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This is The Art of Charm.
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Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
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Welcome to The Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with my friend Shep Gordon.
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He s a talent manager, Hollywood film agent, and a producer.
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He was featured in the film Supermensch, The Legend of Shep Gordon, which was directed by Mike Myers.
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That is a great film.
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It s on Netflix.
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If you haven t seen it, super interesting guy.
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This is a great show.
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done live here at Shep s house in Maui.
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It was a hell of an excuse to go to Hawaii as well.
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He s got crazy stories about meeting Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Alice Cooper, then Pink Floyd, all by age 21 or 22, and managing those guys as well.
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He still manages Alice Cooper, and he invented the concept of the celebrity chef, which as you know is now ubiquitous.
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He cooked for the Dalai Lama, and he even shared a cat with Cary Grant.
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He shares a lot of AOC values, such as compassionate business, where there are no losers, only winners.
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He has something called the coupon system he uses to track this.
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We also discussed what makes Shep a success and how he thinks about solving problems and making people famous.
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Last but not least, why fame is toxic.
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There s a reason he tells his clients, if I do my job right, it ll probably kill you.
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So enjoy this one with Shep Gordon.
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And by the way, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the AOC toolbox where we discuss things like body language, nonverbal communication, persuasion, networking, negotiation, mentorship, and everything else we teach here at The Art of Charm.
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In the U.S., just text CHARMED to 33444.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
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Also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes.
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All right, here s Shep Gordon.
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My first group I worked with was Alice Cooper and we didn t do well.
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We finally left Los Angeles saying we couldn t even get arrested in LA and we were gonna go on the road till we got our first standing ovation.
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And we played a pop festival in Saginaw, Michigan.
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which is kind of a rough area, even today.
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Yeah, this was a big field, open field.
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We came on after Arthur Brown.
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Arthur Brown was the headliner.
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Fire!
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He was fantastic.
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I don t know if you know him.
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I mean, I know a little bit about him.
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Yeah, Alice actually played with him last night in Vegas, two nights ago in Vegas.
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So Alice still does shows.
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I didn t realize that.
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I thought he was just golfing 24-7.
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No, no, he s rocking.
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He s rocking.
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He did 150 shows this year, part of it as Alice.
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It was a good year.
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So we get the standing ovation in Saginaw.
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First standing ovation we ever got.
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We didn t realize that the Hells Angels were on bicycles at the back of the field.
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pushing everyone to the front, which is why they stood up.
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Why?
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But I have no idea.
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They just decided, screw this house.
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Paper guy is wearing tights and we don t like him.
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I don t know.
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We re trying to clear the field.
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There was security.
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We were sort of an afterthought.
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Arthur Brown was the headliner.
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We came on maybe 12.30 at night.
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I think we were an afterthought.
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They were probably trying to clean the plant.
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Never really found out the answer.
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Yeah, not the kind of guys who want to say, look, I want to just clarify what happened last night.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And we didn t really know.
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We found out
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A couple of months later, I mentioned to the promoter, Peter Andrews, thanks.
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We got a standing ovation.
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We moved in.
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He said, wait a second, that was after Arthur Brown.
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You know what happened?
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Yeah.
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So anyway, so we go to a real estate agent and we find a place we can rent by the month that s very cheap.
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And it was a farm in a town called Pontiac, Michigan.
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And we move in at night.
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We wake up in the morning.
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They set up the equipment to practice and
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Maybe a football field away is a fence, and all these people are watching us, you know, at the fence rehearse and applauding and stuff, and it looked a little bit weird.
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It turned out we had moved it next door to an insane asylum.
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So they re all shaking their head and shuffling around.
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Yeah, which is perfect.
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They were exactly our target audience.
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And I can imagine at this time, like, all right, we just need to find as many of these types of people.
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And this is our gold record.
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We moved to the right place.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Nailed it.
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And little did we know they were all those kind of people.
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Confidence builder, though, right?
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Look at them line up outside the fence.
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We re going to kill it.
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And Detroit was great because Detroit was the antithesis of California rock.
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where California rock was, you know, I love the flowers.
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Aren t the bees beautiful?
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Look at the rainbow.
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Detroit was, you know, I m going to get in your face and knock your teeth out.
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And here we come.
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It s still like that.
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Kick out the jams, motherfucker.
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You know, all that stuff.
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So.
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It s still like that, only it s not just the music that does it anymore.
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I was just back in Detroit.
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It s really...Shinola, this company, Shinola has done a great job.
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Jack White just opened a vinyl record store in Detroit where you can go in and tell them the title and they press the record.
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And you get a vinyl record pressed in the store that you can take with you.
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That s amazing, because then you don t have to stock a bunch of stuff that you might never sell.
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You can make it.
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He has it on some digital load-in, and they have eight pressing machines, and they just press the record on the bottom.
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That s long overdue and very cool.
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And great that it s out of Detroit, which is the home of manufacturing for America.
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It really drives the point home.
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Yeah, yeah, I went back.
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I mean, my parents still live there, and it s in Troy, and we go down to Detroit, and it s great because five years ago when I went back there, you really couldn t go.
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There was maybe one block of Detroit you could go to, and then recently there were five, six blocks of Detroit.
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It s slow progress, but you have to give them a lot of credit, all these people who come in.
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It ll take 15 years, right?
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But hopefully it will get back to, or at least rebuild itself a little bit.
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Detroit in those days was so great because you had the Motown sound, you had the Rooster Tail nightclub, which was like...
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the Bible of, you know, Motown music.
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And then at the same time, you had the East Town and Grandy Ballrooms, which were the Fillmores of really tough music.
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You know, so it was just a great city for us.
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We got very lucky.
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My dad s cousin was a VP at Motown, along with 500 other people, or however they ran that company in those days.
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Yeah, amazing presence in Detroit.
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But did he ever tell you about the Rooster Tail, Rooster Tail?
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No, my mom s friend owns it actually now.
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You re kidding.
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I m sure they didn t back then.
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It was sort of like walking into a Martin Scorsese movie.
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Really?
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Smoky and fedora hats everywhere and Cadillacs outside.
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I don t think you could get in without a pinky ring.
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Like a big gold with a ruby on it or something?
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It was a great time.
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You know, this show specifically, as everyone listening knows, it s designed to help people live an amazing life, help people learn things through essentially deconstructing or decoding amazing people or people that have had amazing experiences.
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And so I m one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you and that that in so much that I m intruding on your family vacation here at your own home is because you ve had
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So much success, it s almost kind of like Forrest Gump of Hollywood level.
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Does that make sense?
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My friends call me Forrest Gump.
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Yeah, I mean, it s unbelievable.
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It s like this super nice person does a lot of right by everyone, and then amazing things in the book seem to fall from the sky.
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And later in the book, you actually clarify, look, it s not like you just snap your fingers and it happens.
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You ve got to hustle and leverage those opportunities as well.
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And I want to kind of deconstruct some of that stuff.
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Even on your own vacation a while back, you had a computer problem, and you were one of three people on the island other than the girl that you were with, and then it ended up, the other guy on the island ended up being Steve Jobs.
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I mean, this stuff doesn t happen to normal people, right?
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It is amazing.
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It s a convergence of luck, chutzpah.
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Yeah, chutzpah, exactly.
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Because nobody s that lucky, seriously.
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Just nobody, there s no, it s off the meter.
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No, it s been,
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I think they are, because I m sort of an example of it.
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I mean, there s so many, there s a lot of things that I grasp for, and maybe that s part of what makes it work.
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I think there s a part of me that s a little bit groupie.
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I m really attracted to fame and power.
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There s a part of me that s always been looking for a substitute father.
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So mentors I tend to stretch out to.
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And I ve always been, one of the things I always told my clients is, you know, I can get you a no very fast.
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A yes, I can t tell you how long it s going to take.
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So when I sort of set my targets on meeting someone,
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able to sort of find the path, usually, to get me into it.
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Well, Jason, our friend Jason, did a good job of that.
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I mean, he put it up everywhere.
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I don t know if he told you how he finally got connected to you.
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He was asking, hey, has anyone seen this?
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Has anyone seen the Supermench thing?
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Does anybody know Shep Gordon?
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And it was on a little private community that we have for events he set up.
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And then he just kept asking, and finally someone said, I think I know somebody that knows
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somebody that knows somebody, and he got introduced to you, and then he, to my knowledge, lived in your house for three days?
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Yeah, no, he s actually, it s so funny, I never thought about it, but he actually is a perfect example of those things I talked about, you know, luck, chutzpah, being a little bit of a groupie, having, I mean, Jason, for those of you who don t know, Jason is this wonderful guy, lives in Canada,
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who runs a thing called Masterminds.
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And I never go on Facebook.
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I almost never go on Facebook.
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I ve started to now about Jason s insistence.
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But I remember it was my secretary, somebody highlighted to me an email from Jason.
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And I read it and I said, boy, this sounds really interesting.
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And I didn t answer it.
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And then another one came in and I said, this is really, you know, this is different than the others.
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He was able in a very aloha way to hit on things that he knew would get my attention.
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He said, you have a book coming out.
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I d love to help you promote the book.
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I don t know if you care or not, but if you care about how it does, I think I can be useful.
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And that hit a note with me because, you know, I don t have a manager.
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Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
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Why would you?
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And I know how much work it takes, you know, to get above the noise for anything.
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Especially now.
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Yeah, amazing.
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So I answered him, which I rarely do, and every one of his answers was so honest and full of aloha and intelligent.
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When you say full of Aloha, do you just mean, is that like a synonym for humility in some ways?
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Yeah, humility, a concept of innocence, win-win, a thankfulness.
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He was very confident of what he did, but didn t push it.
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You know, just a beautiful approach.
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And one thing led to another.
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We started talking on the phone.
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He said to me, I have some free time.
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Could I come out and see you?
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I said, you re kidding, he really would do that?
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And he said, yes.
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And he came out, and we spent three days together.
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And I sent him back a note after the three days, and I said, you know, if I had a birth son, I d sure like him to be like you.
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Wow.
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Because it s, and in the end, it serves him well.
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It s a beautiful win-win.
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Sure.
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It s what I try and do.
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I talk in the book about how you try and make things a win-win situation.
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For me, he s given me a viewpoint on how to get this book to people to read.
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He does these conferences.
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I can t wait to go to one of his conferences.
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I d like to crawl to get to the conference now, and that s a win-win.
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Well, I asked him if you were coming to Mastermind Talks, and he says, well, you know, let me sell some books first.
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He hasn t even asked.
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Yeah, I said, let me help you sell books.
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So one of the reasons I m down here is because we re going to sell a few thousand books.
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I mean, fingers crossed, right?
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But no, I mean, there s no way to keep me away from it.
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And that s a win-win.
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Yeah.
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You know, so he sort of gets what he wants for his life.
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I get what I want for my life.
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We have a beautiful exchange.
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You get to meet another human being who s on the same journey, which is great.
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So I think, you know, that s a perfect example of how some luck and perseverance and, you know,
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keeping on it really can get you to, you know, and having a little bit of groupie in you.
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When you say a little bit of groupie, you mean being a fan of... Yeah, being a fan of other humans.
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Yeah.
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Not so many people, their world is six inches from their nose.
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You know, if you can really appreciate what another person has done and want to get to them and say thank you and maybe have some of what you re attracted to bleed off into you,
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That s a beautiful thing.
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With the first comes desire and consciousness of, wow, this person, that s a great person, you know, I d love to meet them.
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And then work on it, which is I m sure the first thought of Jason s was, wow, I d like to meet him.
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How do I get to meet him?
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How do I do it in the right way?
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He perceived the need for me.
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He filled that need and we got to meet and he got his sort of thing.
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I got mine and the ballet will continue on.
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Yeah.
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He s, well, you couldn t have picked,
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Or I guess he couldn t have picked.
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He s a great person.
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Like, none of that, what you saw, was even 1% fake.
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No, no, I got it.
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I got it completely.
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He s just one of those guys where... He s one of the guys where the reason people think Canadians are super friendly is because of guys like Jason Kane.
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That s so smart.
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And smart and sharp and he s... All the right stuff.
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I can t wait to go to his mastermind.
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Yeah, well, I will see you, I can t wait.
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It s such a fun event.
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As you can imagine, a guy like that brings in a great crowd of people that are all super nice.
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I mean, it s just entrepreneur Woodstock, right?
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You mentioned fame, and you mentioned, honestly, my follow-up question for that is no longer necessary, because I was wondering how much of it is dumb luck, and how much of it is dumb luck that you had a pretty big hand in creating yourself, and it sounds like
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Well, actually, why don t we answer that?
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Because it seems like there has to be an element of luck.
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On the other hand, you re clearly very conscious of creating the right connections and creating the right relationships and creating the right scenarios.
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I think it s funny, a great follow-up to the Jason conversation.
