Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Jonny Podell

Transcript

Jonny Podell · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: My guest today is the legendary, one and only agent
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Johnny po Dell. Johnny, how did you get in the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: record business? Music business?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Well, interesting started way back when Elvis came. I had
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: an older sister. Elvis changed the world, and my sister
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: would be in the bedroom next to me in the
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Bronx and she'd listen over and over to he would sing,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: don't be cruel, don't be cruel. Ooh, and then when
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: he go, she would like flipping it on. I think
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: that set me off because I like, she was so
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: turned on and women have played a big part in
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: my life, that energy. But she felt for him. I
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: wanted people to fill for me anyway. It was very
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: sexy to me, and I think rock and roll is
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: very sexy. And how I got in it actually Beatles
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: came to New York nineteen sixty four. I grew up
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and you know, I was born in the Bronx, raised
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: in Queens in New York and lower middle class family,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: and we were like, leave it to Beaver family, Leave
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: it to Beaver family. You know, nobody drank, nobody stayed out,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: laid et cetera. It's really yeah, yeah, yeah, no. My
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: dad wore a suit and tie, went to work everyday
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: nine to five, and I looked up to my dad.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I admired my dad, but I knew one thing. I
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: wanted a more exciting life.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: What did you do for a living?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Well interesting that, he asked, Bob. My dad graduated from
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Columbia pharmacy and then the realized after the only way
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you can make money in pharmacy is to own your
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: own right, and he came from no money. His father
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: left him when they were nine, so he took a
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: series of jobs. And my dad didn't have my personality like.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: He wasn't outgoing, he wasn't a salesman. So the way
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I understand it, because I wasn't obviously conscious of it.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: He was just knocking on doors, knocking on doors, knocking
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: on doors. Oh and I will tell you one thing.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: We grew up in the Bronx and he went into
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: this one office building. It was a shaving brush company,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: and he got in the elevator with this big mammoth
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: guy and the guy put his arm around my dad
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and said, yep, son, I'm the babe. It was bab brother,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: really it was Babbruth. Yeah, it was right on the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: concourse anyway. So my dad kept floating around different jobs
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: and well.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Well sits with this? Deep was your father born in America?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: How many generations did your family in America?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents' generation, they were both born here. My
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: mom's parents were Russian or born in Russia. Podell was
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: originally a long time ago Podalski, not in my lifetime,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: but Russian Jews. Right, So my dad took a series
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: of jobs.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Before you go there. How'd your parents meet?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: My parents? Bob trying to remember how they met, but
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: a storybook romance they met. I think they were two
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: years apart, when she was thirteen and he was fifteen,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: and he was madly in love. I'm going to start
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: to cry. He worked three jobs just so he could
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: take her out. He always liked nice things, but didn't
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: come from that, and she thought he was Jesus Christ.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: And I mean, it was beautiful to grow up in
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: a family like that. I mean, it was it. Maybe
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: it wasn't Jackie and John, but it was the Bronx
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: version of that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, So your father's go went from jobs job.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So he gets a job at a think a place
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: called the Pyramid Pyramid Rubber Company. I think also in
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the Bronx. I don't think, yeah, also in the Bronx.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And I have an older sister. So it was the
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: four of us in like a small one bedroom apartment.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And if you remember those days, the TV only went
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: from I think nine in the morning till five three
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: chatnels and then over. And so my dad gets a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: job working for the Pyramid Rubber Company and they were
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: experimenting with a new plastic called polyethylene. It was nineteen
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: fifty five. I think my dad said, why don't we
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: make baby bottles out of polyethaly? Right now? He gives
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: the baby a bottle, he goes, throws it on the ground,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: smash new bottle. And so the business that still lives today,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: not his business, was the plastic baby bottle. He actually
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: created it, but didn't own the company. It was called
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Van Tyne's. And it exploded, I mean it exploded internationally.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you a real story that's important, if
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you know, if you want to know me. And it exploded,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, how could it not. Something that always breaks
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: now doesn't break, and working night and day, night and day,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: night and day, night and day. And after four years,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: but again my dad became president but not owner, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the owner was busy like of gnom me around the
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: jet set while my dad did all the work. And
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the fourth year, my dad, I'd said, you know, I
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: really need some time off. He said, well you can't
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: right now. The business is exploding. Now we're in Zimbabwe
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: and we're in here, and he said, I don't think
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: you understand I need time off to be with my family.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: And he said, I can't give you that time off.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: He said, then you can have my resignation. And that
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: turned out to be the only good job my dad
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: ever had. But what a summer. Summer fifty five my
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: dad took us. I'm getting very teary eyed. He took
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: us on a two months first class Pullman railroad car
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: trip across America. We went through the Rockies. I saw
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Disneyland opened in La Targer Stadium over in La. We
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: went to Frontier Days Prescott, Arizona. That was an interesting thing.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And I watched my dad we go to hotels. I
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: saw they and my dad knew how to tip somebody
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: like I learned that like it was always like a tipper.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And I learned a lot and funny thing else I learned.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: It's very trivial. You know, at that time, jeans were levis,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: they were work pants. It's hard for us to remember.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Now they're part of fashion, small, medium and large. We
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: went to the Frontier day radio rodeo, the Big One, Prescott, Arizona.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I'm very skinny. You can't see it on the podcasts,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: always been all my life. And they had jeans that
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: were extra small small. I got the skinny jeans, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: you're ready for this. It became my trademark. I've never
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: had a job where I didn't wear the jeans. Even
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I taught school for a year, which I'll go into
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: if you want, right the year before I went into
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: the music business, I never I wouldn't If you had
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: to not wear jeans, I wouldn't take the job. And
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I've been doing that ever since. Jee's and a T
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: shirt suits me. I got such memories. You've triggered them already,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: thank you. So where will we?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're a big operator. Where'd you learn to become
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: such an opera Well?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Why don't we go back to how I got into
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: the into all music? Well?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I figured it's the same thing I was going to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: ask you were in high school? Were you were an
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: operator in high school?
