who's going to give me a million dollars for Teddy, who needs it.
Guest:So Alan wrote the script.
Guest:Luther did the song.
Guest:About a year and a half later, Alan Rudolph called me up.
Guest:And he said, hey, Shep, I need a favor.
Guest:I said, anything for you, Alan, anything.
Guest:He said, I want to make the movie.
Guest:I said, you've got to be kidding me.
Guest:And I had just won the Cannes Film Festival with The Duelist, which was my first movie, Ridley Scott's first movie, as a live film.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I said, you're kidding me.
Guest:He said, no, you told me I got a coupon I want to make.
Guest:So I called Chris Blackwell, who had a reputation for being a very bad guy.
Guest:And I said, I know you're the devil.
Guest:I know you've always wanted to be in business with me.
Guest:Give me a million bucks to do this movie that you will not get the soundtrack to, because I sold it already.
Guest:And he had a record company.
Guest:And that's how we formed Nile in the Life.
Guest:That was the beginning.
Guest:But deal with the devil.
Guest:Deal with the devil.
Marc:Now, Alan Rudolph was Altman's protégé, right?
Guest:He was Altman's protégé.
Guest:He did all my music videos for me.
Guest:I wanted my artist to always be the first to use new technology.
Guest:So we did music videos before MTV.
Guest:Alan did them for us.
Guest:We did video albums before there were discs with Blondie.
Guest:We did the first HBO special with Raquel.
Guest:Whenever there was a new technology,
Guest:Alan did it for you?
Guest:Alan didn't do that one.
Guest:That was another guy.
Guest:But Alan did almost all of our stuff.
Guest:Directing him.
Guest:And then we did a fabulous documentary with G. Gordon Liddy and Timothy Leary.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:When they were touring.
Guest:Yeah, Return to Gage.
Guest:We put them on tour and filmed the tour.
Marc:Oh, you created that tour?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Guest:Then we took it to Cannes.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:We presented it in Cannes.
Guest:Did you know, were you friends with Leary before?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Alan's the one who brought the project in and we all loved Alan for doing the videos for us.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh my God, that's hilarious.
Guest:And the duelist, you did that with Ridley Scott.
Guest:Yeah, that was our first movie.
Marc:Now when Teddy, I imagine when Teddy had the accident, that was a tremendous turning point for you personally.
Marc:Like what did you change about your life?
Marc:Because you ended up having problems eventually, right?
Guest:I think that it definitely put a damper on what I did for a living.
Guest:Took a lot of the joy out of what I did for a living.
Guest:I started seeing the endings instead of the beginnings and the middles when I'd work on an artist and a project.
Guest:So that part.
Guest:Also having a friend go that way was just...
Guest:Quadriplegia.
Guest:Yeah, not able to stop him.
Guest:He did it to himself.
Guest:What was he?
Guest:Was he drunk?
Guest:Yeah, he cracked two or three cars up that week.
Guest:So he was spiraling, and he couldn't stop him.
Guest:And I just couldn't stop him.
Marc:And everything was going good for him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Isn't that something?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, what did you learn in, like, you know, looking at the, because I know we can talk about how you built this relationship with Mike Myers and when you became this sort of, like, different force, you know, for people.
Marc:Like, what did you learn about artists that, you know, from that frustration of not being able to?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know if I learned so much about it from that.
Guest:I mean, one of the things that...
Guest:I always knew about artists.
Guest:It's usually, their drive is usually driven by holes rather than strengths.
Guest:That it's usually fear of that drives them on.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think I have any friend who isn't successful who's an actor who's over 40 or 50 who really thinks he's never going to get another role.
Guest:and really thinks it.
Guest:Fear drives them on.
Guest:And I think part of that is... But it can't be desperation.
Guest:Not desperation, but fear.
Guest:Living in that fear zone so that it becomes all encompassing.
Guest:Right, and then there's the fear of failure and the fear of not... And what I try and say in my talks with everyone is my biggest takeaway from everything I've done in 40 years is that you're going to die.
Guest:You're gonna die.
Guest:Everybody's gonna die.