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I got taken to a speech in Los Angeles by the Dalai Lama, who I wasn t really aware of.
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He was a
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a picture, but I didn t really know much.
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Right, no internet that you can go, no Wikipedia for you to take a look at real quick.
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I don t even know if I may have it, but it wasn t part of my consciousness.
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It wasn t any goal of mine.
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It was just, you know, I got taken by a girl I was living with who was an actress.
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I was happy to go.
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I love knowledge.
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Sharon Stone, was it Sharon Stone who took you there?
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Yeah.
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And we got backstage because of Sharon.
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He walked in the room, and I felt like I had just taken the greatest shower of my life.
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I don t know how else to describe it.
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Just him coming in the room, I saw his face.
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I saw him come through the door open.
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I was looking at the door.
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He came walking in, and it was like, wow, that s wild.
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I just felt clean, like really clean.
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And I got to be on a line, and he gave me a scarf.
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Wow.
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Nice.
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And I got back home to Hawaii and I said, boy, I sure would love to be able to spend a little time near him and see what this is all about.
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And I did some research and I got a hold of a friend of mine.
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I asked him about Buddhism, what is the real essence of it.
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And then I went to a bookstore here and there was a sign that he was coming to Hawaii to give a speech.
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This is way before Secret Service and as crazy as it is now.
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They didn t have to worry about crazies at that time.
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Let me move some of this out of your way.
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He went to a little Dharma Center.
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So anyway, just like Jason,
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I said to myself, boy, I would love to spend some time with him.
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He s coming to Hawaii.
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He s got to eat.
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I deal in the culinary arts.
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Why don t I make an offering of the food while he s here, and maybe that way I d be able to see the world, get a little closer.
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And that s what I did.
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I reached out, went through some connections, found out from Sharon, who had invited us, and I said,
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got a hold of the person who invited us, his name was Richard Darla, and he accepted my offer.
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Wow.
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And the only thing he said to me was, you can t have any
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expectation that you will meet His Holiness or interact with Him.
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That s a very Buddhist thing to say, right?
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And I said, Okay, I understand.
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And I was sort of sad, because I wanted to meet Him.
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And then the first morning, they asked me to bring them breakfast.
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And I walked right in.
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He was shaving, brushing his teeth in the bathroom.
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And here I was with the Dalai Lama.
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It was like so wild.
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And then I made more offerings, and I went to Trinidad with him, went to a few other places and got to accomplish
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what my goal was for me, which was to spend some time near him and see, could I see something in the way he conducts his life that would help my life be better?
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I ended up going to New York with him to cook, and in New York, someone actually knew what I did for a living, because they thought I was a cook to them.
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I joined the Board of Tibet Fund, which is the vehicle that finances the government in exile, and I ve been on the board for the last 20 years.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
So it s a win-win for everybody.
1
SPEAKER_01
Again, it turned into a beautiful win-win, but it was, you know, luck to have been taken to that speech, and then dedication and work and sincerity.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was selfless.
1
SPEAKER_01
All I really wanted was to be near him and serve him.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think it makes sense that they asked you that question, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Make sure you have no expectations, because that s the screen.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because somebody who says, no, I m just here to get a selfie with a
2
SPEAKER_02
Dalai Lama isn t gonna cook breakfast with no return on what they consider an investment.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it s funny to hear that he s sitting there brushing his teeth when you go in.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then even the things he says in the book, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, he s so funny.
2
SPEAKER_02
He s brushing his teeth, he goes, is that yak butter?
2
SPEAKER_02
This is why I left Tibet, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Because it smells like dirty socks.
2
SPEAKER_01
He is so funny.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think another great one was when I tell the stories and I talk about it, it sounds as if
2
SPEAKER_01
I have an important place in his life.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m sure I do, because I m a human, but not because of anything else.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think that I m one of a blur of life going by.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I truly have no expectation of him ever remembering me.
2
SPEAKER_01
Any of that stuff was part of my journey.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we went to Trinidad.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I got on an airplane.
2
SPEAKER_01
To go to Trinidad and he was on the airplane.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I walked past him to go to the bathroom and I could sort of tell that he didn t recognize me.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because he meets a thousand people a week.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Easily.
2
SPEAKER_01
And when I came out of the bathroom, I could tell that his handler had told him who I was.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, oh, how are you?
2
SPEAKER_01
So good to see you since Hawaii.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, he had been trapped.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we get to Trinidad and, two little Trinidad stories, we get to Trinidad and there s only two people and me with them.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a very little entourage, one security guy, Regent Darlow, who was his ambassador.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because a different time, I mean, obviously a different time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Totally different time than me.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we get there and we re in a holding pattern backstage.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right at the airport, there s a convention center.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they had the dignitaries of Trinidad there to meet him, and he was going to give a little speech.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we re backstage, a security guy goes off, and the other person goes off, and it s just us.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he says, Oh, you cook for me in Hawaii?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I said, Yes, Your Holiness.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, and you cook in New York?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, Your Holiness.
2
SPEAKER_01
He said, Now you cook in Trinidad?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I said, Yes, Your Holiness.
2
SPEAKER_01
Very happy to do this.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then now they say it s time for us to walk out.
2
SPEAKER_01
And in Trinidad, I had never been to Trinidad before, but what makes Trinidad really unique is that, you know,
2
SPEAKER_01
Everyone gets along, but none of them have merged together, the different cultures.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the Africans wear pure African garb.
2
SPEAKER_01
The South American Indians wear pure South American Indian.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we walked into a room that was beautiful with all these costumes, and His Holiness was wearing his orange robes, and he goes to the stand, and he goes,
2
SPEAKER_01
Looks around, gives it a minute.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, must be in the wrong room.
2
SPEAKER_01
This costume party?
2
SPEAKER_01
And everyone s embarrassed.
2
SPEAKER_01
Everyone doesn t know what to say.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then he looks at himself and he looks down and he goes, oh no, be dressed right and robe for costume party.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh.
2
SPEAKER_01
Everyone loses it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then he becomes a human.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_01
all that other stuff is gone, and now he can talk to him.
2
SPEAKER_02
He must have learned that over years of just, because it s got to be a lot of work if everybody is treating you like you re floating your whole life.
2
SPEAKER_02
It would get really tiring.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve noticed now, I ve been in enough things to see he always comes up with something
2
SPEAKER_01
to make himself human.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, to diffuse that thing in the air.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, interesting.
2
SPEAKER_02
It seems like, do you see that as a skill that a lot of famous people learn over time, or is that what eventually...
2
SPEAKER_01
I think most people don t care about that.
2
SPEAKER_01
They enjoy the stepladder.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think they enjoy that privilege of almost, you know, being above the fray.
2
SPEAKER_02
That wall.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that s the difference between the compassionate ones and the ones who don t maybe use their power like they possibly could.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s a powerful position, as you well know, because you re on the air.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can
2
SPEAKER_02
You can influence a lot of things.
2
SPEAKER_01
You get to a lot of minds, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s a responsibility.
2
SPEAKER_02
I agree.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, this is a podcast and it s a new media, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
In air quotes, it s internet.
2
SPEAKER_02
A lot of people don t take it seriously.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I ll tell you that
2
SPEAKER_02
A lot of times when authors come on, they ll sell books by the thousands.
2
SPEAKER_02
They get really surprised or even presidential candidates have said, look, why don t we come on and you can endorse you can endorse this person.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I, I was really surprised to see that because I thought who no one.
2
SPEAKER_02
Even most authors have to look up what this is, but people who are really, really in the know, they see where the influence is starting to shift.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it can be powerful, but it can also be very intoxicating.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I m talking about, look at that minute sliver that I m enjoying broadcasting.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re going to get a good sense of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a good sense, and it s a power that s got to be... I always think of it as like Star Wars.
2
SPEAKER_01
The lightsaber?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s that kind of power you sort of hold on to the fame and the thing and you just try and use it for good stuff, but it s, there s so much fool s gold out there.
2
SPEAKER_01
Don t turn it on in your pocket.
2
SPEAKER_01
Don t turn it on in your pocket, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s interesting because you, I mean you started
2
SPEAKER_02
early enough where you met Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, and you were what, like 22 years old?
2
SPEAKER_02
Not even?
2
SPEAKER_02
So you weren t even old enough to drink, but you were hanging out with people who only did stuff like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I got really lucky.
2
SPEAKER_01
I got lucky, and I took advantage of the luck.
2
SPEAKER_01
And for me, strangely enough, being Jewish is really what led me into my life s career, because that came up in conversation in those days.
2
SPEAKER_01
Are you Jewish?
2
SPEAKER_01
And Jimi Hendrix said to me, are you Jewish?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I said, yes, and you should be a manager.
2
SPEAKER_01
All the managers are Jews.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because back then, that wasn t a weird thing to say, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, politically not correct.
2
SPEAKER_01
But that s really what led me on my journey.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think if the answer had been different that day, I have no idea where I would be today.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, he could have said, you should sell carpet.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s what people are doing now.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you d be, you d have sold a lot of carpet.
2
SPEAKER_02
A lot of carpet.
2
SPEAKER_02
It might have been easier.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it might have been a lot easier.
2
SPEAKER_02
It certainly would have been better for your liver.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s for sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
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SPEAKER_00
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SPEAKER_02
You do share a lot of art of charm values, the show, what we teach, and what we teach at AOC.
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SPEAKER_02
The same values, compassion, no losers in business.
2
SPEAKER_02
Only win-win.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can t, I mean, that s the goal, sadly, commerce.
2
SPEAKER_01
has a downside to it.
2
SPEAKER_01
But you try.
2
SPEAKER_01
You really try.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m going to neurotically check that this is still recording every five seconds, so don t worry about my level of distraction.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m just always trying to make... Usually I don t use notes, but the fact is I read the whole book.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s unbelievable.
2
SPEAKER_02
I watched the documentary, I googled everything, and
2
SPEAKER_02
It s not the type of situation where I can go, oh hey, let me call you back on Skype and get a soundbite or something.
2
SPEAKER_02
This, I just want to make sure that we use the time well.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s funny, I did the audio for it just so I could do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, for the book?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if I ever did another book, I would read it out loud before I finish it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Why s that?
3
SPEAKER_00
found that a lot of the, I mean, I don t want to say this out to the human, but a lot of the chapters bored me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t think so.
3
SPEAKER_00
And some of them were like riveting.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was some where my voice, even to me, was riveting.
3
SPEAKER_00
I get it though.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think you re probably more interested in
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, those are the things you were still interested in telling me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, maybe that s what it was.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because I ll tell you, I plowed through the book, and I m a slow reader.
3
SPEAKER_02
I usually listen to books.
3
SPEAKER_02
I plowed through the book and a couple of plane rides and one LAX airport incident where we had to evacuate under the tarmac.
3
SPEAKER_02
Did you hear about this?
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, were you on that one?
3
SPEAKER_02
I was there, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
That was the day before I flew here.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was a shooting?
3
SPEAKER_02
They thought it was a shooting?
3
SPEAKER_02
A fake shooting, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I m on the tarmac, live broadcasting the thing on Facebook, because that s what all the kids do these days.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then after a while, I just realized, you know what, we re going to be out here for a minute.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I gave a couple of news interviews on Skype because I was the only one broadcasting and then I read the book.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I thought, if this is keeping me interested while we re in this pseudo hostage situation here, you know, TSA holding a sausage, nobody else, you know, trying to get back on an airplane, thank good.
3
SPEAKER_02
If I m still awake right now because I m reading this, then it s good.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I can imagine reading your own book would actually be really painful in a lot of ways.
3
SPEAKER_02
Not actually painful, just kind of tedious because you ve already heard it and you wrote it and you read it and now you re reading it again, but you ve got to make it a performance.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s wild.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I ve been enjoying it all because it s all so new to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I ve been tutoring people for so long in what to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Of all my clients.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sure, sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s been really interesting.
3
SPEAKER_00
Had to take some of your own advice?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no, it s been really, really interesting.
3
SPEAKER_00
I am.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of the things Alice always says is that.
3
SPEAKER_00
The only time of the day that he knows what to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is when he s Alice on stage.
3
SPEAKER_00
He always knows what Alice will do on stage.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s got the Alice Cooper persona down.
3
SPEAKER_00
Got it down.
3
SPEAKER_00
The rest of it he s winging.
3
SPEAKER_00
Doesn t matter what happens.
3
SPEAKER_00
Anything could happen.
3
SPEAKER_00
He knows what that character is going to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everything else in his life, he s sort of winging.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think most of us are winging most of our lives.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think so.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And for me, it s been really interesting because I feel the same way about Shep Gordon in interviews and on stage.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sort of know who I should be.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Tell some stories and be funny and entertaining, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m very bad at speeches because a speech is just about me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, it s just about you, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I have no idea still at 70 years old who I am.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m still trying to figure it out.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna have to take some bullet points, man.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that guy?