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Now, as a matter of fact, I gotta tell you,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: in those days they had what's now called mid school
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: was junior high school seven eight nine. And if you
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: were very smart, why you passed the SP and the
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: SP met special progress three years and two good in
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: a way, fast tracked bad in a way because now
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: you're young and too young for girls. In all my life,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: it's been about through things. Girls and the New York Yankees.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Music took a third seat. It's been about girls and
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: the New York Yankees and the way how did I
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: get into that? I just lost my trend to thought.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Where was I?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: We were talking about you being an operator getting all
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of the business.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Oh oh no, so I was not an operator. As
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: a matter of fact, I had the audacity in high
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: school to run for president. Farstalls High School had twelve
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: hundred kids. You ready, I got the lowest number of
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: votes in the history of Farsall's High School, which was funny, Bob,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: because in sixth grade in the public school, I was
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: voted most popular. That SP took away my confidence because
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: what you know, when girls would look at a boy
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and go, oh, he's cute, because you had to be
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: older and taller than I think things have changed and
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I wasn't older, so that set me back. You asked
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: how to become an operator, so it wasn't there what
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: happened in nineteen So I went to high school college,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: kept going to school, you know, masters, Bernard Brooke School
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: of Business and Public Administration, part of the City of
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: New York, the second most prestigious business school other than Wharton.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: And then I went to NYU and took a message.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Now I wasn't an academic, the reason I kept going
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: to and then a year of law school, and then
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I'll get back to how I got to the music business.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: The reason I kept going to school because I knew.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: The minute i'd no more school, my mother go, what
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: are you going to do? And I only did girls
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: and the Yankees, and I hadn't figured out how to
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: monetize them. So now I'm eighteen years old, nineteen sixty four,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the Beatles land and now oh wait, you know what, No, no,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: let me go back operator. Oh no, no, no, I
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: put signs on your I was working at a gas station.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. When I was fifteen in the garage
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: in the apartment house we lived in in Forest Hills.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I put little business cards you want your car washed.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I worked on the weekends, again like my dad, just
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: so i'd have money to date. And I'd work at
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: this guy's gas station. And I was seventeen and I
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: saved six hundred dollars to buy a nineteen fifty six
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: MGA convertible that you had to push to start. And
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I'd work at the gas station. And I knew so
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: little about the gas station, I'd say, but I always
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: was this. I'd say, Hi, can I help you? And
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the guy say yea, I fill it up. And then
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I'd say can I check your oil? And he'd say yes.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I knew how to pull that up. Then he pulled
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: out the dipstick and I said, oh, you're a court short.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: He says, well, put it in. I didn't know where
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: to put it in because the dipstick came out of
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: a little hole and you couldn't put the stick in front.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: So what did I do? I put it in the radiator. Anyway.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I took a job at eighteen seventeen. Now I could drive,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: and I took a job working at a college mixer.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: You know what that is like? It was the dance
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: out on Long Island and the Beatles had just arrived.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Like earlier, I didn't tell it all story, but Elvis
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: changed everything when I heard my sister go, oh, I
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: want them to be part of that. And now it
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: was the Beatles and being a hustler now because you
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: had asked when this all start? Oh, so I had
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: car washes and I had so many little businesses like that.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I went to work at a donut shob, always hustling
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: for money to take out women. The Beatles arrived and
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I said, oh, I know what to do. I'll scalp tickets.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So I went and I bought six or eight Beatles tickets,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and then I went to this college mixer to scalp them.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I was so lame. The guy goes, excuse me, what
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: do you think you're doing? And I got so intimated.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: He says, you stay right here and wait, I'll talk
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: to you later. Like a jerk, I stood right there.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Dance is over. He says to me, you know what
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: are you doing? I said, oh, I didn't mean anything.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I was just trying to scalp some tickets. He goes,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you're a real wise guy. And then he goes, and
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: this is where it all began. He goes, I could
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: use a wise guy like you my organization. Why don't
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: you be an agent? I said, well, what does an
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: agent do? I said, well, you see there's a band tonight. Well,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: we do for of these a week. Okay, let's say
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: you're the agent for the band and they get two
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars a night. That's twenty five dollars
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a night for you. That's one hundred dollars. Now, if
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: you get ten bands, that's one thousand dollars. How easy
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: is that? And he said you can count on us
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: for four jobs. So the first band was called Nobody Children.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: It took me a year to make my first booking.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I've always been very slow. I've been a slow learner,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: but I catch up later. And that's how it all
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: started and what happened So again me, I was doing
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: this really just for fun, beside money to take out girls.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: And there was another guy who called me up on
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: the phone, Ira Blacker, and he goes, what do you
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: think you're doing trying to book a band in two
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Tony's And I said, well, I'm just trying, and he says, listen,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: you may do this for fun. I'm doing this to
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: put myself to Hunter College. Stay out of my territory.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And he was very intimidating, and he would call me
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: every couple of weeks and yell at me again, and
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: I'd say, okay, I'll stay out of your territory, but
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: tell me what your territory is. He goes everywhere. Anyway,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: what's funny, Bob? The guy winds up getting a real
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: job at a mid level booking agency, associated booking corporation.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: They were factioning then. The old school was still about motown.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: But I saw the new wave British rock, and he
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: brought in bands like Spooky Tooth, Savoy Brown, et cetera,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And he wanted an ally, so he said,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: you want a job at a real agency, but you're
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: on my side, not their side. And that's how it started.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And the crazy bought Bob. But you know, it's funny
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: how the universe works. He then quit and now all
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, I'm head of the department now. Just
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: so you know, agents, like a lot of people, I
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: don't know how your career started. Usually you're at somebody's desk.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: You intern a lawyer or a doctor, an agent. I
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: didn't I had I didn't do anything. I just became
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: an agent. And then the big agent left and now
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: it's me and I was blessed. I had a great boss,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: and we had a bunch of clients. We had mid
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: level acts like bbcame Canty, Queen's clear Water, you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: we didn't have the giants, but big acts. And my
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: boss would come in every day and I'd go, Oscar,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, look, I don't think I was meant to
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: do this. I'm really really sorry. And he would always
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: say this, Bob John Boy relaxed, You're going to be
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: the biggest agent in the world. Well, it took me
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: six months to make my first booking booker T and
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: the MG's five hundred dollars University of Rhode Island. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I was so slow. Bob the booking slip, by which
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the contract department would print only at five lines name
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of attraction, engagement play, some engagement fee, and other comments.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I kept going to my bus and go what goes here?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Is like I'm really slowly earned anyway, you know, That's
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: how it all started, That's how it all started, and
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: then this thing changed. IRA had just signed the Alman
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Brothers and they couldn't get out of the contract. So
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: this guy comes to New York. Phil Walden, Angry used
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: to manage ODIs Redding had a new band built around
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: this very formidable studio guitar player, Dwayne Olmon, and he
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: comes to the city and he goes, this is how
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: he greeted me. Listen, you little skinny motherfucker. I got
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: all my money tied up in this band. And then
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: he leaned in and he goes, and my money's blood money, motherfucker.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I was like shaky. He said, I got them the
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: best camper and the best crew is twelve of them.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I want them working three hundred nights a year. And
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: he kept going, do you mind that book, kept going,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: do you hear me? Motherfucker? And he says, I want
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: them working three hundred nights a year, and I'm like
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: shaking it. The guy's so intimidating, and it's like I've
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: just started out. I didn't even know it, like what
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: the hell happened? But as somebody's writing this book about
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: me now baptized by fire, she wants to call it
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: baptized by fire. Anyway, I did it out of fear.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And the funny thing was I didn't know anything about
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the Blues. I would go to see them when Ira
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: was still there and I'd go, wait, who's singing the
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: white guy with the blonde His lips were moving, but
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: it was a black voice. And I remember the club
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: was Unganos and I kept looking all around. So it
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: didn't make sense Greg Alman obviously. So what happened is,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: you know, Ira left. They were on the contract. They
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: couldn't get out. You know, my future would depend on this.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: And to make a long story short, at the end
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: of the year, they bought me a motorcycle and a
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: motorcycle jacket. I had become the sixth member of the band.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Phil Walden became my best friend and really great memories
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and that started, and that started my career. But it
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: wasn't easy. You know, it's like a door to door salesman.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I'd call Hi, Hi, so and so hi, as Bob
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Lef said, say, oh, yeah, hi, Bob, it's Johnny put
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: up from ABC. You know, I wanted to talk to
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: you about the Almond Brothers. Johnny stopped calling, Stop calling,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: stop calling, But you know, I wouldn't take no for
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: an answer, and then I got a big break. Bill Graham,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: who really created the billion dollar business of rock and roll,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: said this was America's greatest band, and Rolling Stone said
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the same thing. Well, now it's not Johnny Podell, saying
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Johnny Poddell has a band endorsed by Bill Graham, the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Phil Maurice and the Rolling Stone. The rest is history.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: The rest is history. And then they grew, they grew
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: to really respect me. Like I said, it's so funny.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: From being threatened at the beginning at the end of
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the year, for them to buy me a motorcycle, you know,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: that was like you're in, You're in. And the beautiful
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: relationship from the beginning June nineteen sixty nine till it
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: ended in twenty seventeen.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Before Bill Graham anointed the band and Rolling Stone did,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: how would you get gigs?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Just the same way a dare to door salesman. Oh wait,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: a story later on. I'm gonna tell you how I did.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: This is funny, but I didn't know it. Then fast
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: forward fifteen years later, I'm a drug addict bottomed out
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: tremendous story because you know, after Allman Brothers came Alice Cooper,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: my first four clients with Allman Brothers, Alice Cooper, Crosby Stills,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Nash and Young and George Harrison. I didn't know what
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: hit me. I'm twenty five years old and I look
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: up and I go, God, like, how did this happen?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I don't even know anything? And uh wait, I just
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: kind of lost my trend of thought. Where was I
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: you remember?