Guest:So go for it.
Guest:Don't be scared.
Guest:You fail.
Guest:Whether you fail or you win, you're gonna die.
Guest:You're dying.
Guest:And I don't mean that in a morbid way.
Marc:Yeah, no, of course.
Marc:Well, that's the one thing.
Marc:That's the biggest fear is accepting that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're saying, you know, accept this.
Marc:And then all the rest of it's easy.
Marc:Yeah, put it into perspective.
Guest:Yeah, put it in perspective.
Guest:And, you know, don't be that person whose head is on the pillow in the last 24 hours saying, I wish I had.
Guest:Oh, I should have.
Guest:I wish I had done.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:You're going to die.
Guest:Do what you want to do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what I used to really try and drain into all my artists.
Guest:You know, I used to tell all my artists when I started with them, the most important thing in our relationship is not how much you pay me, but you're giving me the ability to fail.
Right.
Guest:I have to be able to fail.
Guest:And same thing with you.
Marc:That's your pitch?
Marc:That's as good as the kill me pitch.
Marc:Yeah, you got to be able to, but you have to be able to fail.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or I can't do anything good.
Marc:And also puts you in a position not to be a fucking liar.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's being honest right at the beginning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I don't do contracts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I try and be really honest.
Guest:If you're not happy with me or I'm not happy with you, we shouldn't be working together.
Guest:You shouldn't have to call a lawyer.
Guest:Yeah, no lawsuits.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You just call the guy.
Guest:I'm your friend.
Guest:Call me up and say, you know, it's just not working for me anymore.
Marc:Yeah, and what actors did you work with?
Guest:Didn't work with any actors.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Never really.
Marc:Mostly music and movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it was music and film production.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Really.
Marc:So how do you build this relationship with Mike to the point where he makes a movie about you?
Guest:Yeah, no, Mike was amazing.
Guest:Mike Myers.
Guest:Mike was one of those moments.
Guest:You know, I always in my business tried to be...
Guest:brutally honest, even to sort of a floor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I used to always tell my artists, you know, if you want a no, I can get you a no in a second.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You want a yes, I can never tell you how long it's going to take.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But I'll stay on it until it's a yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we got this call to do Wayne's World.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The call came in about two months before the actual filming date for Alice to do.
Guest:Oh, it was a music thing.
Guest:Yeah, to do a music thing.
Guest:Act in it for about 11 seconds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the end credit song with School's Out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was School's Out in both places.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I asked if we could do our new song because in those days, soundtracks.
Guest:were very significant at radio.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you could go to radio with a soundtrack record, you had a good chance of getting a hit.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, you know, it was Saturday Night Fears and Rockies and all those.
Marc:And even if it wasn't a hit, you're on the record, so you get the... But radio plays it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's the hardest thing.
Guest:Got it, yeah.
Guest:At least you get a chance to see.
Guest:So I said to Alice, I said, you know, they won't let us do the new song, so we've got two choices.
Guest:We can either just agree to do schools out,
Guest:or I can fuck them over, which I think is the thing to do.
Guest:I don't think they'll have time to replace you, but you may be put out of the movie.
Guest:If I tell them the truth now, they'll get someone else.
Guest:I'll take the heat, I'll go into the end.
Guest:He said, do whatever you think is right.
Guest:So I went into that.
Guest:Was he willing to lose it?
Guest:Yeah, he couldn't care less.
Guest:He doesn't care.
Guest:He doesn't have a phone.
Guest:That's the best position, isn't it?
Guest:Yeah, couldn't care less.
Guest:That's what I mean about failure.
Guest:Never, ever once has he ever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I rarely even tell him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He doesn't have a phone.
Guest:He doesn't have a computer.
Guest:He doesn't care.
Guest:He lets me.
Guest:Yeah, plays golf.
Guest:Yeah, plays golf.
Guest:So about a week before the movie, I asked for a meeting with Mike.
Guest:And I go in to see him, and I said, listen, I don't want to be that Hollywood guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, but I do want you to know I lied to your production people.
Guest:We're not going to do this.