3
SPEAKER_00
who s in the book and on the screen.
3
SPEAKER_00
Him, I sort of know really well.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, anyways.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I can see that.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can see that.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I originally started out having to be, or thinking I had to be some kind of character on the show as well, and after a while, Jenny, who I met, I met through this show as well, and her number one, the reason she met with me in the first place was she said, I just wonder if he s like this in real life.
3
SPEAKER_02
Is he like who he is on the show in real life?
3
SPEAKER_02
And it was pure curiosity.
3
SPEAKER_02
She didn t have time.
3
SPEAKER_02
She was moving.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then we met up and I was, according to her, the same person on the show.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think when you re a communicator, when your business is communicating, if you don t take the... It s like Alice s character on stage or my character.
3
SPEAKER_00
If it isn t the essence of who you are, it s almost like a classic comic book
3
SPEAKER_00
read of who you are.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t come off as real.
3
SPEAKER_00
It just doesn t come off.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you become kind of a commodity, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
Because if you re just acting like somebody else, then somebody else can act that way even better.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think it starts that circle of trouble downward.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, you know you re living a lie and that lie starts to eat you up.
3
SPEAKER_00
And a drug or a liquor or a food or something comes in to fill up that hole.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because you start to say, well, I m clearly not good enough who I really am.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that burns.
3
SPEAKER_02
And the more you have to be somebody else, the more that would reinforce itself.
3
SPEAKER_02
You even mention in the book that the fame is corrupting.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s a stove you don t touch.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s the toxic waste of celebrity.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think Mike Myers or... Yeah, that was a Mike Myers line.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was a great line.
3
SPEAKER_02
How does that work in your eyes?
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, why does that happen?
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s different for different people.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think my.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have a narrow viewpoint because I worked with entertainers who.
3
SPEAKER_00
Perform live on stage for the most part, and I think that s a the most dangerous.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then the most at risk of all fame because.
3
SPEAKER_00
The amount of rejection you have to go through to get to a point where you re selling out a stadium.
3
SPEAKER_00
is inhuman, and you only do it if something s driving you more than making money.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that drive is normally some hole in you that you need people applauding, telling you you re great, filling some kind of a hole, and it doesn t get filled by applause.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the performers are the most at risk to me, because they have, for the most part, have a need that will never get fulfilled.
3
SPEAKER_00
But even, you know, I had a
3
SPEAKER_00
I had a moment when my documentary first came out, because no one knows who I am, and I can talk about fame.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s always easy to talk about stuff that doesn t touch you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Once it touches you, it s a different thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was the first week of the film, and it was at a Tribeca Film Festival, I think, and I was walking in New York City to a screening where I was doing a question and answer with Michael Douglas.
3
SPEAKER_00
My quiet zones, you know, the Joseph Campbell concept of find a quiet space and do what you like.
3
SPEAKER_00
For me, walking is one of them.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I feel you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love walking.
3
SPEAKER_00
Especially in New York, somehow.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, somehow.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I love multitasking.
3
SPEAKER_00
It just, it relaxes me.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just a beautiful thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I was taking my walk to Tribeca, thinking about something, and I heard my name, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Gordon.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I sort of looked, and there was a young lady on the street, and she said, do you mind if I talk to you a minute?
3
SPEAKER_00
I work at CNN, and we screened your movie yesterday, and I want to be a producer.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I had a tough childhood, and I had a tough childhood.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I wondered if you could give me some advice on how you got through and how you stayed happy.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, as a human, you sort of wait for those moments where somebody actually needs help and reaches out to you and maybe you can help them.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s sort of what we do different.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the whole point.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the whole point.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So here it was, you know, presenting me this beautiful gift.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you got to run.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I got to go to this thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, man.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I said to him, I m so sorry.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I gave him my card.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I got to the event,
3
SPEAKER_00
We got up on stage and I said, Michael, before you ask me questions, I need to ask you a question.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I told him what happened.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I said, you know, I ve spent most of my life having my hand up in front of people like you, separating you from people like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I know there had to be plenty of people in wheelchairs and plenty of people on canes and plenty of really old people and plenty of new babies.
3
SPEAKER_00
And every day you have to be blocked from those kind of people getting to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
What does that do to you?
3
SPEAKER_00
What does that do to like walk past the guy who s in a wheelchair who you know
3
SPEAKER_00
All he wants to say is, oh, I met your father 40 years ago, or some thing that s important to him.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he said, it s really tough.
3
SPEAKER_00
At the beginning, it was really tough for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I found out that I had to sort of make myself unconscious.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s not something I m proud of.
3
SPEAKER_00
But there s no way to get through life in my position.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he said, you know what?
3
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
And be that conscious person that I would like to be.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I compromise myself and I try and do a lot of good stuff outside.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I know that then when I m out in public, there s a lot of people who I would love to make their day better who I m probably making their day worse.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
So instead of it sort of flips the script on what people think about celebrities, because we think, oh, they go to these private things so they don t have to interact with us common folk.
3
SPEAKER_02
Which is only true up into the extent where they don t want to interact with us because it makes them feel terrible that they can t interact with everybody, or they can t give everybody what they want, or they can t be everybody that we all want them to be in the moment.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that makes them feel bad, not because they can t stand the smell of the commoners or whatever.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s an individual thing, but I would say for the most part, that s 90% of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
There are some who live on a high horse and just don t get what life is about.
3
SPEAKER_00
go through and it s beautiful they re great too but for the ones that are conscious like a Michael Douglas you can see the the pain it s sort of you know when you talk about it you can feel his pain.
3
SPEAKER_02
When I was a kid he was one of my favorite actors because he seemed kind of he was really serious a lot but when he was funny he was very understated with it and I liked that
4
SPEAKER_01
about him, I thought that was a cool thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
But he also seems like the kind of guy you just don t want to cross, because he s still got a little Gordon Gekko in there.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I won t say who it was, but there was an actor that I worked with on a movie who was very disrespectful to everybody, did all the wrong stuff, really disrespectful.
4
SPEAKER_00
And about a year later, like way beyond disrespectful, that s the wrong word, disrespectful, he was just...
4
SPEAKER_00
A terrible person.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we walked into a restaurant, he was there, Michael went over to him.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was my movie, not Michael s, and he punched him.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my god.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s for the crew of the movie.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
During the meal, huh?
4
SPEAKER_01
During the meal, just cold cocked him.
4
SPEAKER_01
But well-deserved.
4
SPEAKER_01
To understated applause.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean really, really well-deserved.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s just writing a speech to introduce him in New York at a dinner for a very famous chef who died, Roger Virginia.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was saying in writing his speech, he s one of my best friends, my mentor.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s an amazing man.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he s been focused for 30 years on nuclear, deterring nuclear weapons.
4
SPEAKER_01
Really?
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
Worked real good to the UN probably 20 times giving speeches.
4
SPEAKER_01
Roger Vergedes.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, this is Michael Douglas.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I was so confused for a second.
4
SPEAKER_00
All right, got it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Michael, I mean, he does all this amazing stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I m lucky to have him as a friend.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he seems, I mean, a lot of the things in the book are so fun to see the other side of some of these celebrities who you only see on stupid entertainment shows.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, they re humans.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re humans who have real emotions.
4
SPEAKER_00
trying to do the best they can do.
4
SPEAKER_01
Roger Vergier taught you a lot.
4
SPEAKER_01
In fact, he mentioned it s never about what you want.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was something that was kind of a recurring theme in the book as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s obviously something that you live, seem to be living by as well, especially in your dealings with others.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think for me, one of the hardest things to get through my brain and one of the most rewarding things that got through my brain was
4
SPEAKER_00
The people that I were attracted to, Roger Verger, His Holiness, their happiness came from serving others.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was their real joy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, the words are the words.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a hard concept sometimes to get through your brain, that the most selfish thing you can possibly do is serve other people because it makes you so happy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s what both of them really taught to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I try and live my life by it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think all the religions sort of say the same.
4
SPEAKER_00
Everybody sort of says it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And hopefully, you know, all of you listening out there at one point will have an epiphany because it takes an epiphany.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t think we re raised that way anymore in America.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not the way we re raised.
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people try to fake it, too, in order to get...they re kind of going, all right, they re keeping score is what we call it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Where they go, no, I m going to do this for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no problem.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then they go, by the way, can you introduce me to
4
SPEAKER_01
Grant?
4
SPEAKER_01
No, I m sorry, I can t do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, screw you, Shep Gordon.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ve done so much for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
How dare you?
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s so the wrong approach to it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So once that really started to settle in my brain and I saw it really through Verger, the best, I realized that
4
SPEAKER_00
My life had leaned that way without me understanding what I was actually doing.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve made so many choices in my life that lean towards that direction, but I never thought of them as service.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, it was just choices.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was just choices.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody, even the paparazzi likes you, which is like, I guess technically they love a lot of folks, but not in the same way.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, in the doc, in the documentary, you manage to make them happy and get them to do what you want, which is a group of people that nobody can seem to control.
4
SPEAKER_00
So much of it is attitude.
4
SPEAKER_00
If you come in angry, you usually leave angry.
4
SPEAKER_00
the interest of the star and the interest of the paparazzi are the same.
4
SPEAKER_00
No matter what star you are, you have a PR person who s looking to spin good stuff about you.
4
SPEAKER_00
You have a movie come out, a record come out, your new restaurant opens.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s no celebrity who s important enough for the paparazzi to care about, who doesn t make their livelihood off press.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
The problem was nobody was talking to both of them to say, be of mutual interest to each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
So what I did is I got the paparazzi.
4
SPEAKER_00
Luckily, I live on a small island.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s very few paparazzi.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they re hanging out down there on the beach.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re hanging.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know all of them.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said, listen, how about this?
4
SPEAKER_00
If I tell you someone s coming in, you don t take any random shots.
4
SPEAKER_00
They ll set up a photo session for you, and then you take a picture.
4
SPEAKER_00
you ll get the only shot.
4
SPEAKER_00
Give half the money to the food bank here on Maui, keep the other half, everybody s happy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s what we do.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you get a little semblance of control over it.
4
SPEAKER_00
You get control, you get the picture you want out.
4
SPEAKER_00
It helps your career.
4
SPEAKER_00
The food bank makes a lot of money, feeds a lot of homeless people.
4
SPEAKER_00
Paparazzi guy doesn t have to sneak around bushes.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s not hanging out.
4
SPEAKER_00
I invited him to dinner.
4
SPEAKER_00
I invited him to Tom Arnold s wedding.
4
SPEAKER_00
He came to the wedding with us.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s great because it s, you know, you can t,
4
SPEAKER_00
You can t be a public figure and lie to yourself and your public that you don t want attention.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s kind of a weird game to play.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a weird game to play.
4
SPEAKER_00
Please leave me alone.
4
SPEAKER_01
Here s me doing something scandalous in public.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
But a lot of times, and to sort of put another fine point on this, serving people doesn t make economic sense for you or for anybody in the beginning, necessarily.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, like the chefs, for example.
4
SPEAKER_01
One of the reasons for the massive success was because you didn t have to see an opportunity there to help out Roger Verger and the other chefs.
4
SPEAKER_01
This wasn t something where you went, okay, if I help these guys out, dot, dot, dot, profit.
4
SPEAKER_01
This was pure love for... And pure service.
4
SPEAKER_01
And pure service.
4
SPEAKER_01
Really service.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was really service.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was Mr. Verger asked to bring some dignity to the profession, and I was of service.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think this is an important point because I think a lot of folks kind of just what we talked about before with they try to plan for the opportunity, then they try to offer an air quote service at that point where they can then leverage it later on or something like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this proves that you can t really plan for what opportunity will come because sometimes the opportunity doesn t even exist at the time that you end up serving.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you could have easily
4
SPEAKER_01
either failed to bring dignity to the profession or brought dignity to the profession at the return of zero dollars for anyone involved.
4
SPEAKER_00
Also, I was luckily lucky in that I had resources.
4
SPEAKER_00
You do have to provide for your family.
4
SPEAKER_00
You do have to eat.
4
SPEAKER_00
There are certain real necessities of life.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was very lucky in that I could truly serve for the service and not have to think I had a music business that was doing really well.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had happy clients.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I think that s also an important part of it, you know, is that I had that ability, because it s rough out there.
4
SPEAKER_00
I get it.
4
SPEAKER_00
If you can t buy dinner, it s hard to be of service.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, sure.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you think you would have done it even if you weren t successful in the other area?
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you think you still would have ended up?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if I would have had time.
4
SPEAKER_01
You d have been too busy hustling.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hard to say.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I know that feeding the family is sort of the first line.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s just biological imperative at that point.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So when I say luck, that s part of what I mean by luck.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tell me about the coupon system that you have that you kind of keep in the back of your, or maybe in the front of your head.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think it s very much in the front of my head.