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you said that you had a story, but you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: didn't start what the story was. So I don't know. Okay,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: let's start with the Almond brothers. Okay, you get them.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: They have a deal. He's got Capricorn through Atlantic, Phil
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Walden whatever. There's no real success a little bit in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: seventy one without a Wild South. But until Phil more
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: East comes out right, the average person doesn't care about
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the all That brother No, no Colvin Brothers. It's a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: big crew, you know. It's not like it's one guy
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: with one air.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So they got to make a certain amount of money
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and per night. So how do you actually get those gigs?
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: You just oh, I know what I was going to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: tell you this story years later. Remember to come back
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: to this book mark. Okay, I get something bad years
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: later when I bottomed out on drugs. The first job
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I took and I bottomed out, my bottom has been
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: written about it in magazines. You know. I had gone
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: from Park Avenue to park Bench and my first job,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: a girl let me stay to her house. She said,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: my sister came up, which she says, Oh, I'm so
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: happy you clean now. But you know, you got to
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: like start living like a human. You go to work
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: at nine, you come home at five, you eat, you're tired,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: you go to bed, you first go out at midnight,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: come home anyway. So they see this ad energetic five
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: young salesman wanted to sell this new exciting product. Well,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: it turns out it was a company from the West Coast.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: They were all from the ghetto, uneducated high school guys.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: I was the only white guy there. I came in
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: a suit and thigh while I hear was yo this
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: and yo that. We were selling massage pillows, a twelve
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: inch by twelve inch plush, the Lure pillow, but with
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: a D battery. Now, the key was if you go
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: into a store with a big duffel bag because you
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: had to carry ten at a time, and say, excuse me,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: get out of here. Excuse get out of here. And
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I had experienced all that with the open excuse me,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: get out of here. And they gave you a pitch,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: and the key was if you could get close enough
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: to the person to put the pillow behind the back
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: and then you let them go back and you go, ah,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: doesn't that feel great? And I found out America has
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: stiff backs, and then I could sell. So the commission
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: was six dollars a day. If you sold four instead
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: of twenty four dollars, you got forty dollars. Let me
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: just tell you this. Six months later I was making
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars cash a week, which was seventy five
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars cash a month. This was in nineteen eighty five.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So you go figure it out. And I guess that
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: was part of the Almon brothers. How it was the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: same thing. It was the same same thing. You know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: somebody once said about me and my son Cassidy. I know,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: you know when somebody says no to you, guys, do
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: you hear no? Where do you go? Oh? Okay, thank you?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: And so you know that was the story and from
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the Almond brothers. So they became gigantic Phil Walden relied
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: on me a lot. He wouldn't make a decision actually
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: without me. And I was a calling guard. And the
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: next client up was Alice Cooper. And wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: A little bit slower. You're wet behind the years. Phil
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Walden has experience, but in the black business. Yeah, other
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: than literally getting the gig. What did you add why
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: would he not make a decision without you?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Well that came after a year or so, because he
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: saw the job I did. I mean, I did an
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: amazing job. I got them on great shows. I gave
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: him his three hundred days a year because he had,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: like you said, he had a lot of carrying costs.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: And on a personality level, you know, I was his
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: big city friend. You know.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, just for a second here tell us of Phil
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: wal did through. There's a lot of stories about Phil.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: What was your experience?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Well, my experience was amazing.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: It's almost like Bill Graham. If you ask Johnny put
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Out about Bill Graham and Phil Walden, you will only
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: hear positive stories. But ask a lot of other people,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: not necessarily the same. You know, I'll tell you one
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: little funny thing. This is a side thing, said Almond,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: brothers are moving on up now. A friend of mine
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: opened this shop from London with all these velvet clothes,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: you know, after the Beatles, everything, Carnemie Street. They moved
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to New York, and I was always that guy flashy,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: you know, even though agents were student ties, I never did.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And you know, the summer after I taught, After I taught,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: which was a year before, I don't know if I
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: sequentially gave you the teaching thing. I taught to stay
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: out of the Vietnam War, so I kept going to
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: all the schools.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, I you know, I don't remember teaching was an exemption. Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you stopped teaching. How did you get out of the war?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Very funny story. Thank you for asking me. So now
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I'm drafted. I am telling you, Bob, I'm feeling it now.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: The thought of putting on a gun and fighting and like,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: it's just not I never had that macho thing, you know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: guys like like that. I never I only once heard
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: a fist punch somebody and it gave me really the creeps.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: It just wasn't my thing. So now I'm drafted. Hello,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: mister Borell, you've been in the Selected service. Da da duh,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and please show up at Whitehall Street bring your toothbrush.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: You won't be going back, and they send you a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: token your pardon. The expression shitting in my pants is
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: not doing justice. And I remember going down that road
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: and two things. I remember that day, going God, if
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: you get me out of this, I will never lose
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: my temper again, because I had a bad temper. So
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I get there and I'm going through all the time.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Oh what I did is I was seeing a therapist.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Or no, I went to see a therapist because I
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: heard if you could get a note from a therapist,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: it could help to get you out. I mean remembering
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: your name. He's dealing with this. I said, can I
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: get a letter? I'll see you once a week. He goes, Hey,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: you know, I want to get new furniture for the
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: office and I just want to get rid of this
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: old furniture. Would you be interested in buying any of that? Oh? Yeah,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: so we did that. So now armed with a letter,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I didn't tell you the rest. I stayed up seven nights.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I wanted my face to be oily. I took diet pills,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: which I never took. So I stayed up for seven
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: days taking diet pills. My pores are wide open, my
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: eyes are I bugged out. I put on my crushed
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: velvet pants that I bought on Carnaby Street that I
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: went for the summer after I taught school. You don't
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: make money to school teacher, but you get the summers off.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I put on my wife and I bought high heel shoes,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: which were you know, the English that started to come in.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: And I wore my wife's crush velvet pants, high heels,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: my wife's lace panties. My eyes bugged out of my head,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: my skin so oily. I got a letter from the shrink. Okay, God, God,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: if God get me out of this place. So I
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: go there. I do everything, and then once said, I
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: show them the letter. And one test they give you
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: at the end. You go into a booth and they
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: put headphones on you and they give you a little
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: button depress. They said, just press it when you hear
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the tone. That tone got so loud. I thought I
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: thought like it was an arrow going through my ear.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: But I wasn't going to show them anything. I just
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: so with all of it. I wound up getting exempted. Lucky,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: and you want to hear a crazy punchline. I got
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: back to my house, I couldn't find my comb. I
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: lost my temper and I kicked in the television set.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: After I made the deal with God, get me out
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: of this sun, never lose Ah. Those were the days.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Those were the days. So I got out of it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: In the music business, Alman Brothers, Phil Alden, Bill Graham,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Oh Rolling Stones. So now it was just one band,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: and they weren't like you said. It took a few years,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: but I was starting to get respect, you know, I
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: was starting to get respect. And then along came Alice Cooper.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Before you get to Alice Cooper, you're building a band,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You're nobody other than the concept of trying to get
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: someone to pay for you. Is there any concept of
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: building the act and where they should play, or you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: strategy or it was just just get up a gig.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no. First of all, that's what