Guest:We're not going to let you use that song or Alice unless you give us the new song.
Guest:And he said, absolutely not.
Guest:I told you not.
Guest:I said, listen, just listen to me.
Guest:So he's in the movie 11 seconds.
Guest:No one's going to know what he plays.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let him do the new song for 11 seconds, and I'll let you put schools out on the end credits, which is what you really care about.
Guest:And we made the deal.
Guest:So we got our song in the thing.
Guest:And then about... Did it work?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It worked great.
Guest:The record wasn't a hit, but it got us into the 20s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wouldn't have gone anywhere if it hadn't been in the movie.
Guest:The new song.
Guest:And he got schools out and he was happy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I heard about a year and a half later that he was in Maui at a hotel right here.
Guest:Mike was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I got a hold of him and invited him down actually for ridiculous luau with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and I think Whoopi Goldberg.
Marc:now these were these because i remember that in the movie so you moved away from la and you moved to maui and that's where you live yeah still yeah and you just liked having people over yeah i enjoy cooking and entertaining so you fly people down no they fly down yeah you invite you know oh whoever's around this is i think a planet hollywood opening okay in maui so you said come over yeah parties for everything all right so okay so he's in now he doesn't believe me but he comes over and they're all there
Guest:And they all leave and he's sitting and he's like, I see he's not in it.
Guest:He's just not comfortable.
Guest:And we talk and his father had just passed away.
Guest:So anyway, I said, you know, my guest house is free.
Guest:Come hang out for a few days.
Guest:And he ended up staying a couple of months.
Guest:And we had a really nice time.
Guest:And I channeled my grandmother a lot and fed him.
Guest:And we talked a bunch and I would tell him stories.
Guest:And then he started coming to Maui.
Guest:He bought a house with his wife that they shared with Helen Hunt.
Guest:So they used to come a bit, and then they got divorced.
Guest:When they got divorced, he came and started to stay with me.
Guest:He started coming regularly enough that we got into this rhythm where he'd come, I'd cook dinner, and I'd tell him stories.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then he started coming to the house with names on his hand.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:To ask you about?
Guest:So we'd sit down for dinner.
Guest:He'd go...
Guest:Okay, Charlie Chaplin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you have one?
Guest:And I go, yeah, it was amazing.
Guest:Charlie and Groucho, I got together at the Savoy Hotel for tea one morning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just, and then he goes, Albert Finney, and I go to my, but I never missed the story.
Guest:There was never one person.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Never one, just the ones he happened to pick.
Guest:Even if it was just a quick thing.
Guest:There was one or two I lied about.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just to keep it going.
Guest:But there was never one.
Guest:And somewhere in this process he would say to me, you've got to let me record these stories.
Guest:You've got to let me put these stories.
Guest:You're not going to live forever.
Guest:You know, if nothing else for your kids.
Guest:And I just, you know, having seen what fame has done to so many people that I love, no reason for me to flirt with it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't see any reason for me to challenge myself as to how I would deal with fame.
Guest:Would I deal with it better than other people?
Guest:Like what happened if the movie was actually a hit?
Guest:The documentary.
Guest:Yeah, am I now going to turn into a drug addict and an alcoholic and kill myself?
Guest:That's really a fear?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't trust yourself enough?
Guest:Fame is, I mean, I've seen stronger people than me who just can't survive fame.
Guest:What is it about it?
Guest:I can't tell you exactly.
Guest:I think for most of the people I deal with, it's because they were live performers, they fought so hard to get people applauding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Usually for some reason other than the applause, they're thinking it's going to fill up something, maybe something with their parents, some self-worth issue.
Guest:Oh, so, right.
Marc:And it doesn't fill it up.
Marc:Right, so they got everything and they still feel like shit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then it's like, what now?
Marc:And then that's when it moves to rehab.
Marc:Well, yeah, because now you have all the resources to do whatever the fuck you want.
Marc:You want to do.
Marc:And you're not happy.
Guest:And the hole's not filled.
Guest:So there was no reason for me to flirt with it.
Guest:And I had never been to a psychiatrist.