4
SPEAKER_00
For example, Jason, who we talked about before, who s done all these things for me, it s not even a question to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Of course, I m going to his, I m buying a ticket to his series.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not even a question.
4
SPEAKER_00
He had a coupon with me.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think, you know, the word coupon maybe is a little demeaning to it all.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it just means you know if you come across a fellow traveler in this journey.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they re willing to go out of their way to to make your life better and happier.
4
SPEAKER_00
You owe it to him to go that extra mile to try and make his life happier and better.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s really what to me a coupon is.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, look, I mean, you ve obviously mastered the art of leveraging relationships.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, some of the stuff in the book, I m just scrolling through here.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there are some unbelievable stories in here.
4
SPEAKER_01
First of all, great quote from Alice Cooper that I think maybe comes from the book jacket, I would imagine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Reality has never seemed too important in the 50 years Shep and I have been working together.
4
SPEAKER_01
When we need something to happen, Shep just works his magic to simply make it a reality.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m still not sure how he does it.
5
SPEAKER_01
ability to create scenarios and relationships that help to get you where you need to go. 
5
SPEAKER_01
That s a powerful statement, and it s not something that sounds like some PR person crafted for him to throw in there.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, some of the stunts that you had done in the past to get him on his feet and moving are incredible.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, first of all, maybe we can bring a little background.
5
SPEAKER_01
How did you get into the rock scene at such a young age?
5
SPEAKER_01
How did you even get involved with all these
5
SPEAKER_01
crazy folks.
5
SPEAKER_00
I went out to California as a probation officer, which lasted one day.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was a very ugly experience.
5
SPEAKER_00
I thought my law career was short.
5
SPEAKER_00
This was short, but I was a long hair during the Reagan era working at a jail.
5
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t a good thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, got beat up by prisoners.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, got beat up by prisoners.
5
SPEAKER_00
Left, checked into a motel, very cheap motel, late at night.
5
SPEAKER_00
Took some psychedelics,
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I noticed that you got in, you re tired, you quit your first job that you had driven across the country for, and your plan is, I m going to drop some acid.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is the first thing I got to do is drop some acid.
5
SPEAKER_00
I tried to figure this out.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, where am I going?
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, sitting on the porch, my life is fucked completely.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have $400 to my name.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just got beat up in a jail.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like,
5
SPEAKER_00
What else are you going to do except, you know, and I was a bit of an acid head at the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it sounds like that was the go-to.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I heard someone screaming, broke up the screaming.
5
SPEAKER_00
The girl punched me because they weren t fighting, they were making love.
5
SPEAKER_00
Turned out to be Janis Joplin.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you got beat up by prisoners and Janis Joplin in the same day.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, big day.
5
SPEAKER_00
And at this motel, which is where she sadly died, the Landmark Motel, years later, were all these rock and rollers, the Chambers Brothers, who I was big fans of, Jimi Hendrix, guys like Jim Morrison were there all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I started selling psychedelics to some of the people there.
5
SPEAKER_00
And one day they asked me what else I did for a living.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I said, I didn t really do anything.
5
SPEAKER_00
And either Hendricks or Lester Chambers, one of them said, are you Jewish?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you should be a manager.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then they introduced me to Alice Cooper.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that started my journey and I still manage Alice.
5
SPEAKER_01
But you chose, you said yes to Alice Cooper, not because you re gung-ho to be a rock manager.
5
SPEAKER_00
I needed a front for dealing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you said, look, this band is so terrible.
5
SPEAKER_01
This will never happen.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m never going to have to do any work as a manager and I can just continue selling drugs.
5
SPEAKER_01
This will never happen.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then people started getting busted all around me.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I knew I couldn t do it anymore.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I sat down with the band and I said, listen,
5
SPEAKER_00
Somehow, I m going to become a millionaire.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not quite sure how, but if you all want to do it together, let s shake hands and let s make this thing happen.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that was the only contract you ever had?
5
SPEAKER_00
Never had another.
5
SPEAKER_01
Even now, people don t try to say, hey, look, you got to put this on paper and you got to do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, people try, but we don t.
5
SPEAKER_01
You just don t need to worry about it.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Contracts make lawsuits.
5
SPEAKER_00
They do, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Handshakes make friends.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And even if something happens at this point, now you get to work it out with
5
SPEAKER_01
with whoever it is.
5
SPEAKER_01
You don t have to call in $5,000 an hour lawyers to deal with it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we re so past that now.
5
SPEAKER_01
You and him for sure.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like body parts.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s insane.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
At this point, you guys are family whether you like it or not.
5
SPEAKER_00
What I always tried to do with Alice and I thought, you know, I was very young in my life at Buffalo.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was involved with an event that I guess sort of shaped me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I always felt that you didn t have to, and I think, not that I m promoting psychedelics at all, but I think the psychedelics opened my mind up to the possibility that you could create history.
5
SPEAKER_00
that the rules didn t have to apply.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we, when I was in Buffalo, we did a thing where we, a ridiculous thing where we brought, we may believe that a leader of a country was coming to Buffalo.
5
SPEAKER_01
The Thallus.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that he was anti-Semitic.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we got thousands of people out and broke through the window of the airport.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was insane.
5
SPEAKER_01
Protesting the Thallus.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the Thallus was coming, but it worked.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was a thought that ended up being reality.
5
SPEAKER_00
And later on, when I started working with Alice and we decided we really had to make it, that s what came into my head.
5
SPEAKER_00
What we used to say was, oh, we ve got to do something that will get parents to really hate us.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ve got to somehow figure out.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then we said, well, let s just do something.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we did see-through clothes, and I called the police.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right, the see-through clothes while Alice Cooper s playing on stage.
5
SPEAKER_01
Essentially like a shower curtain around each of them.
5
SPEAKER_00
To get him busted for obscenity, which we thought would be fantastic because our goal was to get parents to hate Alice, which meant kids would love him.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was our goal.
5
SPEAKER_00
We came in the back door and it didn t work.
5
SPEAKER_00
Police came, the clothes had fogged up, but it
5
SPEAKER_01
The clothes had fogged up because they were sweating on stage.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it led us to, we just kept trying.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then we had the chicken incident, which again was history, Alice biting the head of the chick, but we set it up.
5
SPEAKER_01
But he didn t bite the chicken.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, he didn t at all.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t need to.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s just what happened.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s how it evolved.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s how I sort of tried to work with all my clients was to create history, not wait for it to happen.
5
SPEAKER_00
So with Teddy Pendergrass, for example, we did for women only concerts.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was trying to
5
SPEAKER_00
As a manager, what can you do for an artist?
5
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to remake his body, you re not going to remake his... You can try and take the artistry that he has that appeals to the public, narrow it down to a message that can be conveyed, and then figure out how to tell people
5
SPEAKER_00
And in Teddy s case, it was about sex.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was pure sex.
5
SPEAKER_00
The songs were about sexes.
5
SPEAKER_00
So how do we get that across?
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll do concerts for women only.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll give them little chocolate teddy bear lollipops to lick on.
5
SPEAKER_00
I know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t... I had nightmares about chocolate teddy bear lollipops after I read about that.
5
SPEAKER_00
But then when it came to Luther, who was a very similar artist... Luther Vandross.
5
SPEAKER_00
Luther Vandross.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was all about romance.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was all about romance.
5
SPEAKER_00
So how do you define romance to your public?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, with him, we did a series of contests across the country at radio stations, Get Married on the Air by Luther Vandross, the most romantic thing in the world.
5
SPEAKER_00
So weddings, and he became the song that got played at a wedding.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s what I always call creating history rather than waiting for it.
5
SPEAKER_00
As soon as we did For Women Only for Teddy, all the press started calling him the Black Elvis.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know, me, it was boing, boing, boing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Handled, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
What a good.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that s what I tried to do for, you know, that s what I try and do for all my acts and I try to do for the chefs and try to create the history.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you got the chicken incident, or the chicken story, the broken down truck in Piccadilly Circus.
5
SPEAKER_01
This one was really incredible, because essentially you had to find some guy who was willing to take a dive.
5
SPEAKER_00
The incident was in London.
5
SPEAKER_00
We were playing London for the first time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wembley Arena, a big hall, about 8,000, 9,000 seats, which was big for us.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I got into town and we hadn t sold many tickets at all, very few.
5
SPEAKER_01
At that point, when you didn t sell that many tickets, are you thinking, oh shit, we didn t sell that many tickets?
5
SPEAKER_01
Or do you just go, all right, we can figure this shit out?
5
SPEAKER_00
I m looking in the mirror saying, you completely fucked.
5
SPEAKER_00
You blew it this time.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is it.
5
SPEAKER_00
The whole thing s over.
5
SPEAKER_00
You are really an asshole.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s the same reaction as I would have.
5
SPEAKER_01
As every human being.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then, okay, asshole, what are you going to do?
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, you can feel sorry for yourself or you can make this thing work.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, how am I going to make it work?
5
SPEAKER_00
Bingo.
5
SPEAKER_00
Bango.
5
SPEAKER_00
I go to the record company.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a guy there named Derek Taylor, who was a living legend.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was the fifth publicist.
5
SPEAKER_00
Brilliant man.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I went into him and I said, I m Alice Cooper s manager.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he didn t know who Alice Cooper was.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he said, tell me about him.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, instead of telling you about him, let me ask you a few questions.
5
SPEAKER_00
I said, what s the fastest way to get to every parent in England?
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there like, is there an Ed Sullivan show in America?
5
SPEAKER_00
If you re on Ed Sullivan show, every parent sees it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I explained to him about Elvis Presley, Colonel Parker wouldn t let the hips be shown on Elvis Presley.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s what exploded Elvis.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because they were too sexy.
6
SPEAKER_00
said you can t watch this he s too sexy and he picked up kids at a point of rebellion I said that s that s what I Alice is a guy named Alice they wear dresses we ve built our career on parents hating him just like the Elvis thing I need to get to those parents really fast
6
SPEAKER_00
Is there something like the Ed Sullivan show? 
6
SPEAKER_00
He said, no, here it s like morning news, BBC morning news.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Which isn t going to feature some rock act.
6
SPEAKER_00
Which is never going to feature a rock act.
6
SPEAKER_01
Especially not Alice Cooper.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I said, what do they show on?
6
SPEAKER_00
And he said, it s the weirdest thing, a lot of traffic, but people coming to work in the morning.
6
SPEAKER_00
So British.
6
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, how to grow wheat and soy.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my gosh.
6
SPEAKER_00
And ostrich festival in Cambridge.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I said, do they do traffic a lot?
6
SPEAKER_00
And he said, yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
How do they do it?
6
SPEAKER_00
He said, helicopters.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I said, I had this great picture of Alice, naked, that we just shot.
6
SPEAKER_00
What about if we figured out, what s the busiest intersection in the morning?
6
SPEAKER_00
And he said, Piccadilly.
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe we take this and we put it on a truck and break it down at Piccadilly and get the helicopters to show the traffic backed up.
6
SPEAKER_00
And parents say, who is this disgusting naked person who s backing up traffic?
6
SPEAKER_00
And Derek, you know, I figured out he found the driver who was willing to go to jail.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we broke it down twice.
6
SPEAKER_00
They took him off the second time and it backed up traffic for 30, 40 miles.
6
SPEAKER_00
And luckily, this is where luck comes in, two members of parliament got caught in the traffic.
6
SPEAKER_00
Mary Whitehouse, and I forgot the other guy s name.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when they got to the legislature, they put in a bill to ban Alice from coming to England.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow, talk about news.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that was the front page.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it sold out in like one day and was beautiful.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right, and then, oh yeah, wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then he had a different problem.
6
SPEAKER_01
We better crush this show here in the UK.
6
SPEAKER_01
It reminds me, I got a friend, Ryan Holiday, who does similar stuff.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if you ever heard of this kid.
6
SPEAKER_01
He s in his 20s.
6
SPEAKER_01
He s written a bunch of books and he s done similar stunts where he ll work for an author, another friend, Tucker Max.
6
SPEAKER_01
And what he did was a lot of people thought that his writing was really disgusting because it was kind of like this immature stuff back in the day.
6
SPEAKER_01
he created buzz that Tucker Max is coming out with a movie and we should protest this.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so he went to all these frat houses and got them to go to this movie, but he also got all these feminist groups to show up and say, ban this movie.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s perfect.
6
SPEAKER_01
And they went out in force and it made news and it was banned, the Tucker Max movie.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, at this point, even if it went straight to DVD, he made up for it in book sales, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Because then everybody knew who it was.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love that kind of stuff.
6
SPEAKER_00
As long as it doesn t hurt people.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right, yes.
6
SPEAKER_01
It has to draw no blood, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
That s the idea.