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I got known for, well at the beginning, is just
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: get him a gig, because I've ordered by Phil Walden.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: But no, Eventually I would tell you, and everybody that's
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: ever worked for me has learned or would tell you, No,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I always anything I did, I always knew the next
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: two jumps, always knew the next two jumps. I was
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: always planning about career. It was never about money, even
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: for me and I did quite well. It was never
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: about the money, and I never took jobs for the
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Almand Brothers or any bands just for the money. It
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: was always a career thing, always a career thing, and
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I'd rather play for Let's say, okay, it's time for
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: us to play Salt Lake City. Most agents would call
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: four promoters, Hi, I have Joe Schmoe band, give me
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: your best off of I didn't do that. I want
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: to play for Bob Lefset's. Hey Bob, I got the
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Almend Brothers. It's January fifteenth. I'd like you to play them.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: But I didn't play that game, and if you don't,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: somebody else will.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I chose the guy that I thought was right, and
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I always got a deal. And part of the reason
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: you might say, well, couldn't you have got some more money?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: That extra money never meant anything to me for their
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: career or for my pocket. It was always about what
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: was best for them. What was the promoter that thought
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: about careers? Bill being obviously one of them, and so
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: with that in mind, I'd say that was a piece
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: of my resume that got the respect of others. I
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: was a career agent. I was always thinking about the career.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: You know, if you do it, success and money come.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And so okay.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And then Phil and the band felt my sincerity, you know,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Greg Olman once it's funny country boy, Greg Olden. We
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: became really friendly. So they interview them one day and
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: they go, and what about your age? Johnny Putelli goes,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: never took a dollar that he didn't earn. That to
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: hit was the highest compl of it. You know what
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, This skinny little jew boy in New York.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: He never screwed me out of nothing. That was That
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: was Greggs. You know. That was my love and we
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: became my best friends. I love you, Johnny. It's funny
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: what means some things to different people right at different times.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: So you had to make it up as you go
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: because you haven't been booking anything before.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Oh I had never been trained, right. Yeah, that was
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: interesting and that's why you know my boyhood hero and
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I will have to talk about this at some point
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: in the interview Lifetime. Idol and marl accompasses Muhammad Ali,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: who came to my office. Can I segue for a second. Yeah, good,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: go for it, Okay, because I tend to You're going
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: to have to just.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Kill So that's good. That's good.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, So you're ready for the Oh, this is big.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: It's funny. Bob. We lasted on this phone call so
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: for twenty minutes and I'm just mentioning Mohammad Ali now shocking.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: So we all know the story. You've seen the movie
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Alley you're about, We're about peers. You live through it. No,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to Vietnam. They don't call me nigger
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: shot her around the world. He wouldn't step forward with
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: taken away your right to fight, with finding you ten
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars and you may go to prison for five years.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Knock on the door. Oh no. And by now I
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: was like hot not a real hot shot, but I
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: did have Alice by Now and the Allman Brothers and
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: I think Crosby Stills nashing younger George HOWERSI will circle back. Hello,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: mister Putell. My name is Bob oh And so like,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: oh my marry the most beautiful girl in New York.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: There wasn't a party that you didn't want. Johnny and
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Monica to go to Monica's Cassidy's dad mom, and all
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, so I've met everybody by now, because
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: even the Hollywood people, they all want to be go
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: to the rock and roll concert. It's funny the rock
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: and roll people don't necessarily want to meet the movies.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Everybody wants to meet the rock stars. And so, uh,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: mister Puddel, my name is Barb Aaram. Do you know
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: who I am? My new thought shake? I said, yes, sir,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: mister Aaron. What can I do for you? He said, well,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: you may have read in the paper. Oh, by the way,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: White America at that time, I think it was seventy
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: seven was not willing to call him Muhammad Ali. It
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: was only Cassius Clay, and they said, you may have
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: read about his troubles. He's lost up his right to fight.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: We have hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: We've heard about you and the magic you do, particularly
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: with Alice Coop took an act that everybody hated, and
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: now everybody loves them, and we're just wondering, can we
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: come up and see you? They come up and see me.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: This is important, Bob. I give him the spiel. Aaron
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: looks at Li Ali looks at Aaron. They go, we
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: got a deal, and I should tell you it is.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: When he came into my office, I stood up. I
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: don't want to mess up the salad and everything, and
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I go, Mohammed, it's so nice to meet you, Mohammed.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: This is such a pleasure. I've been following you since
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the Rome Olympics. You have no idea. I know every
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I know every quote. I've seen every fight, I know
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: every picture. He's find me like getting rid of my
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: hand by throwing bunches. And I said, before you leave, sir,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: So we had a deal. I said, before you leave,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I buy your whole stick. I'm so pretty. I'm the
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: most famous person in the world. I have the greatest
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I said, I buy it. What does it feel like
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: to be the most famous person in the world? What
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: does it feel like to be the greatest? And this
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: moment changed my life. With the panoramic sweep of a
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: hands across all my gold and platinum records and other trophies,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: he says, well, you obviously know what it's like to
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: be on top. And then he leaned in with that
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: voice and he goes but the measure of the man
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: is what do you do when you get knocked on
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: your ass? And that changed my life because so many times,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: due to my addiction, I was knocked on my ass
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and almost counted out. And there was one particular time
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: I woke up in like some crackhouse and I go
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I remember thinking, I can't go through this again. I
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: don't know what that meant. I don't think I entertained, Sue.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I just I just remember saying I can't go through
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: this again. And I wonder if those words got me
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: to stand up. And you know, Bob, I don't even
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: know you, but I can tell you. I can tell
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: you've already been knocked on your ass, and if you haven't,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: you will because we all do. And so even at
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: my grandson's zoom mitzvah, it was covid a zumans. But oh, congratulations,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: HU said, I want to wish you all the best,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: tire man, I said, I want to give you one lesson,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: and I told him the story and he has everything,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: and I said, but you will get knocked on your ass.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: That's what the measure of the man. And it changed
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: my life.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, how'd you get Alice Cooper, and when did you
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: get Alice Cooper?
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: This guy came in and instead of just cherry picking,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: he would buy my whole book. He said, let me
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: see who you got. A's Oh, Albert King, b Bobby Bluebland,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: see canteen, and he'd buy everything. And he introduced me
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: to cocaine. So I love seeing him. He committed twice
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: year he'd buy all the acts and he gave me
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: two lines of cocaine. And I really liked the guy
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: who was this Shep Gordon. Okay, so Shep does this
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: two or three times. I always look forward to it
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: because he buys all my and see acts. And then
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: one year, he says, and then I heard he managed
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the band that was the worst band that existed on
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: the planet. The name of the band was Alice Cooper
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and they had played CBGB's the week before and there
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: were only twelve people and the twelve people didn't even stay.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: They ran. So he's obviously working me, and I'm thinking, oh, please,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: don't ask me this to book your act. Please. At
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: the day comes, he said, you know I have this act.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: I said, ship please, I love you. We've become friends.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I look forward to the visits because he lived in Toronto.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I said, why would I want to sign this act?
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: People aren't just apathetic, they hate him. He says, I'll
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: give you one better. They run out. I said, I repeat,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: why would I want to represent any body like that?