Guest:I never dealt with any of that stuff.
Guest:I knew I was as fucked up as anybody else.
Guest:Yeah, you don't have kids.
Guest:Yeah, but I'm pretty happy.
Guest:So why mess it up?
Guest:No, I don't have them either.
Guest:And you're not married?
Guest:Not married now, I was married, got divorced.
Guest:Got married at 60, divorced at 64.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seeing a nice lady now, really enjoying my relationship.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:But just didn't see any reason whatsoever to deal with it at all, other than ego.
Guest:And I didn't want to succumb to just doing something for Egon.
Guest:So I kept saying no to Mike.
Guest:And then I ended up having a surgery.
Guest:And not knowing, I flatlined twice at the surgery.
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:What kind of surgery?
Guest:Just something.
Guest:You know, these are like cars.
Guest:Bodies?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:But when I woke up, I was in a hotel room by myself, feeling very sorry for myself.
Guest:After the surgery?
Guest:Yeah, like I probably had been awake an hour.
Guest:In a hotel room?
Guest:No, in a hospital room.
Guest:My secretary there.
Guest:None of my adopted kids happened to be there.
Guest:No woman in my life.
Guest:You have adopted kids?
Guest:Yeah, four.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Well, great.
Guest:And started really feeling sorry for myself.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know, like, and he called.
Guest:He said, okay, now?
Yeah.
Guest:I said yes really fast, thinking about the ego side of it.
Guest:That's really why I answered it, was to leave, well, if I live through this, at least I'll leave something behind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The ego, when you talk about ego, do you have a spiritual disposition?
Guest:I'm very thankful all the time.
Guest:I don't attach it to any one thing.
Guest:You never tried?
Guest:Jew?
Guest:No.
Guest:Buddha?
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:No, but always I've taken as sort of a principle in my life that there's something bigger than me that's in charge of this whole thing.
Guest:And then I'm never going to figure out who it is or what it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I don't dwell even on that.
Guest:I just dwell on doing the best I can possibly do on this life.
Guest:So I go to temple for the holidays, but I don't read the book.
Guest:I'll go to mass with my kids.
Guest:I appreciate the ritual of all of them.
Guest:Why do your kids go to mass?
Guest:They're all Catholic.
Guest:How did you end up with a bunch of Catholic kids?
Guest:I adopted four Afro-American kids.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you adopted them as they were already, what, how old?
Guest:Baby was two weeks.
Guest:Really?
Guest:But their grandmother and great-grandmother raised them.
Guest:Their mother died and fathers were sort of unknown.
Marc:Well, how did you end up with that?
Guest:I had their mother, I lived with their grandmother for about four years and their mother for four years.
Guest:In a romantic relationship?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then I lost track of them for 10 or 15 years and heard that the daughter died.
Guest:Oh, geez.
Guest:And when I went, there were four little kids at the funeral and nobody didn't take care of them.
Guest:So you just stepped in.
Guest:Yeah, I just sort of smoked a joint, went to the car, said, is this the moment?
Guest:Come with me.
Guest:So you legally adopted him?
Guest:No, I never legally adopted him.
Guest:You just took care of him.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:Three of them are back in Maui with me now.
Guest:Doing all right?
Guest:Everyone's all right?
Guest:Yeah, for the most part, doing really well.
Guest:It's great to have him home.
Guest:Two new ones, two little babies, a four-year-old and a three-year-old who are just so precious.
Guest:And they all live with you?
Guest:No.
Guest:The three of them are living on Maui.
Guest:One lives with me in Maui, but she works with Alice on the road doing VIP ticketing.
Guest:And one has a, her and her husband have a tattoo parlor in Lahaina.
Guest:And one's living up country with their baby.
Guest:And then one's in the house that I originally got for them in New York.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:When we first started with their baby.
Marc:It's a big life in a way.
Marc:It's a big life.
Marc:So when did you be, like before we end up, you know, it seems to me that you're responsible for...
Marc:The celebrity chef reality.
Guest:For me, that was just a really wonderful part of my life.
Guest:My passion is the culinary arts.