6
SPEAKER_00
Not to get political, but we re seeing so much of that stuff in politics where truth doesn t matter.
6
SPEAKER_00
And in the entertainment world, that s one thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
When it bleeds into real life, it gets a little dangerous.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, definitely.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it starts to become, the theater starts to get confused with real life.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that causes major problems for everybody.
6
SPEAKER_01
Do you, it looks like the celebrity chef movement is a large part of your legacy, would you say that?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think for me the three things that I m probably proudest of in my professional career, not my personal career, but Alice,
6
SPEAKER_00
helping to get rid of the Chitlin Circuit with Teddy.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the respect brought to the culinary artists that the chefs are now culinary artists and not cooks.
6
SPEAKER_00
Not cooks, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
The Chitlin Circuit thing was kind of an interesting, to give people a little background, this was essentially a
6
SPEAKER_01
take-it-or-leave-it circuit for Afro-American entertainers that had to play just because they thought, if we don t play here, we re never going to get any sales and we re going to be out of our butts.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so they were just taken advantage of.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was maybe the next, I don t mean it as cold as it sounds, but it was a direct link to the slavery issue.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was a plantation owner.
6
SPEAKER_00
That plantation owner normally owned a record company.
6
SPEAKER_00
He had affiliations with radio stations around the country.
6
SPEAKER_00
The lifeblood for that record company was to have radio stations play the records.
6
SPEAKER_00
All those radio stations made a lot of money promoting concerts.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when a white artist, for example, would.
6
SPEAKER_00
Have a hit record and go to Cleveland and the radio station would promote it in conjunction with a white promoter.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the act would get paid.
6
SPEAKER_00
The station would make a little money.
6
SPEAKER_00
Record company was happy in the Afro American world.
6
SPEAKER_00
The artist would have a hit record, would go to the same town as Cleveland.
6
SPEAKER_00
The radio station would promote the show, but they d keep 99% of the money.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the artist was told by the record company if they wanted to keep their record contract and have hit records, they would do these shows basically for whatever the stations wanted to pay them.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the stations had promoters.
6
SPEAKER_00
who were black promoters.
6
SPEAKER_00
There was a black promoters association that was run out of Chicago that I believe Jesse Jackson was the lobbyist for.
6
SPEAKER_00
They were very powerful and very annoyed if somebody tried to break that circuit.
6
SPEAKER_00
So when a Teddy Pendergrass went to Cleveland, for example, he had a play for those guys.
6
SPEAKER_00
If he played for a white promoter and got paid, he would get picketed.
6
SPEAKER_00
Really?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
We got picketed at Radio City Music Hall.
6
SPEAKER_00
We got picketed at a lot of places.
6
SPEAKER_01
What s the excuse for picketing?
6
SPEAKER_01
They just call in their cronies and they stand out there and cause trouble?
6
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
6
SPEAKER_01
Jeez.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was a tough time.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Nobody was breaking it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Nobody was willing to break it.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, it was the, you would hear about the other side of, you know, the record company would give the guys Cadillacs that were rented and get the keys back if they stopped having a hit record.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it was, it was, you know, when we did our first show, when we broke out, we got death threats.
6
SPEAKER_00
The FBI had to watch us.
6
SPEAKER_00
His last manager had been shot to death.
6
SPEAKER_00
Teddy s.
6
SPEAKER_01
And were you worried about that at all?
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I was worried, but it was a point in my life
6
SPEAKER_00
where I didn t really care.
6
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t so much young and invincible, I never had a
6
SPEAKER_00
Particularly at that point in my life, I didn t have a wife, I didn t have children.
6
SPEAKER_00
Mother and father, my dad had passed away, my mother was living.
6
SPEAKER_00
I hadn t figured out what life was about.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had a lot of those moments looking in the mirror, you know, what are you, a schmuck?
6
SPEAKER_00
I had a lot of three o clock in the morning, you know, putting stuff up my nose.
6
SPEAKER_00
So if life had ended,
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t a disaster.
6
SPEAKER_00
Injury, I was scared of.
6
SPEAKER_01
Sure, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned in the book, if I had a stroke, just kill me.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t really, it wasn t part of my thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when I came up against this unbelievable injustice, there was something in me which I hadn t figured out really until I wrote the book, because I never really thought about stuff.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just would wake up in the morning and do what I do.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I got to the first show with Teddy,
6
SPEAKER_00
And it was unbelievable.
6
SPEAKER_00
The PA system was like for a lounge show.
6
SPEAKER_00
The lighting was non-existent.
6
SPEAKER_00
He didn t pay us.
6
SPEAKER_00
He gave me a ring.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s weird.
6
SPEAKER_01
That was weird.
6
SPEAKER_01
When I read that, I was like, what the kind of mafia crap is this?
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s what happened.
6
SPEAKER_01
That was life the way it was.
6
SPEAKER_01
Were you just expected to pawn the ring and try to get some cash and that s it?
6
SPEAKER_00
It was so far beyond me.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was like, it was so different than anything I had known.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was really naive.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was a naive white Jewish kid.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, from Long Island.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, from Long Island, who had no idea.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had, you know, Alice had played that building for a white promoter.
6
SPEAKER_00
We got paid.
6
SPEAKER_00
Everything was beautiful.
6
SPEAKER_00
We did less business than Teddy.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s really after that show that I got educated.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if I would have even agreed to manage him.
6
SPEAKER_01
knowing the uphill battle.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know his manager had been shot to death.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know those kind of things.
6
SPEAKER_00
But once I was in and I got confronted by this, I was like, somebody s got to do something.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is so wrong.
6
SPEAKER_00
And probably economics
6
SPEAKER_00
came into it also because like I m not gonna work for nothing yeah this is crazy I made a commitment to the guy I m gonna live up to my commitment but we re gonna get paid because I can t get paid if he doesn t get paid right
6
SPEAKER_00
So it just, you know, if I had thought about it, I probably would have taken a different path.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, hey, this is looking pretty tough.
6
SPEAKER_01
How are those chefs looking?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, when I was at a point in my career where I could have taken acts who were making a lot of money and didn t
6
SPEAKER_00
But never was my path.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
You could have not dealt with the headache.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
And just as soon moved along.
6
SPEAKER_01
Jason told me you ve been in the business space for, I don t know, what are we talking about, 45, 50 ish years, but you never liked business.
6
SPEAKER_01
Is that true?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
How is that even, how is that possible?
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not like business, is that the way I would couch it?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there s nothing about it.
7
SPEAKER_00
that I find enjoyable.
7
SPEAKER_00
Really?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
What keeps you going then?
7
SPEAKER_00
I think it s service.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s service.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, all of my stuff is service.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, I just got a new door in my bedroom.
7
SPEAKER_00
I haven t been able to open my bedroom door leading to the outside for 20 years.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I just got it changed this week.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I said to one of my kids, I said, you know, I may have carried this service stuff a little bit too far because I certainly could afford a new door.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
I mean, this is a nice house on the beach here in Maui.
7
SPEAKER_02
I look like a king.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m like, oh my God.
7
SPEAKER_00
The door doesn t have to stick.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I think, and it s what I do.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m really good at it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know what, I don t know,
7
SPEAKER_00
I tried retiring.
7
SPEAKER_00
Great job.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it doesn t work.
7
SPEAKER_00
For me, it doesn t work.
7
SPEAKER_00
I wake up in the morning, I still do what I do.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love the challenge of
7
SPEAKER_00
of doing stuff that no one thinks can be done.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love the challenge of connecting the dots.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I just, you know, I m working on a campaign now to try and move a couple of food companies that do home delivery into a Tom Shue model.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I see.
7
SPEAKER_02
So you buy a meal and they give it away.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, which is great stuff.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s the same kind of a thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s putting the pieces together.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that s what I do.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I know that I can maybe help some people doing it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And what else am I going to do?
7
SPEAKER_00
Just, you know, how many joints can you smoke a day?
7
SPEAKER_02
Right.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
It seems like the service and this sort of unique mover and shaker kind of arrangement goes way back.
7
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you write in the book that you went to work with your dad one day, never talked about his work.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then you went there and you saw why, because it was just this like fluorescent light bulb dangling from the ceiling, kind of particle board office.
7
SPEAKER_02
And you thought to yourself, I m never doing this.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think in bringing up my dad, I mean, for me, the biggest revelation of doing the book was realizing that I m basically living out my father s life in service.
7
SPEAKER_00
He sort of gave up the things he enjoyed in life, at least this is my impression, to be of service to me and my brother and my mother.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he, without ever any hesitation,
7
SPEAKER_00
without any desire for anything in return.
7
SPEAKER_00
He lived and serviced us, and I think that s sort of, I m sort of trying to live out his life.
7
SPEAKER_00
I never realized it before.
7
SPEAKER_02
Before you wrote the book?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but as I wrote, and then Norman Mailer came out with a fantastic autobiography.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he talked about his father, and it just turned a light bulb on in my head.
7
SPEAKER_00
I said, wow, that s what he would have done if he had confronted the Chitlin circuit, or that s what he would have done if he had gone to the funeral and the four kids were there very quietly, never would have said a word, and I take no credit, you know.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I see I m really living out in some ways, you know, his life.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I mean, the four kids you mentioned, you essentially adopted kids, I don t want to say on a whim, but certainly... Yeah, no, definitely on a whim.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Not even a whim.
7
SPEAKER_02
Just kind of a sub-whim.
7
SPEAKER_02
It was a sub-whim.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I happen to be there.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
And this is why they call you the Superman.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, the best thing I ever did in my life.
7
SPEAKER_02
Really?
7
SPEAKER_02
Good.
7
SPEAKER_02
Good.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because the last thing you want to hear is, and I ve regretted it ever since.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s the best thing I ever did in my life.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
You mentioned that when you went to work with your dad, you saw the way that he was living, and yes, maybe you re living out the way that he would have done it now, but you still had that drive.
7
SPEAKER_02
It wasn t, oh, I don t wanna work, this looks boring.
7
SPEAKER_02
It was, I m willing to work my ass off, but I gotta love it, which made me think that you re a millennial that s 30 years ahead of his time.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think the only way to get what you want is wake up earlier, go to sleep later, and do more work in between.
7
SPEAKER_00
Put in the hours.
7
SPEAKER_00
There is no shortcut.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think if the people that I ve seen who have shortcuts in their lives, the damage for those shortcuts is almost insurmountable.
7
SPEAKER_02
How do you mean?
7
SPEAKER_00
Being born too wealthy.
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Being born to really powerful parents who know they re powerful and don t back off it for you.
7
SPEAKER_00
Winning a lottery.
7
SPEAKER_00
Not working for these fool s gold items, because they are fool s gold stuff, and if you don t work for them all of a sudden you think that that s actually what life is about.
7
SPEAKER_00
and not about the work and the journey to get to it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it s just so hard to overcome.
7
SPEAKER_00
Whereas when you get up and you work for what you need, you understand that, you know, accumulating more money, the next guy is not going to make you happy.
7
SPEAKER_00
you know, accumulating enough to eat can make you happy.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I think it s, you know, it s getting up earlier, working harder.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s all part of it, whether it s working at a relationship or working at business or, you know, working for something that you want.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s, I think, the key to success.
7
SPEAKER_00
That, to me, is the key to luck.
7
SPEAKER_02
The key to luck?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s getting up earlier, going to sleep later, working harder.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s like, is that an Edison quote?
7
SPEAKER_02
The harder I work, the luckier I get?
7
SPEAKER_00
I can t remember.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, somebody.
7
SPEAKER_02
Somebody, right.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s very true.
7
SPEAKER_02
We ll throw it out there.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think the other thing that I ve just, when I was talking to somebody that was doing, became really apparent to me is that in a business of service, particularly, and particularly in a high-profile business, the ability to fail is almost more important than the ability to win.
7
SPEAKER_02
How do you mean?
7
SPEAKER_00
Nothing gets done alone.
7
SPEAKER_00
Almost everything is in relationships.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the most important thing for my relationship with my artists that I manage
7
SPEAKER_00
was having the ability to fail.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because if you re not willing to fail, you re not going to do anything worthwhile.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re going to be doing what everyone else did.
7
SPEAKER_02
Sure, yeah, because you have to go down the short path.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because you have to go down the short path.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was telling a story about Alice and I in the canon, which I think I tell in the book,
7
SPEAKER_00
I put him into this horrible thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, he s the guy in front, he s on stage.
7
SPEAKER_00
He was doing his first arena show, stadium show.
7
SPEAKER_00
I advertised we were going to shoot him out in a cannon across the stadium.
7
SPEAKER_01
It just sounds so dangerous.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s what he said when I called him up.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I thought I had it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I thought I had it.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, I thought I had it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I got this out.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I got it.
7
SPEAKER_00
What could go wrong?
7
SPEAKER_00
I got this covered.