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: He said, because you know, hate and love of the
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: same energy, they just opposite. Hate and love of the
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: same energy, opposite size, are the same coin. I need
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: somebody like you to take all that power energy of
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: hate at apathy and turn it into love. I always
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: tell people it's the equivalent of a fastball. Picture the
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: fast that that ball comes in if you hit it,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: the further it goes. And that was his philosophy. And
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: so still wasn't sold. I still wasn't sold at all.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And then his partner came to see me one day
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: and said, you know, they they wanted me to come
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: see Alice play in Detroit. And I remember going, no,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: I can't. I'm busy with you all my brothers, Like
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I thought that was a full time job. I said,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I can't go anywhere. So one day they invite me
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: in the street. Our office was on Park Avenue in
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: New York, and they kidnapped me and they kip Matt
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: meaded Detroit in a limousine and I get to Cobo Hall,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: fifteen thousand people. Stands are filled co headline, Steppenwolf and
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Alice Cooper. Fans are crazy. I've never seen anything like it.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: He's killing chickens, this feathers flying, this guillotines, He's wearing
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: high heels, he has eye makeup, he has a girl's name,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: and the crowd's going ape shit. You could not not
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: be impressed, even though there's the Almond Brothers, the purest
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: of the pure non theatrical bands, and he is the
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: band that's only about theatrics. As Bill Graham led has
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: said to me, you know I love you and I
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: love Monica. I have so much respect for you. With
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: the Almond Brothers and everything. How could you sign this
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: suck asspus shit, fuck every dirty word? He said, Johnny,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: how could you possibly anyway? And then I go backstage
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: after and I saw something that was also a phenomenon, groupies.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Holy shit. The band's like in a sold out house
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: and there's all these hot young things. I said, maybe
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: I should take an interest in this band, and I did.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: You're gonna ask next, where did I go from there.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: What Johnny thought is if they can do it in Detroit,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: why can't they do it in Toledo. It's thirty miles away.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: And if they could do it in Toledo, why can't
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: they do it at Akron twenty miles Pittsburgh. I said,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: that's what I did, and I did it very smart,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: if I do say so myself. In those days, bands
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: took off Christmas, you know, like most people. So I said,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: what a great time. There'll be a vacuum, and maybe
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I can get Alice booked in some of those cities.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: And there was a headliner there that really shouldn't have
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: been a headliner called blood Rock, and I talked their
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: agent into letting us be on the show because now
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: we had a Detroit buzz. And we made a deal
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: for seventy five hundred dollars and we would be special
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: guests and open the show. They liked the idea because
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: they weren't a strong headliner they could use support. Now
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: he is a move, then I think I'll put in
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: the memoir. I say, you know what, what if I
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: don't take the fee, I give it back to you.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: We played for free and we close the show. I said,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: you really couldn't go on after this anyway. The guy
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: said fine, and a headliner was born. I did it
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: over Christmas. I did it with Toledo Akron. I don't
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: know if we got the Cleveland, but it was those
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: four cities. And that's how that that's how Alice Cooper
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: became a headliner. And then you just spread the story.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: It's like the old Then you just spread. Then you
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: called the next down and you said, what was really funny?
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: It was three years later when I would still call
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: people about Alice Cooper and they go, but what is
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: she a folks singer? It took many, many years too,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, But Alice Cooper became a
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: worldwide phenomenon and I take a lot of pride in
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: my role in that.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, Phil was from the black music world. Chip was
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: not that experience. But Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, you
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: have two managers who've had a lot of experience. What
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: are they seeing you?
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Nothing? Very interesting, very insightful question. Crosby Stills, Nashing, Young
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: was doing a tour and they didn't want an agent.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Ellie Robertson, we don't need an agent, you know, an
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: agent sells we don't have to be sold. We can
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: call Bob Leftsits in Akron, Ohio, and say we have
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Cosby Stills there. Younger Bob would say, okay, how much.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: So Elliott Roberts said to Bill Graham, you promote the tour.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: He was the first one said we don't need agents.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: There was a Jerry Weintrop guy that existed. He didn't
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: use agents for Elvis Presley or John denver Well the
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Moody Blues. So he had set he was the agent's nightmare.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: But he had set that place. So Elliott, a very
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: shrewd guy, wanted not to do agents. Bill, a very
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: shrewd guy, said, if I take you, you're a man
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: without an agent, agents will Blacklestly he says, I won't
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: do it unless you have an agent. So he said.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: So they argued back and forth, and Bill, who by
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: now had become my friend, won the fight and I
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: became the agent.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: This is the seventy four to were.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: The seventy four tour, and I was so proud of that.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: It really I think in the history books, and I'm
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: not a historian, I think that was the first sold
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: out stadium tour. I think that was there was no
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: such thing before.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I think you know I saw him at the Nassau Coliseum.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that may have played stadiums in certain market.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, you're wrong, because the Nassau Day was
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: not at the coliseum. It's funny how I remember certain
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: things certain things I don't. It was somewhere and it
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: was outdoors. It was Crosby, Stills, Dash and Young, the
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Beach Boys and somebody. It was giant. Did you like
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: fifty thousand people?
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: You know. I'm sure that existed. It just wasn't a
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: gig I was at. But talking about the seventy four
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: tour when it was over, Bill Graham ran a very
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: high level of tour and the being complained like they
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: didn't make enough money.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, hold on, how do now you know? So
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: you're ready fast forward. I'm an agent that didn't go
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: on the road. I know you know a lot of agents.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you've interviewed a lot of agents. Agents work
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Monday to Friday and oftentimes go away on weekends. I'm
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: going to teach you something now, Bob. They go away
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: on weekends to get rid of their wife, be because
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: they're scored, scared of they don't go. Johnny Potell's gonna
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: come and sign it. That's why they go. I never did,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: By the way, I never did. This wasn't my life,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: it was my job, a career. So I am at
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: there's a club, So I didn't go. I went to
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: a couple of shows. So there was a club in
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: New York, very famous on the Upper East Side called JP's.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: It just became a hang. I remember going in the
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: bay doing naughty things with Billy Joel in the basement,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: and Axe would come after the show. So I remember
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: they had just played Cleveland, they had just sold out. Obviously,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: they had just made three hundred in eighty four thousand dollars.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: They see me, I go, hey, congratulations, guys, three hundred
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and eighty four thousand dollars, and it looks at me
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: go it should have been twenty thousand more. And I
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: remember thinking to myself, I didn't have the nerve to
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: say it. You guys have a lot of nerve for
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: guys with long hair, who just were born with the
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: ability to harmonize with each other and put some words together.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: And that's not enough. That's like a microcosm of behind
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: the scenes with rock stars. I mean I could. I
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: actually was shocked, but didn't have the audacity to go
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: back at them. I just said, Jesus crazy and yes,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: so they were never happy.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, how do you get so into drugs and crash out?
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say it wasn't easy, but it
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: was easy. So how did I do it? Well? I
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: had never done anything. I went to Forrest's High School.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Then I went to Bernard Brook School of Business, part
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: of the City College in New York. Then I went
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: to NYU. As I told you, I remember coming home.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: I lived in Queens till I was twenty three. I
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: was so straight, so green. I came home one night
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: and I said, Mom, these junkies at city colleges. What
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: do you mean? I said, somebody offered me marijuana. Well
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: it was a whispery thig, I said, somebody offered me marijuana,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: I said, the junkies in school. That's how green I was.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: I was twenty three years old, still living at home.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: I had never smoked a joint or anything. And so
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: what happened that set the table for guys coming to
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: my office and putting cocaine in front of me. Charlie
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Green managed doctor John actually my first client, I say,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: all my brothers, Alice Cooper, corollsby nashing young joege Harrison
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: because it has a nice cachet. First client, Doctor John.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Favorite client, Doctor John, because you know a lot of people,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: doctor John is an original. There will never be another
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Doctor John. Had his own language, had his own anything,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: the most colorful and very respected. As a musician, Mac
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Rebneck and uh and Charlie Green would come to the office.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Now I had this band that was signed to ABC.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Nobody wanted him. So Charlie says, oh, I got a
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: hot young agent. If I give him some blow, maybe
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: he'll work for me. So that's really it was up front.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: It was a wild frontier at that time, you know.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: And uh, And of course I became doctor John's agent,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: but so grateful. It's one of the proud things in
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: my resume. And so okay, so one thing leads to
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: another one thing. Now I'm starting to make more money.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: So now I'm making more money, I'm in a world
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: where there's this new economy that I credit Bill Graham
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: with really creating. And with this new economy came the
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: new ability to buy this expensive drug. And what I
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: liked about it because I never liked pot got me paranoid.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: What I liked about cocaine is that it didn't smell.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: You didn't have to spend time rolling it. You could
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: keep it in a little thing in your sock and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: nobody would know, and nobody would smell. And the also
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: way I justified to myself, Bob, you know where they
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: say cocaine the big lie. I wasn't hurting anybody. That's
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: how I told myself. And at that time, if you
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: remember the ads on TV, cocaine the big lie, it's
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: not addictive.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Well I proved them.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: I proved them wrong. I proved them wrong. So what happened.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I had more money. Now I'm traveling around the world.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: I got friendly with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. I
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: was in the inner circle. Nobody else was. Peter Grant
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: them manager bouncer or whatever. Put the other a band
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: with Jimmy Page and said let's make the biggest band
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: in the world. And he kept them private. Nobody got
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: in that world. This was his corporation and he didn't
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: let anybody in. As a matter of fact, I'll tell
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: you a story about the first time I met them.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Do you want to hear.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: One of the clients at ABC Booking was a jazz
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: act you may or may not know called Mango Santa Maria.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Sure okay, and he was managed by a guy named
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Jack Hook, formerly Jack Horwitz from Queens. Jack Hook was
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: in the inner circle of led Zeppelin. I'm probably speaking
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: out of schooler. I hope nobody gets angry. Jack Hook
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: had access to the holy grail of drugs. You know
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: what the holy grail was the pharmaceutical cocaine, Because cocaine
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: is a drug that everybody you know makes larger quantities
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: to make more profits by putting in whatever, making soda flour, this,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: that or the other thing, sugar of salt. Jack didn't
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: use it, but he had access to it, and that
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: gave him access led Zephelin. So Jackson my office one day,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: trying to hustle meat to get more Mango dates, and
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: he says, how would you like to meet Zeppelin? Well,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: like I said at the time, I was full of myself,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: but not that full of myself. So this you'll love.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: So we go backstage. How many backstage concerts have you
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: been at? Arena? As many packed right, hundreds of people?