Guest:I found that late in my life where I don't really have that passion for music or for movies.
Guest:If I don't have stereo at the house, if I didn't see another movie, I'd be fine.
Guest:If I didn't cook a meal, I'd go crazy.
Guest:It really cost me.
Guest:You always cooked.
Guest:No, I got lucky enough when I won the Cannes Film Festival to meet a chef who sort of taught me in his way how to be happy.
Guest:I was really at risk.
Guest:At a hotel or what?
Guest:It was at a restaurant.
Guest:I got taken to a restaurant called the Moulin des Mougins when I won with the Duelist and met this wonderful chef who was very successful and very happy.
Guest:It was really obvious he was happy.
Guest:And you sensed that.
Guest:And I sensed both that and I sensed that in me I was headed for trouble.
Guest:I was too much drugs, too many beautiful women, too successful.
Guest:Poor you.
Guest:But all the stuff, all the fool's gold.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:But I could hear her voice in me.
Guest:It was empty.
Guest:Yeah, and I was seeing people getting hurt.
Guest:The Hendrixes were dead.
Guest:The Joplins were dead.
Guest:Consequences started.
Guest:And I could see I was on that train.
Guest:And just when I saw him, I said, he can save my life.
Guest:And he did.
Guest:Not because he consciously did.
Guest:He just did.
Guest:And I became his grasshopper for 25 years.
Guest:How do you start a relationship like that?
Okay.
Guest:Very weird.
Guest:I saw him come into the room.
Guest:I made up my mind that moment.
Guest:I thought about Kung Fu, the grasshopper and the old man.
Guest:Literally, yeah.
Guest:And I waited until after service, and I went over to him, and I said that I would like to be his grasshopper.
Guest:And he didn't speak much English.
Guest:He had no idea what I was talking about.
Guest:And he said, what is his grasshopper?
Guest:And I said, well, I'd like to hang out with you.
Guest:And he said, well, I'm a simple chef.
Guest:Do you know how to cook?
Guest:And I said, no.
Guest:He said, well, if you learn how to cook, you can come back and work in my kitchen.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So I asked him how, and he gave me names from cooking schools, and I went to those cooking schools.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How many years?
Guest:Just in that next year, Marcella Hansen in Italy.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And a fellow named Charlie in Bangkok.
Guest:How long at each place?
Guest:Week.
Guest:Didn't learn much of anything, but came back with being able to say to him I went.
Guest:And also you could understand how things come together.
Guest:Yeah, but enough that I could come back and say I went.
Guest:And I came back, he had no idea who I was or, you know.
Guest:But I said, well, you said I could work in the kitchen.
Guest:And he said, oh, I'm so sorry.
Guest:I'm leaving for Bangkok right after the festival.
Guest:So I asked him if I could come.
Guest:And he said yes.
Guest:And on that trip, we really bonded.
Guest:We got to spend a week in Bangkok.
Guest:And that just started our journey.
Guest:And every year we would travel.
Guest:He ended up, I ended up having a movie in Cannes for the next 12 or 15 years.
Guest:He was the guy in Cannes.
Guest:He did the Abfar thing with Sharon Stone.
Guest:And we'd take a bus and go for two weeks and travel.
Guest:And eat.
Guest:Eat and drink.
Guest:And you learned how to cook.
Guest:And I learned how to cook through him.
Guest:And I also got to see this amazing collection around the world of culinary artists who we treated exactly like the Afro-Americans were in the chitlin circuit.
Guest:It was the same thing.
Guest:So I knew I had the skills to change it.
Guest:And as I got to know the chefs, they sort of knew that too.
Guest:So one day we all got together and decided we would change the game.
Guest:And we started an agency.
Guest:I think about 65 of the Nobu, Wolfgang.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Emeril?
Guest:Emeril?
Guest:Emeril, the whole gang, Alice Waters, everybody.
Guest:Daniel.
Guest:And changed the game around.
Guest:And got the Food Network on the air and started to get products in stores and multiple restaurants.