7
SPEAKER_00
I went to some guys who built it for me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Very cocky.
7
SPEAKER_00
They were so cocky.
7
SPEAKER_00
They asked me, what period cannon?
7
SPEAKER_00
You want a World War I, World War II, Revolutionary War?
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like, you got to be kidding me.
7
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, we build this cannon.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s 40 feet long.
7
SPEAKER_00
It weighs five tons or something.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
7
SPEAKER_00
In its own truck.
7
SPEAKER_00
We do a break-in show in Lansing, Michigan.
7
SPEAKER_00
Alice gets in, the trick was you get in, you crawl down the barrel of the cannon, you go into a fake door, you crawl out the side of the stage, a motorized vehicle takes you around to the other side of the arena.
7
SPEAKER_00
While that s happening, on stage are torch lights and drum beating, building tension, light the fuse, explosion, dummy flies out, spotlight hits Alice, who s now running around,
7
SPEAKER_02
Ta-da!
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, right.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, dummy comes out, goes maybe one inch.
7
SPEAKER_01
Just sort of slinks, limply out.
7
SPEAKER_01
A complete nightmare.
7
SPEAKER_01
A complete nightmare.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re now two shows away from 50,000 people who we ve advertised see Alice.
7
SPEAKER_00
Shot out of a cannon.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Big rookie mistake.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
7
SPEAKER_01
I made a lot of rookie mistakes.
7
SPEAKER_01
That was a big one.
7
SPEAKER_00
So what are we going to do?
7
SPEAKER_00
I said, I ll figure it out.
7
SPEAKER_00
Go to sleep.
7
SPEAKER_00
Gets up the next day in the hotel with these foam fire extinguishers.
7
SPEAKER_00
He said, what are we going to do?
7
SPEAKER_00
I said, it s going to be a giant penis.
7
SPEAKER_00
I put two little balls at the end of the cannon.
7
SPEAKER_00
I loaded it with these fire extinguishers.
7
SPEAKER_00
You get on and masturbate it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Just lick the dookrick.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we ll shoot the foam out.
7
SPEAKER_00
It ll go 40, 50 feet.
7
SPEAKER_00
It ll be fantastic.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
So he gets on.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s working so hard.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s on top of the cannon.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s on top of the cannon.
8
SPEAKER_00
and he s like working so hard.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s horrible.
8
SPEAKER_00
It trips out like one inch.
8
SPEAKER_00
Me and him are the only two people in the place that have any idea what this thing is.
8
SPEAKER_00
Now we re one show away.
8
SPEAKER_00
We ve got 55,000 people see him shut up and count it.
8
SPEAKER_00
And here s where I think a great lesson to be learned is
8
SPEAKER_00
In a normal, what an outsider would think of a normal relationship of two human beings trying to work together to get to the same place, they would be killing each other at this point.
8
SPEAKER_00
The artist would be screaming at the manager, you jerk, I can t believe what you ve done to me, it s my whole career, you re ruining me.
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, the manager would be screaming at the guy who built the cannon, calling him up, how do we fix this?
8
SPEAKER_00
We didn t have time for that.
8
SPEAKER_00
If we had spent our time beating each other up, it would have been a disaster.
8
SPEAKER_00
I said, go to sleep, I ll figure it out.
8
SPEAKER_00
He went to sleep.
8
SPEAKER_00
When he showed up the next day, he said, you get it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I said, you re probably not going to enjoy this one.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he said, what s going to happen?
8
SPEAKER_00
I got a TV crew here from Cleveland.
8
SPEAKER_00
Pittsburgh was Pittsburgh.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re going to film tonight.
8
SPEAKER_00
Unfortunately, I have a feeling when you get in the cannon, it may explode with you in it. 
8
SPEAKER_00
And he said, you re kidding.
8
SPEAKER_00
I said, no, you ll be okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s all special effects.
8
SPEAKER_00
I got it covered.
8
SPEAKER_00
But there ll be an ambulance and a crew and they re going to take you out of the cannon.
8
SPEAKER_00
You re going to spend the night in the hospital.
8
SPEAKER_00
Really?
8
SPEAKER_00
I said, yeah, I got it covered.
8
SPEAKER_00
Just trust me.
8
SPEAKER_00
He said, okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he got in the cannon and we blew it up and then, oh my God, people screaming.
8
SPEAKER_00
And we heard the sirens and put him out on a stretcher and took him to the hospital.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I went on the air because I had the TV station there.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I said, we re going to check from the hospital.
8
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if we ll be able to do the show, but I hear he s all right.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s nothing too serious.
8
SPEAKER_00
check back from the hospital.
8
SPEAKER_00
About two hours later, I did a live feed to the radio station saying, he s got some burns, but with medical supervision, they said he can do the show, but he might have to do it from a wheelchair.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that s what we did.
8
SPEAKER_00
We did the show in Pittsburgh.
8
SPEAKER_00
We had the bass player in a wheelchair.
8
SPEAKER_00
Alice had, with blood and stuff, we had nurses coming out and doctors checking him.
8
SPEAKER_00
And the city went crazy saying that.
8
SPEAKER_00
What an artist.
8
SPEAKER_00
How many artists would ever come after going to the hospital and do the show?
8
SPEAKER_00
He s the greatest.
8
SPEAKER_01
Perfect excuse for not shooting somebody out of a cannon is they re in a wheelchair.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re in a wheelchair.
8
SPEAKER_00
So it ended up better.
8
SPEAKER_00
because we got the sympathy of everyone.
8
SPEAKER_00
We still got the show on.
8
SPEAKER_00
But the point is, if we had ended up fighting, we never would have gotten to this place.
8
SPEAKER_01
You didn t waste any energy doing that.
8
SPEAKER_00
Doing that, we went to, you know, and those are the failures that you have to have to get to new, great, creative stuff.
8
SPEAKER_00
You can t win every time, or you re not doing stuff that is worthwhile.
8
SPEAKER_00
For women only, it could have been a disaster.
8
SPEAKER_00
But you have to have the faith to be able to fail.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s really important for people listening out there who are trying to do stuff particularly creatively.
8
SPEAKER_00
The ability to fail and to use it as a strength rather than a weakness is really important.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you ve got a common thread throughout the book as well that s, don t get mad, accomplish the goal.
8
SPEAKER_01
It seems like you divorce emotions from the business as much as possible so that it doesn t distract you from what s really important, which is getting it done.
8
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_01
How do you do that, even in situations where maybe you should be mad as hell?
8
SPEAKER_01
Someone stiffed you, guy gives you a pinky ruby ring instead of a check.
8
SPEAKER_01
How are you able to go, okay,
8
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to get emotional.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, do you feel it well up and you push it down, or does it just not happen?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh, absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m human.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we re all human.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
I have little practices.
8
SPEAKER_00
It depends what the anger is.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think from being around His Holiness, He s never said this to me ever, but being around Him and around Berger,
8
SPEAKER_00
My sense is that when they see somebody, when they see this table, or they see you, or they see that plant outside, the first thing they see is the miracle.
8
SPEAKER_00
And if you see the miracle first, you can t get mad.
8
SPEAKER_00
You can get disappointed, maybe, but you can t get mad.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I try and instill that into me when I can feel the emotion of anger coming up.
8
SPEAKER_00
And if it s a human I go to, forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do.
8
SPEAKER_00
But I can t let them take me on my journey.
8
SPEAKER_00
How do I get back to where I need to be?
8
SPEAKER_00
not to get angry, I feel sorry for him, and try and turn the emotion that way.
8
SPEAKER_00
If I m having real trouble, which sometimes I am, for me I have little things like if I cook for a half hour,
8
SPEAKER_01
all the anger gets out of me.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s your workout, huh?
8
SPEAKER_00
Or if I go to a jacuzzi, if I can find a jacuzzi.
8
SPEAKER_01
I assume you got one here.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I do.
8
SPEAKER_00
I can get in.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s like a tuning fork.
8
SPEAKER_00
But I stay on point.
8
SPEAKER_00
All the other stuff is, you know, as humans, we got a lot of stuff we got to get through and anger is one of them.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I think there s no way to get rid of it.
8
SPEAKER_00
There s a way to understand it and then deal with it.
8
SPEAKER_01
How did you manage to stay nice and, I guess, and I hate this term, so pardon me, but open-hearted in such a cutthroat business?
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, Hollywood and being a manager, especially in a rock scene and films, not really known for the sweetest people and the easiest to deal with types of people.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, how come that didn t turn you rotten?
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, I don t know.
8
SPEAKER_00
I actually, I think one of the reasons is that accumulation has never been one of my goals.
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, I used to tell all my acts when I would sign them, if you re looking to make the most amount of money, other guys are better than I am.
8
SPEAKER_00
If you re looking to be a one-name artist, if you want to be not having people say Alice who or Raquel who or Teddy who, that s what I do.
8
SPEAKER_00
I know how to, you know, get you through the noise, preserve your artistry, make a connection with your audience.
8
SPEAKER_00
I won t make you the most money because I m not willing to take it from other people to give it to you.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, your fair share is what I ll fight for, not your fair share and his fair share and his fair share and his fair share.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I saw that in the book and I was so surprised.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there were guys in there.
8
SPEAKER_01
I can t remember this guy s name, but you were advised he will stay with you if you fail and he ll stay with you if you do OK.
8
SPEAKER_01
But as soon as you win, he will screw you over.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s just who he is.
8
SPEAKER_01
And sure enough, at the end of the book, he just
8
SPEAKER_01
turns around and tries to vote you out of a successful company.
8
SPEAKER_01
He was the snake, he was like, this is in my nature, I can t not do it.
8
SPEAKER_00
But it s forgiven, Lord, he knows not what he does.
8
SPEAKER_01
Can t help it, he even said, I m sorry, I m compelled to do this, I just can t not.
8
SPEAKER_01
Which is, you gotta feel bad for somebody like that.
8
SPEAKER_00
You gotta feel bad, I mean, you really feel bad, it s what s it all about, Alfie.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s hard, I mean, I find, it s really interesting, when I go to the mainland, and I m in L.A.
8
SPEAKER_00
for a week or two,
8
SPEAKER_00
I feel the greed start to come in.
8
SPEAKER_00
I can feel like I ll feel sorry for myself that I don t have a private plane, which is insane.
8
SPEAKER_00
That FOMO, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Insane.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s insane.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s like, but I feel it.
8
SPEAKER_00
It comes into my system and I can really, and then I fight hard to like, you absolutely insane.
8
SPEAKER_00
You re healthy.
8
SPEAKER_00
You have money for food.
8
SPEAKER_00
You have people who love you.
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, I go through the list of my good stuff and I get through it,
8
SPEAKER_00
I think all of us as humans, that fool s gold stuff is so ingrained in all of us.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s what I mean, you get up early, you go to sleep later, it takes work.
8
SPEAKER_00
You don t not fall victim to being a jerk just because you say it.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s actual work and actual practice and actual doing stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
It seems to be, well, you find positivity in just about everything, which is great.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you have a lot of gratitude practice, which like you said, look for the positives.
8
SPEAKER_01
But I feel you, even personally, I definitely have that, we call it FOMO, fear of missing out.
8
SPEAKER_01
And what that essentially means is now... FOMO, that s a good word.
8
SPEAKER_01
FOMO, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
When you hang out with somebody and they, or you hear about somebody else who s doing something and you think,
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t have that.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t have that.
8
SPEAKER_01
And the problem is that you end up comparing your blooper reel to their highlight reel.
8
SPEAKER_01
You don t look at their inside life and say, this is the loneliest son of a bitch with a plane.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
8
SPEAKER_01
He would trade his, I guarantee you.
8
SPEAKER_00
And hopefully he s the happiest guy in the world with his plane.
8
SPEAKER_01
Hopefully.
8
SPEAKER_01
God bless him.
8
SPEAKER_01
Hopefully.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_01
But a lot of them would kill to have one person that they could call that didn t want something from you.
8
SPEAKER_00
Right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
One person.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it s, you know,
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it s tough being a human right now.
8
SPEAKER_00
It probably always was tough being a human.
8
SPEAKER_00
I was watching Game of Thrones.
8
SPEAKER_00
I was just in Italy, in Tuscany, and after watching Game of Thrones, and then you go to Italy, and you see the little towns, and every town has a wall around it.
8
SPEAKER_00
You realize how tough it must have been living then.
8
SPEAKER_00
They don t even know you.
8
SPEAKER_01
They just see your town, and they re going, let s burn that thing down.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, let s burn that thing down.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s, like, so insane.
8
SPEAKER_00
So there s something in the nature of humans that s really interesting.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s sort of, from burning the town, it s now translated in our day and age to having everything your neighbor has and more.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, everybody s jealous of everybody.
9
SPEAKER_00
Everybody wants what everybody else has.