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: You would think the band's only four people. They got catering, production,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: management agency, publicist, photographers. I mean, you name for a
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: band of four four people, how is there five hundred
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: people backstage? Went backstage to the garden, there wasn't one person.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: Was an empty basketball arena, rock and roll concert backstage,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: not one person. He didn't see production. This was the
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: way Peter Grant ran his thing tight ship. All of
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: a sudden, I see a guy walk off stage. There's
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: a drum solo going on at the end of the
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: hall and somebody putting a purple velvet cape over his shoulder.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Jack says Paige, I want you to meet somebody, and
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Page looks up and go, wow, this must be
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Johnny Budell. I have to tell you Pop. It was
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: one of the moments in my life when I was
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: like really, I said, holy shit, Jimmy Page knows my
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: name right right. We became really good friends. He would
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: never come to New York.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: They had their suites at the Plaza Hotel. They didn't
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: tour like most bands with their starship go from city
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: to city. They I mean, they live so luxuriously. They
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: would decorate their own suites at the Plaza, and they
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: would fly to Chicago and come back. It is so
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: expensive to gas and everything, instead of going Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: and whenever they came to New York. As the relationship evolved,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: we became Oh wait, I gotta tell you the funniest story.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: But as the relationship evolved, I would spend a lot
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: of time with Jimmy on the starship. But here's the
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: funny story. The night after I met Jimmy, my Dorman
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: rings up to my one bedroom apartment and he's fifty
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: sixth straight. Mister putell this fall limousines here and the
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: gentleman would like to see you something about led Zeppelin.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: I go, what what? I'm excited, I'm intimidated. I don't
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: know what the hell. I opened the door and there
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: were them and the road crew, and I had heard
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: the stories about wrecking hotel rooms, and I had reliving it.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: I had the presence of mind to say, gentlemen, what
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: a surprise. Thank you for coming. You're welcome, But before
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: you enter, I just want to say one thing to you.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Whatever you see here needs to stay here, in the
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: same shape here when you leave here. Do you understand?
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: And they all said yes, and they all came in
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: and that night Jimmy and Jimmy and Robert and Me
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: and Monica became really friends. And whenever they would come
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: to New York with all their fancy suits, first call
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Jimmy would be my house, come to my little one
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: betch of apartment, and it was a wonderful relationship. One night,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: we're on the Starship, just me and him and Monica
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: and the pilot co pilot and I guess a flight
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: hosts this or whatever they called him. And we're back
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: in the bedroom, circular bed, purple velvet cover, and there's
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: me and Jimmy Betty, and we're talking and we're obviously
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: getting buzzed. And the more we talk, the more we whisper,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: because that's what people that do drugs do. I hope
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: I'll get in trouble for this, And so we're leaning in.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: Jimmy is fascinated and only wants to talk to me
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: about my teaching career because I was into it. Bob,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: I was as good as I was an agent. You
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: have no idea what a great teacher I was. I mean,
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: I knew how him out of it and I love kids.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: He's this biggest rockstar on the role only wants to
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: know about me and the kids. And I kept saying
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: to him, and what is this thing called the tax
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: shelter that you guys have? Like I was so unsophisticated.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't come from a sophisticated finance background. And we
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: would sit there and of course we would do our
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: drug of choice, and you tend when you do that
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: to whisper. It's just the nature of it. And all
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: of a sudden the door opens with thirty five thousand
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: feet up and it's my wife, Monica, and he goes, Monica,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: come in and close the door. And I remember thinking
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: to myself, did he think there were cops thirty five
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: thousand feet up? Like? Why was he whispering and say
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: close the door? So we had him many many times
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: like that. They were exotic private planes led Zeppelin and
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: they were interesting and it was really a beautiful relationship.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Beautiful relationship, nothing funny about.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: It, Okay, But Frank Barcelona was the agent. Hey, he'll
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: be by Frank Barcelona. B How did he feel about
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: you being so tight with his band?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Well, Frank Barcelona had kind of a little I'm trying
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: to remember. Was Frank Barcelona led Zeppelin's agent or they
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: had no agent. I think they might have had an
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: agent at the beginning, but I didn't think in the
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: big time he was their agent. I think Jerry Weintraub,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: the guy from Chicago, became their promoter. No agent. He
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: was a fore run it's a live nation.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I knew Jerry had to know the story.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: I thought Frank was the you know, Okay, so by
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the time you knew Zeppelin, they were already working with Jerry.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I never worked with Zeppelin, I know.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, my friend, yes, So just tell me what
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: you thought of Frank Barcelona in any event relevant.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Well, Frank Barcelona I didn't really like. He was very
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: full of himself, very pompous. You know, he did have
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: every big act in the world. I remember once I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: came down the stairs of the garden. Then he looks
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: at me and he says, you know, I'm very annoyed
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: that you took a reduced commission on Crosby, Stills, Nash
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: and Young like he was the Pope. Like I care
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: that you're annoyed at me. I don't think so. But
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: he was in such a place that he felt like
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: he had the right to tell me that, Yes, I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: took a reduced commission with Elliot and Bill. They didn't
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: really want an agent. I was happy to do it
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: and grateful for the client. I didn't really love Frank,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: but totally respected him. I mean, you know, totally respected
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Frank Barcelona and what he built, but not my cup
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: of tea.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: And what about Jerry?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: I never met him, never met Jerry, and if I did,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: I don't remember.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let's go back to the original question. How
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: did you fold down the rabbit hole of drugs?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Okay? So it started and then the Almond brothers and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: they started using cocaine and we became friendly, meaning friendly.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: You know, Greg would come over to the house. Dwayne.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I'll never forget a Dwayne Almond story. We're at a hotel,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: I guess, here's nineteen seventy one, and he looks at
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: me and he goes podel Oh, he was going away
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: to a place. They didn't have what they call rehabs. Then,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: you know, they were really drunk tanks. Whatever wasn't so sophisticated.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: The recovery business, which, by the way, I'd like to
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: talk about because I now have launched the Botel mission,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: a mission of recovery.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: So let's we could talk about recovery. After we talk about.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: I'll give you from Park Avenue to park bench, absolutely
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: happy to do it. We became really friendly, so Greg
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: would come over and you know, again, at the time,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: we thought it was inch. Oh no, no, we thought
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: it was I started to tell you a Dwayne Ormond's story.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: So we're in a hotel. The word is Dwayne's leaving
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: to go away for a few weeks, which was the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: first time I had ever heard of that. And he
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: looked at me and he goes, but, well, you know
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: I am what you know why I'm not doing this shit? No,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: you know why I'm going away? I go why And
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: I was waiting to hear some corny story about all
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: life's tough on the road. Nobody said a very profound thing.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: He said, because I'm not doing it anymore. It's doing me.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: He goes away for thirty days. My phone rings in
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: the office. Now my personal relationship was with Greg. I mean,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: I knew all the band, but Greg was my buddy.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: Come over, Jane says, Dwayne Ormond's on the phone. No,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: we couldn't be, so I keep talking to you I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: don't pick up. Two minutes later, Dwayne Ormond's on again.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: I go, oh please, And a third time, shoes Johnny,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: it's Dwayne Ormond, he's pistol off. I think it's one
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: of my friends. I had friends that used to call
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: and say it was Elvis Presley, it was this. So
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: I get on, I go who is this? And he goes,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Dwayne Olmond, motherfucker, I pay your rent. I said, oh, sorry, sorry, Dwayne,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: what's happening? Welcome back? And he couldn't stay one day sober.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: He already asked me, do you know anybody who can
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: get these sleeping pills? Etcetera, etcetera. And you know he