Guest:What I told him when I started with him is that Michael Jackson, if there weren't delivery systems like record players,
Guest:mtv stereos you'd be a wandering minstrel uh-huh which is what they are yeah so we need to develop home delivery systems food network get you in their house spices get you in the store yeah videos books yeah just like every other artist right and once we started to do that it really took off
Marc:So when you developed this relationship, did you just stop with show business?
Marc:When did you stop with what would be called, well, obviously you still got Alice, but did you at some point say, I'm done with this?
Guest:Yeah, I had a moment in my life, just like everything else, it's always been moments.
Guest:I had a premiere of a Wes Craven or a John Carpenter movie at Universal, great carpet, all the stars, bored to death.
Guest:Flew to Maui the next day, on my hammock, by myself, having a vodka and lemonade.
Guest:So excited.
Guest:Like every molecule in my body ecstatic.
Guest:And I said, what's it all about?
Guest:I'm going to die.
Guest:Yeah, that was it.
Guest:Yeah, it was crazy.
Guest:So I flew into L.A.
Guest:a couple of days later, called up Alice, asked him where he was.
Guest:He said he was in L.A.
Guest:And I said, could you get me?
Guest:I don't want to have to drive after lunch.
Guest:I'm getting very drunk.
Guest:And I resigned from everybody one morning.
Guest:Everybody was happy except Luther.
Guest:Luther felt deprived.
Guest:But everybody else was really happy for me.
Guest:But I resigned from about 100 clients that day.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Mostly music.
Guest:A lot of food.
Marc:Oh, this was after you started the food thing?
Marc:Yeah, probably half and half.
Marc:So you definitely left your mark, and you can feel proud and grateful.
Marc:Yeah, I'm really proud of what I did.
Guest:And you live healthy now?
Guest:Yeah, I really live a great life.
Guest:No booze?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, a lot of booze.
Yeah.
Guest:Smoke a lot of dope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't really do any of the harder drugs anymore.
Guest:No desire whatsoever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I had a desire, I'd probably do them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I never was out of control with it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I have one kid who can't drink.
Guest:He should never drink.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really simple.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You do what you can do.
Guest:I always had the tolerance.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So, yeah, no, I have a couple of vodkas a day usually.
Guest:I just came from Italy.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Took hunting for white truffles.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And we drank and ate like wild men.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Good time.
Marc:Really good time.
Marc:When you think about show business, when you think about who do you consider, because you have sort of accumulated a lot of your own wisdom and your own philosophy about things that sort of keeps your outlook good.
Marc:Who do you credit as your mentors?
Guest:My mentors in life are Roger Verge, the chef, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who I had a chance to serve, which I'm really... Food.
Guest:Food.
Guest:I cooked for him and I serve on his board for the last 20 years.
Guest:But you're not a Buddhist.
Guest:No.
Guest:You just like him.
Guest:And I like all, I love everything I hear, you know, all the Buddhist things that fit right into my life.
Marc:Are you in touch with the Dalai Lama?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:Yeah, not at all.
Guest:And I would say Norman Lear from a distance.
Guest:So alive and so, he's in his 90s.
Guest:So in the moment and so positive.
Yeah.
Marc:So willing to share.
Marc:Yeah, I was at Bob Saget's birthday party, and we were out back with Norman, and me and him and Bill Burr smoked a cigar, and I was just, it always, like you as well, because I'm not a, I do get a little compulsive.
Marc:I don't drink or do drugs anymore, but I like that at 90-something, he's like, I have a cigar.
Guest:Fuck it.
Guest:Yeah, why not?
Guest:We had dinner, and he looked at his phone, and he said, I'm just waiting to see if they picked up my Amazon series.
Guest:He's 94.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:But what about in management?
Guest:I can't say that I had any real heroes in management.
Guest:I have a lot of respect for Freddie the man, who managed Michael Jackson and Madonna.
Guest:I thought he was really, really good.
Guest:I think some of the old guys, the manager, Seymour Heller, who managed Liberace for 50 years.
Guest:But I didn't have a lot of contact with the managers.
Guest:But I think there's going to be a moment
Guest:where the artists maybe are going to be able to turn the tables a little bit.