9
SPEAKER_00
Everybody wants more.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I hope that there s a generational change, because it seems like generations go against what the last generation had.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I m hoping that it comes back to some sense of sanity, because right now it s insane.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s insane.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve noticed that you do end up, when you say helping artists make a connection with their audience and everything, one of the quotes that I thought was summed up in large part at the beginning of the book was, if I do my job right, I will probably kill you.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so you help people achieve that fame and that notoriety and that one name artistry.
9
SPEAKER_01
So you have kind of this weird complicated relationship with fame, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause on the one hand it s, you re building this big bonfire, but you don t want to jump into it yourself.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s a large part of going back to why I don t enjoy doing business because that s the business I m in is helping and destroying people at the same time.
9
SPEAKER_00
So it s a weird,
9
SPEAKER_00
It s what I do.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s what they want.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s like chemotherapy.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I put a lot of disclaimers on all the time.
9
SPEAKER_00
But it s, you know, it s weird.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I ve had, sadly, so many in my life.
9
SPEAKER_00
Teddy s gone.
9
SPEAKER_00
Luther s gone.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, so many are gone.
9
SPEAKER_00
The fable sort of comes to life.
9
SPEAKER_01
It seems like a lot of folks, if I m just imagining for myself, if you sat me down and you said, Jordan, we re going to make you a star, but it might kill you and you re going to have drug problems.
9
SPEAKER_01
I would imagine literally everyone says, that s not going to be me.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m going to be able to handle that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you know, from experience that they re not going to be able to handle that.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s just going to get, it s going to get you.
9
SPEAKER_00
Most people will come back, take the fall and come back, but it s going to knock it down.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and even Alice, rife tales just in your book that aren t even gone into in detail, where he s starting to drink 24-7, and then towards the end there s a mention where it s like, Alice was smoking crack at this point, we got him back into rehab, and now he s in Vegas doing shows, but at some level these people are playing Russian roulette with everything.
9
SPEAKER_00
The more famous, the more Russian roulette.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s a complicated, complicated relationship.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s hard.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m just living through it with a young lady.
9
SPEAKER_00
My assistant s daughter is a very talented young singer who sort of got discovered at 12 by people and was on stage with Willie Nelson at 13.
9
SPEAKER_00
And my advice always to her is
9
SPEAKER_00
become a school teacher, have some kids, you re so happy, enjoy your life, sing at parties, and she s now in LA, you know, following her dream, knowing the consequences, and a great girl, but it s, I think that just comes with the territory, it s part of that game, and if you have the bug, it s a very tough bug to get rid of.
9
SPEAKER_00
The bug meaning?
9
SPEAKER_00
Fame.
9
SPEAKER_00
Fame, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s a really tough bug, because it s in there,
9
SPEAKER_00
99% of the young people starting fool themselves by saying, it s about my art, it s not about being successful or famous.
9
SPEAKER_00
You don t need to be in front of people for your art.
9
SPEAKER_00
You could do that in your living room.
9
SPEAKER_00
So it s always about fame.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s not even a question.
9
SPEAKER_00
And that s a tough... It s tough to get, especially in this day and age when fame is now the end goal completely.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s so bizarre.
9
SPEAKER_00
When I was...
9
SPEAKER_00
I m 70, so I m not like a complete relic, but when I was 30s and 40s and 50s, and I have a huge network of people, my friends would reach out to me and say, my daughter loves to cook.
9
SPEAKER_00
She s going to a cooking school.
9
SPEAKER_00
Could you get her a job at Emeril s?
9
SPEAKER_01
Emeril Lagasse s restaurant.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Emeril Lagasse s restaurant, or they d call up and say, my son plays guitar.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s always wanted to be in a band.
9
SPEAKER_00
Is there any way you can get him a job on Alice s tour so we can see what it s like?
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
A lot of calls like that over the last 10 years.
9
SPEAKER_00
Now the calls are completely different.
9
SPEAKER_00
Now the calls are, my daughter loves cooking.
9
SPEAKER_00
She s going to cooking school.
9
SPEAKER_00
Can you get her on Top Chef?
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, geez.
9
SPEAKER_00
Or my kid is a guitar player.
9
SPEAKER_00
He just went to Juilliard.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s doing great.
9
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, you can get him on American Idol.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
The end goal is not the craft anymore.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s now step one.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s step one.
9
SPEAKER_00
And that s really scary to me.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s really scary.
9
SPEAKER_00
And there s no foundation to fall off of.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right, that you can t fall back on.
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, I always loved playing music on the club circuit.
9
SPEAKER_01
So it s just you started off in your mom s basement.
9
SPEAKER_01
Now you re on television.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when that goes away, you are left really empty.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
You you mentioned in the book, if part of the tactics were if you want to be famous, get next to someone famous, where you would put who is that folk singer?
9
SPEAKER_01
Anne Murray, and you put her in a picture who was just a goody-two-shoes type of woman, or look, was Anne Murray, and then you said, we gotta spice this up, let s get her hanging out with Alice Cooper and John Lennon at the Rainbow Bar and Grill, where they re all drinking their faces off, and then take a couple of photos.
9
SPEAKER_01
I call it guilt by association.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Which I love.
9
SPEAKER_00
I use that for the chefs a lot, too.
9
SPEAKER_00
It works with everything.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, you bleed off, the fame bleeds off, you do it enough times.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I brought that up because it seems like what you just mentioned is now, though, that s all people are doing.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s all they do.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s all they want.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Fame has become the end game.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think the Kardashians is a couple of people who have the Hilton s who really changed the dynamics to where the fame is the goal.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Rather than being so good at your craft, you become famous.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s not it s not about creating something anymore.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s about this.
9
SPEAKER_01
There s a Hollywood term star fucking all the time.
9
SPEAKER_01
One thing that you and I share in common is that after you achieve something, it seems like we re kind of over it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I didn t go to my high school graduation, I didn t go to my college graduation, I didn t go to my law school graduation.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s just like you said, you high-five yourself in the mirror, and you either go to sleep or you say, what s next?
9
SPEAKER_01
And I never really understood that part of myself, so I was really glad to hear that you were like that as well.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I still haven t figured it out either.
9
SPEAKER_00
Alice and I are very similar in that way.
9
SPEAKER_00
We had a real, it was really funny when he got in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is gigantic.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m a kid from Oceanside, Long Island.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, oh my God, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
9
SPEAKER_00
And for Alice, you know, this is the crowning achievement of a lifetime.
9
SPEAKER_01
It lives forever.
9
SPEAKER_01
This outlives everybody.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
It was at a hotel in New York, and they were having a party for all the inductees and everyone afterwards in the same hotel.
9
SPEAKER_00
Alice was staying in that hotel.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was in another one.
9
SPEAKER_00
So the show ended and my granddaughter was here, Amber, and said, are you going to come to the party?
9
SPEAKER_00
And I said, nah, maybe I ll meet you there.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I jumped in a cab and I went to my hotel and I was 15 minutes after we got the award, 20 minutes, I was in bed watching CNN and did the high five in the mirror.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you actually do it?
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Motherfucker, you gotta fuck.
9
SPEAKER_00
The Hall of Fame, holy shit.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then I got in bed.
9
SPEAKER_00
The next day I saw Alice and I said, you know,
9
SPEAKER_00
I said, how was the party?
9
SPEAKER_00
And he said, I didn t go to the party.
9
SPEAKER_00
I went upstairs, went to bed.
9
SPEAKER_00
I said, you didn t even stop at the party?
9
SPEAKER_00
He said, no.
9
SPEAKER_00
I said, isn t it weird?
9
SPEAKER_00
I said, for me, I don t have a lot of regrets, but I wish I could enjoy those moments.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I don t understand why I don t.
9
SPEAKER_00
I still haven t quite figured it out.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think for me, I always assumed it was because the journey was interesting and I was getting pulled into the next thing, but there s still no reason not to even go to the one hour aftermath, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
I still don t get it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because graduation ceremonies, you ve got to rent that stupid thing, and you ve got to stand out in the heat, and then there s a bunch of people you don t know, and you just want to go home when you re there.
9
SPEAKER_01
But I would imagine a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame party, it s air-conditioned, you ve got drinks there, it s a fun time.
9
SPEAKER_00
I still don t get it.
9
SPEAKER_00
But that s just the way it is.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve always been like that.
9
SPEAKER_00
Get it done.
9
SPEAKER_00
and move on to the next thing, or go watch CNN in your underwear, whatever.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I just thought that was so interesting, because very rarely do you meet people who do that.
9
SPEAKER_01
Most people are living for that kind of experience.
9
SPEAKER_01
For that moment.
9
SPEAKER_01
For that moment.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you hear a lot about that with Olympic athletes as well, though, is that there s a hump they go over when they win that gold, and I think a part of me is avoiding that feeling of, you got this, but it s not completing you, so that s an uncomfortable feeling,
9
SPEAKER_01
So in order, I kind of avoid basing it.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s a false god.
9
SPEAKER_00
It is a false god.
9
SPEAKER_00
So maybe that comes into it, you know, worshipping of these false gods.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like you re making it not a big deal so that it doesn t
10
SPEAKER_01
doesn t end up being more disappointing later when it doesn t change in life.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it is a strange occurrence.
10
SPEAKER_01
I was glad to hear I was not the only one in there with that look.
10
SPEAKER_01
A lot of the early parts of the book
10
SPEAKER_01
link food to relationships.
10
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned your grandmother, you re eating food in the kitchen before you even say hello.
10
SPEAKER_01
Sandwiches with your dad, you remember what you got, it was like chopped liver and something like that on rye.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, with brisket on rye.
10
SPEAKER_01
Ice cream, that big ice cream sundae with the editor of Mad Magazine and his daughter.
10
SPEAKER_01
Meals with friends.
10
SPEAKER_01
And these are just detailed things.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s like, how do you remember what you ordered after the Cannes Festival at some hotel?
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s just incredible.
10
SPEAKER_00
You know, for me, that s the only thing I do remember.
10
SPEAKER_00
Clearly, I remember all my meals.
10
SPEAKER_00
You see the world through food.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, everything else I don t.
10
SPEAKER_00
More, not the world so much through food, but my life and the times.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I can t, I always, it s almost embarrassing with the kids because we ll do stuff and I ll
10
SPEAKER_00
I ll say, yeah, well, you got to go.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know I was with you, Grandpa Chef.
10
SPEAKER_00
I said, I don t remember.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know we had a pastrami sandwich with somebody having this pastrami.
10
SPEAKER_00
That was me.
10
SPEAKER_00
I just remember it all by food.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s really bizarre.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I wasn t a foodie, or at least the knowledgeable foodie, until I met Mr. Vergier.
10
SPEAKER_00
ketchup and macaroni was, for me, a great meal.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, before that?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, before I met Mr. Verge.
10
SPEAKER_00
That sounds absolutely horrible.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
My diet was basically Swiss cheese, macaroni and ketchup, Sara Lee s frozen cheesecakes.
10
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I was like 250, 260.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I was going to say.
10
SPEAKER_00
I was a couch potato and big.
10
SPEAKER_00
And when I met Mr. Verge, it all came.
10
SPEAKER_00
Then I had the same
10
SPEAKER_00
You know, when I look back at my life, I realize I do remember meals were a really important part of my life.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
I thought that was interesting because most people write about, and it looked like this, and then it felt like that.
10
SPEAKER_01
And you re like, and we ate a pastrami and there was cheese on it and they put way too much cheese on it.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I m thinking, that s what you got?
10
SPEAKER_00
My life has become basically the celebration of dinner for the last 15 or 20 years.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s the most important thing in my existence.
10
SPEAKER_01
Jason said he came in and two hours later, 25 people showed up for a dinner party.
10
SPEAKER_01
And that s just how you roll.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s just how I roll.
10
SPEAKER_01
When you re dealing with with folks now in business.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, he was here a great night.
10
SPEAKER_01
Was he?
10
SPEAKER_01
Did he tell you who was here that night?
10
SPEAKER_01
No, I don t think so.
10
SPEAKER_00
Two heroes of mine.
10
SPEAKER_00
Now I got to remember Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie.
10
SPEAKER_00
Joseph Wilson was the ambassador
10
SPEAKER_00
who said that nuclear stuff didn t go to Saddam Hussein.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then they outed his wife, who was a CIA agent.
10
SPEAKER_00
And they made that movie about her, Free Fall something.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it was amazing to see these two American heroes who were outed by the government for the only time a CIA agent s name was published while she was on active duty.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was really, what a joy to be in their presence.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, geez.
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, talk about putting it all on the line.
10
SPEAKER_00
Putting it all on the line, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
You do a great job with achieving goals, and you mentioned that if you can see the goal, no matter how distant it might seem at the start, it makes it easier to start creating the path to it.
10
SPEAKER_01
But how do you look for and visualize these lofty goals that just seem kind of nebulous?