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: died shortly thereafter. And I remember that call from Phil
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: walden Boy and the funeral and what was interesting on
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: a career point of view. So now the Allman brother
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: is going to be over. Who knew? So I said, look,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: we have two dates on the books. I can cancel them.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: One is Hofstruck College, Long Island, the other is Carnegie Home.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: Why don't we do this? I understand it's Dwayne. I
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: don't know how you continue, but if you're up for it,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: I am. Why don't you play Hofstra. It doesn't work,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: which it probably won't, we cancel Carnegie and if it works,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: let's see. So oh, what I should tell you a
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: little personal story. I had been living with the same
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: woman for three years, my ex wife, Monica, and I
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: had always said to her, you know, I love you,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: and I know your parents must be saying, why does
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: any marry you? And I said, I don't understand, like
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: I don't gain anything by marriage. Like I love you,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: I do anything for you, you love me. I just
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: don't see the benefit to me. Now they play Hofstra,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: they only know five songs on backstage, and they kill it.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: I have never went from tragedy to joy. Embulent is
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: that the word? Ebulant? Ecstatic? Giving each other five they
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: made it. They got a future. And I went home
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: and said, Monica, will you marry me?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that was a moment. But drugs played an
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: integral part in the band, as we all know, and
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: you know we alternated going to rehabs. What was interesting
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: is even though in my past I somehow was the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: stable one of all of us. I don't even know
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: how to explain it, but I was their rock when
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: I wasn't in rehab.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: So how long was this descent from shep with cocaine
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: until you fell off?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you. I'll tell you exactly. So that started
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: in like sixty nine seven day bye bye. Now I'm
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: making money. Now I opened my own office. I called
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: it BMF Enterprises. That I'd say that before. No, oh, okay,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: because so I'm working at ABC and now I got
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: I know, Crosby Stills, Nation Young and George Harrison are
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: just one time things. But at the moment my resume said,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: my resume said Alice Groupahlman, Brothers, Crosby Stills, Nashing, Jeorge Harrison.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: So I said, I'm going to leave, even though I
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: loved my boss at ABC. So I opened up a company.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: Alice had done an interview and at the end they said,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: and by the way, what's up with this agent of yours.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: He's more like a rock star than you are, stays
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: out all that, and he said, well, I can tell
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: you he's the baddest motherfucker that I've lived. Hence the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: name BMF Enterprises. And so the dissent. So now I
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: have the money. You can imagine how much money I
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: made that year with those tours et cetera, et cetera,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: and it was the thing at that time. It was
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: for people that could afford it. And so started when
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: with the first two lines sixty nine seventy and then
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: by seventy seven Problematic seventy eight I discovered Blondie became
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: their agent. Usage is getting more. Seventy eight I went
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: away to my first place. Phil Walden did an intervention
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: and he got with Chef Gordon. So the manager of
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: Almos got with the manager of Else. We love Johnny Podell.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: It was more than just an agent. I mean, it
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: was real love back and forth. And they said, listen, Johnny,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: you gotta go away. We love you. We'll put everything
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: on hold, it's all going to be waiting for you.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: We got a private plane. Please go, We love you.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: And it's really getting bad, and so off I went
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: to the Brawner's Psychiatric Institute in Smyrna, Georgia, where I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: stayed for twenty one days. It didn't take, and so
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: it just kept getting worse. It just kept getting worse,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: you know. I came back from there and I was
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: hiding the next day. I can imagine my wife visited
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: every day. They had such hope my little daughter. I mean,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: they all like, they were so supportive. And then I
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: come home and you know, the deal is waiting there
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: when Johnny comes much and home again, Urrah horrah. Two
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: years later, I wound up in another facility eighty and
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: then and because people liked me, kind of obnoxious to say,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: and I obviously did a good job. People stayed, they
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: waited for me. You know who would do that? You know,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: I think a they respected what I did. They're not
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: giving me charity, but I think they also really liked
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: me and cared for me and were rooting for me.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: And then eighty seventy eight, eighty Blondie and then and
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: then it just got bad. And then, as Dwayne put it,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: I wasn't doing it anymore. It was doing me. And
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: by nineteen eighty three, I think it was eighty three.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: I mean I crashed. I crashed hard. I fell. Oh
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: there's a big magazine story. You probably did research. Did
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: you ever read that? No?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, big story, fifteen pages in New York Magazine, The
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Rise and Fall of Blah Blah blah Johnny Putu. I
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: didn't want to get like this, but this is getting
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: to me. And somehow by the grace of God. Even
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: though my wife had kind of asked me to leave,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: and I mean she had two kids. She couldn't sync
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: with the ship. Loyal though to the very end, Loyal
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: through the rehabs, visiting me and everything, and the end
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: was bad. I didn't have a place to live. I
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: didn't have a business, I didn't have a career. I
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: didn't have any clients. I had no money. But now
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any friends. I burned through all them.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: Now I'm living in this little, crappy apartment, he said.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: And I would just wait every day to somebody to
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: come and bring me something. The only visitor I ever
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: had was Debbie Harry. She was really, really supportive. I
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: mean I was embarrassed to let her into this apartment.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: It was filthy, disgusting. You know. Monica, God bless her,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: the mother of Brittany and Cassidy. Monica would let me
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: talk to the kids. I would say, every night's fucked
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: up as I was, because by now there was some
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: heroin involved. It was sniffing, not shooting. And I'd call
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: every night. It's so funny.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: The other reason, Bob, I'm alive because I call every
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: night and we wouldn't make small talk. I just say Hi,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: can I say good night to the kids? Hi, guys,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: good night? I love you. I'll call you tomorrow. And
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: it was so important to me. You know, I've spent
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: a few overnights in jails, but somehow I'm a good salesman.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: I'd always be able to talk the cop into letting
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: me out of the holding tank. And I remember one
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: folk call well, I'd say, Hi, guys, it's dad. I
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: just want to call it the saga night. I love you,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: And then Monica picked up the phone she said, it's
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: the morning I hate you. Don't ever call us again.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: And the fact that we still have this relationship, and
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: me and my son Cassidy, who you know, I mean
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: torque one hundred times a day when we see each other,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: like we liplock and kiss for like twenty seconds on
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: the street. I'm so blessed, and I really am blessed.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: If Teddy Pendergrass hadn't taken the title, I would take
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: that title for my book, truly blessed.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, you crash out, you get a job selling the massagers,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: how do you ultimately get back in the music business?
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: Oh? Okay, thank you. Somebody came to me an agent,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: an agent of big bands. His name was Jackie Green.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: He was a big agent at one time and now
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: it's toward the end of his career, but he was
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: still holding on to the Duke Ellington's, etc. Etc. He said,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: I'm opening up a company. I'd love you to work
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: for me. I still believe in you. I said, no, no,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: I'm done with it. That book's closed. And then somebody
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: said to me, you know, I think you're just scared.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm not scared. I'll have to find something new.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: But I was scared, and I took a job we
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: had nobody. Fortunately, Chef was able because Alice had also
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: taken time out for bad behavior alcoholism, and Sheef gave
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: me Alice back. And then I signed the Beastie Boys,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: I signed the Red Eye Chili Peppers. There was one
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: there I forget and to come back, what's beginning. So
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: there were many there were many other ups and downs
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: and crashes, but I was always able to come back,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: and people always believe to me. So it says to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: me two things. I must be really good at what
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: I do. I must have a lot of integrity, And
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like it's all okay.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: So you crash that one big time, you crash these
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: other times. When do you give up drugs for good? Oh?