Guest:I'm starting to see little things starting to happen.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:Like Flo and Eddie have a lawsuit against Sirius.
Guest:I don't know if you saw that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really interesting lawsuit.
Guest:What they uncovered through the lawsuit, is it the...
Guest:They don't pay for pre-1972 copyrights.
Guest:They were able to lobby Sirius to get a pass on paying any.
Guest:Through sound exchange.
Guest:That's like the ASCAP of satellite.
Guest:But pre-72 they don't have to pay.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:But how did they accomplish it?
Guest:They accomplish it by paying the record companies $345 million.
Guest:to agree to not take pre-'72 royalties.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the artists didn't agree, and the artists don't get a flow-through.
Guest:So on those oldies, those Turtles records, right?
Guest:So they've had two court rulings now that Sirius can't play those records.
Guest:That's big stuff.
Guest:What about the back money?
Guest:And that's where it's going through now is damages for the back.
Guest:So it gets, I think it's, you know, all these little things I read, like I just read in a Wall Street Journal article that...
Guest:one of the major record companies i don't remember if it was universal is getting a million dollars a day from serious radio no shit a day not a week a day it's why they're so profitable nobody can figure out why these record companies are so profitable still when you don't sell any records because they don't pass it through that's fucking insane yeah so i think it's things are going to start changing maybe a little bit
Guest:Wow.
Guest:The flow on anyone is going to have a big impact.
Guest:For the back money.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So the artists have been getting fucked.
Guest:But once the microscope goes on, Irving's been screaming about this for a while.
Marc:Yeah, what do you call that?
Marc:Forensic accounting.
Guest:Yeah, once this magnifying glass gets on it and they start seeing that the record companies own the services that sort of determine how much money goes to the artist and...
Marc:Well, that the payout there, that the deals that are happening at the top levels of satellite music and the record companies, for them to, it's got nothing to do with the artists because they just think artists are just, well, you know, that guy's dead.
Marc:They don't know better.
Marc:What's that guy doing?
Marc:But the guys who are saying that are like, we got more money coming in.
Marc:That's fucking unreal.
Marc:Would be a great thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, a lot of them are destined to.
Guest:And also, we're going to lose all of our artists.
Guest:There's no incentive for young people to go into music.
Marc:But the weird thing about artists is that there's so few guys like you.
Marc:And if you're a guy on the other side of it who's just trying to be an artist, you have that temperament.
Marc:It was in your mind that you're like, I got to get a guy like you to earn a living.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:So now that's changing a little bit because you can really find your own audience without anybody.
Marc:But also, how do you find somebody you can trust?
Marc:It's tough.
Marc:Really tough.
Marc:Well, you're a good guy, and I'm glad you're alive.
Marc:And I hope the book sells, but you don't want it to get too big, right?
Marc:No, not too big.
Marc:Published by Anthony Bourdain, by the way, which I'm very proud of.
Guest:Yeah, he's a good cat.
Guest:I've talked to him a couple times.
Guest:Really good guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He came up to me and said, I want to write your book.
Guest:And I said, why?
Guest:And he said, because if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be famous.
Guest:And I said, I've never met you.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He said, no, no.
Guest:He said, you made Emeril Lagasse famous.
Guest:And I made myself famous by beating up Emeril Lagasse.
Guest:So I owe you a coupon.
Marc:How many coupons you got out there?
Marc:I got a lot of coupons.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Shep Gordon, thanks for talking.
Marc:Thank you.
Thank you.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Moving forward.
Marc:We can do it.
Marc:Let's just stay in touch.
Marc:Let's keep talking.
Marc:All right?
Marc:A lot of broken hearts out there.
Marc:A lot of fear.
Marc:A lot of that was manifested in...
Marc:Rage and anger.
Marc:So now what do we do with ours?
Marc:Let's not fall into ourselves.
Marc:Let's keep doing what we do and doing it harder.
Marc:Let's bring it in.
Guest:No guitar today.
Guest:I gotta go act.
Guest:I guess we all do.
Marc:Boomer lives!