10
SPEAKER_00
I think it depends what the situation is, but again, it s spending more hours and time on it.
10
SPEAKER_00
So in the case of, for example, a teddy pendigrass, how do I define
10
SPEAKER_00
How do I define to people the sex appeal?
10
SPEAKER_00
You can t stand up and say he s sexy.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
Because that s arrogant and you lose all your sex appeal.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it was doing little things like instead of him, a picture of him on the ad for women only, it was a stuffed teddy bear with a note on it that said, spend the night with me.
10
SPEAKER_00
Love teddy.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it was soft.
10
SPEAKER_00
My goal was to tell the world that women would go crazy over him.
10
SPEAKER_00
How do you do that best?
10
SPEAKER_00
By creating that moment where women are going crazy over him and getting that picture out and that story out and that word out.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s almost like working backwards.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
So how do you do that?
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, he sells a lot of tickets.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s do it live.
10
SPEAKER_00
in New York and L.A., which are the media centers.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s make sure that everyone tells us we can t do it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it becomes controversial.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then let s do it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And how do we keep adding to that story?
10
SPEAKER_00
The chocolate teddy bear lollipop definitely adds to the story.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s still adding to my visions at night.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I think it s, you know, it s just a way of thought.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s forgetting about, you know, what would I like to see in the newspaper when I wake up?
10
SPEAKER_00
Or what would I like to see on CNN?
10
SPEAKER_00
Or what would I like Teddy s fan to see?
10
SPEAKER_00
And once you say, what would be the perfect thing for him?
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, him in a room with just women.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, let s do it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s not wait for it to happen.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s just do it.
10
SPEAKER_01
Don t wait for history to happen.
10
SPEAKER_00
Don t wait for history to happen.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right now we re doing a campaign with Alice to get him elected president.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think that he could actually.
10
SPEAKER_01
It could happen.
10
SPEAKER_01
on the wild party, which is pretty funny.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think there s a chance.
10
SPEAKER_01
You re always pushing yourself to grow.
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you re not stopping.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m having a good time.
10
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned they thought it was a stretch when you decided to work with Groucho Marx and Raquel Welch, but stretching is how you grow.
10
SPEAKER_01
How are you doing that now?
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you re still cruising.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I still do the same.
10
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I m trying to
10
SPEAKER_00
add a little more conscience to the culinary world.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think that s...I gave the commencement speech at the CIA this year, and I feel sort of partly responsible for this phenomenon.
10
SPEAKER_00
The other CIA.
10
SPEAKER_00
The CIA, which I m sorry, the Culinary Institute.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they don t let me into the other one except in handcuffs.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I feel partly responsible having created this movement of, you know, $150, $200 meals, and I m proud of it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I was addressing, you know, this beautiful audience of a couple of hundred culinary institute graduates who were going to, 10 years ago, if they graduated, they would go into a $30,000 a year job that would have a ceiling of maybe $70,000.
10
SPEAKER_00
Now they re going to step into a probably $100,000, $125,000 starting salary and have an unlimited ceiling.
10
SPEAKER_00
And what I told to them was that, you know, I m really happy for them.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s really great.
10
SPEAKER_00
But if you think we all put the effort that we put in to make that possible for them to just feed $150 dinners,
10
SPEAKER_00
they re headed for a crash.
10
SPEAKER_00
They gotta look out.
10
SPEAKER_00
When they leave the place of business, look to the left and look to the right and you re gonna see homeless, hungry people.
10
SPEAKER_00
And if you think your job isn t to feed them and only the guys who can pay 150, you re in the wrong profession.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I m trying to bring, I think that s important for the profession if it s gonna really maintain itself as an art form to bring a conscious compassion
10
SPEAKER_00
integration into it.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I do that.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m trying to, I m doing a dinner September 12th in New York that s going to establish a Roger Verger scholarship at the Culinary Institute, which I m really proud of, with 12 great chefs.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think about what I want.
10
SPEAKER_00
I went to the Culinary Institute, and they had busts of other chefs, and they didn t have a bust of Mr. Vergier there.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I said, I want his place in there.
10
SPEAKER_00
How do we do this?
10
SPEAKER_00
And so we re doing this dinner, and Michael Douglas hosting, and Daniel, David Boulay, Michael White, Dean Fearing, all these great chefs coming in.
10
SPEAKER_00
Then it s going to become reality.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it s the same thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
When I go back to the CIA, there will be a bus, there will be Verge.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s creating history, but in a different way.
10
SPEAKER_00
So that s what I enjoy doing.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s my challenge and my nightmare.
10
SPEAKER_00
And now I don t have an office really, so I don t have a staff to help.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_01
Now you re, you retired everyone else.
10
SPEAKER_00
Everyone else retired.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
But it s what I do.
10
SPEAKER_00
So, you know.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
I love that story.
10
SPEAKER_01
When you, you re like, I m retiring, AKA getting, and so the whole company goes down without you, but then you just decided to do everyone s job.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
I love that.
10
SPEAKER_00
I love that.
10
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
10
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
10
SPEAKER_01
You re doing it backwards, man.
10
SPEAKER_00
You re doing everything backwards.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I did it really backwards.
10
SPEAKER_00
No, you still, I don t, I think anyone who doesn t say, they still don t look in the mirror and say, what the fuck is it all about?
10
SPEAKER_00
What are you doing?
10
SPEAKER_00
I think is sort of,
11
SPEAKER_00
because I don t think as humans we ever, you know, none of us are going to ever figure out why we re here, in my opinion.
11
SPEAKER_00
We can have theories.
11
SPEAKER_00
We can have beliefs.
11
SPEAKER_00
But how did this happen?
11
SPEAKER_00
Like, who did this?
11
SPEAKER_00
And what s the plan?
11
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think we ll ever really, you know, you can choose to be a Catholic or a Buddhist or a Jew, or you can choose to be a Gnostic, you can choose to pick a reason.
11
SPEAKER_00
But I don t think any of those, in my opinion, at least for my belief system, are ever going to be black and white.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is why we re here.
11
SPEAKER_00
So it s,
11
SPEAKER_00
Anyone who thinks they figured it out, I don t know if you can figure it out.
11
SPEAKER_00
But if you find something that s comfortable, that fits in your wheelhouse, you re a lucky person.
11
SPEAKER_02
What do you think is the next celebrity chef type of star?
11
SPEAKER_00
I mean, where do you see a hole in an industry where... I think it s the growers of cannabis.
11
SPEAKER_02
Really?
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
I think that s one.
11
SPEAKER_00
You know, what I try to look for is waves, cultural waves.
11
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t a genius with the chefs.
11
SPEAKER_00
It was so obvious that, you know, you could get into the, you could be on the 50 yard line at a football game.
11
SPEAKER_00
You could be in the front row of the Broadway theater if you had enough money.
11
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t get into Le Cirque.
11
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t get into Charlie Trotters.
11
SPEAKER_00
It was so obvious that demand was there.
11
SPEAKER_00
Demand is what drives celebrity, you know?
11
SPEAKER_00
And cannabis is the revolution.
11
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s just, and it s exactly like the chef s work.
11
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s funny, when I started with the chefs, Chef Boyardee was the famous.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Aunt Jemima.
11
SPEAKER_02
They were the famous cooks.
11
SPEAKER_00
In the pot world now, it s Bob Marley.
11
SPEAKER_00
Or Snoop Dogg, not the actual grower, who s actually the real star.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s like Chef Boyardee against Emeril, Snoop Dogg against the grower.
11
SPEAKER_00
So I think that has a real possibility to develop, that they will become media stars out of it, they ll become heroes out of it.
11
SPEAKER_00
So they ll be able to fuel the fire just like the chefs did by hiring PR people, doing multiple...you know, the economics are so gigantic.
11
SPEAKER_02
And talk about the parents already hating you, right?
11
SPEAKER_02
That s already built in.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s perfect.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s already built in.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you got it.
11
SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much.
11
SPEAKER_02
Is there anything that I haven t asked you that you think, man, I got to tell them this?
11
SPEAKER_00
No.
11
SPEAKER_00
Everybody go vote, please.
11
SPEAKER_02
Why are you so passionate about getting everybody...getting out the vote?
11
SPEAKER_00
I think it s, you know, I think it s...
11
SPEAKER_00
I think it s a really dangerous time in our history.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I think no matter what happens at the end of this election, our country is going to be different.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I think the most important thing is for people to realize that they have a voice and they can affect this.
11
SPEAKER_00
And if they re just sitting on the sidelines and letting everything happen to them,
11
SPEAKER_00
There s a difference between a victim and a loser.
11
SPEAKER_00
You can lose and come back and win.
11
SPEAKER_00
A victim, you re just a victim.
11
SPEAKER_00
There s no reason at this point to be a victim, whether you re for one side or the other.
11
SPEAKER_00
I would like to think that there s more people who believe in what I believe in.
11
SPEAKER_00
So by getting out the vote, it helps me.
11
SPEAKER_00
But even if it doesn t, I think, you know, this is a serious time.
11
SPEAKER_00
We re all so desperate.
11
SPEAKER_00
We all seem so disconnected from cause and effect in our lives when it gets bigger than our own little apartment.
11
SPEAKER_00
And we re not.
11
SPEAKER_00
We really can do something.
11
SPEAKER_00
I mean, as a child of the 60s, I saw what we did with the war.
11
SPEAKER_00
You know, I saw what burning the ROTC cards did.
11
SPEAKER_00
I saw what, you know, protesting did.
11
SPEAKER_00
I saw it getting, you really can have some effect, I think.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s so big that it s hard to imagine you can affect it.
11
SPEAKER_00
I just think, you know, I love America.
11
SPEAKER_00
I end my book saying that I ve always wanted my kids to focus on this simple fact.
11
SPEAKER_00
You win or lose in life 99% of the time just where you drop out of the womb.
11
SPEAKER_00
If you drop out of the womb in America, you have a chance to eat, be healthy, have love in your life, security, do what you want to do.
11
SPEAKER_00
You drop out in some of the countries in Africa, you drop out in Syria today, you drop out in these places, you have no chance.
11
SPEAKER_00
I mean, maybe one out of 10 million will come through.
11
SPEAKER_02
Right, it becomes lottery.
11
SPEAKER_00
So you re so lucky.
11
SPEAKER_00
just to have dropped out here, to not understand how lucky this gift is and fight hard to keep it.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I think we re at risk of losing.
11
SPEAKER_00
I just fear that that won t apply in a couple of generations.
11
SPEAKER_00
If the country goes away, you can see it going.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it is scary.
11
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it s, and so, and coming from, you ve seen a lot of different things, different waves, different cultural shifts, so it s a, it s almost, there s some hindsight here as well.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this is a very different, this is really different.
11
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s, you listen to what both candidates are saying, and it s just built on hatred and belittling, and it s just horrible.
11
SPEAKER_02
The political theater.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s just horrible.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is what our kids are hearing.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is what they re thinking.
11
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I think it s important everybody get out and vote and make their presence felt.
11
SPEAKER_02
Thank you, Shep.
11
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
11
SPEAKER_02
Pleasure.
11
SPEAKER_02
This was a lot of fun.
11
SPEAKER_02
This was great.
11
SPEAKER_02
I told you Shep was an amazing guy.
11
SPEAKER_02
Look, this was a fun show.
11
SPEAKER_02
There are many more stories in the book as well.
11
SPEAKER_02
We ll link to that in the show notes.
11
SPEAKER_02
And if you enjoyed this, you can t thank Shep on Twitter because he s not on there, but you can tap the album art in most mobile podcast players to see the cheat sheet and the show notes for this.
11
SPEAKER_02
We ll link to the book and the documentary so you can see that right on your phone.
11
SPEAKER_02
I m on Twitter, at The Art of Charm, if you want me to pass something along or if you just want to say hello or engage with the show in any way.
11
SPEAKER_02
And our bootcamp, our live program details, that s at bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
11
SPEAKER_02
Remember, we re sold out a few months in advance, so if you re thinking about it a little bit, get in touch ASAP, get some info from us so you can plan ahead.
11
SPEAKER_02
You can also join our social capital challenge at theartofcharm.com or here in the states text CHARMED to 33444.
11
SPEAKER_02
The challenge is about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop a personal and professional relationship with you.
11
SPEAKER_02
We ll also email you our Fundamentals Toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
11
SPEAKER_02
I also do regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
11
SPEAKER_02
It ll make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.
11
SPEAKER_02
That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the US to 33444.
11
SPEAKER_02
For the full show notes for this and all previous episodes, head over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
11
SPEAKER_02
This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
11
SPEAKER_02
Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
11
SPEAKER_02
Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
11
SPEAKER_02
And I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
11
SPEAKER_02
Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
11
SPEAKER_02
So stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
11
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
11
SPEAKER_01
Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.