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the big crass. Okay, I'm gonna tell you
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: something I can truthfully say. I've been to Helen back twice.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a cute cliche. I always been that.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: I have been to hell and back twice. Once was
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: in like eighty three eighty four cocaine and you don't
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: even want to know how bad, how horrible, you know,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, and the other was and thank god,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: the final chapter was in twenty twelve. And then I
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: got clean through the program of AA very active. And
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: then starting in twenty ten, I was taking pills from
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: my back. Who knew, who knew? Within A guy did
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: surgery on my hand, Bob, and he said, I'm going
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: to give you a prescrip. I'll never forget this. It
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: was two weeks before the surgery. Surgery was December twenty ninth,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: twenty ten. Two weeks before he says, okay, so i'll
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: see you in two weeks. I'm giving you a prescription
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: now for percocet. And I said, excuse me, what part
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: of my resume, don't you know? I said, you give
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: me that prescription. I'll cash it on the way home,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: and I'll go down that hole again. I said, you
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: got a lot of nerve. You keep the prescription. I
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: called my AA sponsor and I said, Joe, do me
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: a favor.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: Tell him.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: Can you pick me up at the hospital. Can you
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: pick up the prescription? Can you take me home? Can
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: you fill the prescription? Can you deliver one pill every
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: four hours? He lived a mile and a half away.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: I said, I don't want them in my house, and
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: he said, of course, because that's what we do for
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: each other. But you know, the beast, as I call
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: my addiction, never dies. I'm guessing you know this by now.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: It purrs like a kitten. It goes in abeyance, but
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: it can strike it anytime. And if I had to
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: be an animator, when my beast, who had been purring
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: like a kitten for twenty years, tasted that first percoset,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: his eyes must have lit up like Okay games on Johnny.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: Within weeks, I was taking two hundred and fifty extra
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: strained pain bills a week. And that was the other
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: time I went down couldn't leave the house. Paranoid, psychotic.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: Cops are in every room. Horrible, horrible. This is saying
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I think
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: I might not wish this on my worst enemy. So
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: scared to leave the apartment. Okay, you're off drugs, damn you,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: bob Lef says I had to relive all this.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: Wait, I want to go a little deeper. You're off
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: drugs for a healthy period of time. Let's call that
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: an excess of a year. What is the attraction of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: drugs to go back? Then? The back thing is a
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: thing up to itself. But leaving out that injury, that surgery, whatever,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: why does someone you, you have a lot of expertise,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: go back.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I never went back to cocaine. By the way,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: I haven't had cocaine since when I say, in eighty
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: three or eighty four at the bottom that that never.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, So just so I understand, no cocaine since eighty three.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: You have this percocet thing in the twenty first century.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: Were there any crashes in between there?
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I went to a rehab in Okay, So if
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: it wasn't cocaine. What was it?
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: The pain meds? So what is the I'm very loyal.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: I'm very loyable. I don't sleep around.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of experience, so you can give
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: us insight. Yeah, what is the attraction of drugs?
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: Why do you do that? Well, different people have different things.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: Some children, some people come from an abused childhood. I
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: mean they have all this pain. All drugs and alcohol
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: are pain relievers. They you know, they are are mood changers. Oh,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: I can't really take this pain. I can't take this.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: I can't take this. Mood changers. And that's the attraction.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: Then there's the party attraction. They're fun psychedelics, they're fun
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: cocaine and limited usage can be fun. It's just when
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: you stop using them and they start using you that's
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: a whole other story. And when you don't know when
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: you're going to cross the line, that's the thing. Because
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: when you're twenty and maybe you remember, we think we're immortal,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: something's gonna happen to us, and next thing you know,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: you get caught up. But once you get clean thirty
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: days your body's clean, then you still have the mental addiction,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: but no more physical. Once you have that it's really
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: a matter of the tools you have and the treatment
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: you have and your spiritual condition. For me, everything changed
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: in twenty twelve because I went to my fifth and
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: final reab and I remember walking up those steps my
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: son brought me embarrassed, thinking, oh, how could I do
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: this again? What I put my kids through and everybody,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm walking up those steps place in Connecticut, and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: I knew I could get clean because they lock you up,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: and I was pretty sure I could stay clean because
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: I had so many years, so many times. But I
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: knew that this Johnny that you're meeting, energetic, joyful, fun loving,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: if that's your experience was done, I knew the rest
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: of my life I would, as they say in sports,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: play out the string as a grandpa. Oh hi, Johnny,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: it's Bob left Sis. I'm in town, wondering what you're
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: doing watching CNN and you go, yeah, but what else
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: you're doing?
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: Though?
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: I may go to the grocery. And that thought as
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: I walked up those steps, that that would be me,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: killed me, kill me, kills me, that the Johnny, your
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: meeting would be gone. Fortunately it wasn't, and I was
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: very blessed there because in addition to all the AA
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: stuff and the steps and the meetings and the therapy,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: I had a full on spiritual awakening.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: So what's your everyday life like right now?
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Like a normal person? And I get up? Get up?
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: Dog wakes me up. I want to kill him. Do
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: the kids wake me up? I have little kids now
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: and they live with me. They live with my ex
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: wife seemed to be ex wife. And meditate. First, brush
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: my teeth, pray coffee. The day begins, trying not to
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: look at my phone for at least an hour. Very lucky.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: At the house we live upstate, I can see the
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: sun rise and the sunset, so I spend time there
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: when the kids are not with me, and then I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: go about my day. But I just try to set myself.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: I was taught meditation by Bob Roth, the executive director
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: of the David Lynch Foundation, and they teach TM and
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: that's where I learned. And yeah, and at this place
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: I went. On the third day, a guy came in
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: and said because I had never meditated before twenty twelve.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: And guy came and said, Hi, I'm a volunteer. I'd
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: like to teach you to meditate. And I'm thinking I'll
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: give me a break. Derek Jeter is up at bat.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: I want to watch the game.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, So all the people from the old days, a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: lot of them are no longer with us. Yeah, but
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: do you still have contact with them, like Jimmy Page.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: Uh no, not so much. My my friendship morphed into
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: a friendship with Robert Plant. That's really funny. That lasted. No,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: when I see Jimmy very cordial. When I see Robert,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: very cordial. But no, we're not on a regular, a
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: regular basis. But nothing just drifted the way.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: About how about how about the business people you worked with,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: the other agents managers.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not an agent anymore. I stopped.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say is have you moved on
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: to another chapter or do you still maintain tectacles to
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: the passage?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I still have tentacles. I mean, do you
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: know who Tedesky Trucks Band is? Yeah? Sure, Okay, So
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: they're playing ten Days at the Beag and I changed
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: their life ten years ago, and I gave them some
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: career advice and we've been buddies because Derek was the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: nephew of the drummer and the Alma others. So we've known,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: and I've been to the house so many times. I
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: had a dog said hey board a dog. Susan called me, yesday,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: when do you come?
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: And we love you?
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: And so yes some Steven Tyler and I yes, you
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: know if they've written a lot of Arrowsmith books and
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of Steven Tyler. But I think it's the
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: book called Walk This Way. The second chapter is called
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: Johnny Podell. Our birthday is over within twenty four hours
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: of each other. Similar love him, love him, love him,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: only you know. But I don't have a lot of those.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of those, and that's fine,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: that's fine. I have moved on, meaning I have moved on.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: I don't go to a lot of concerts, but I
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: will go. I would always go see the Rolling Stones, etc.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: But I've moved on now because another quote Muhammad Ali
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: told me. But he told the world his service to
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: others is our rent for being on the planet. And
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: when I left on March on April, I went into
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: the rate of March twenty twenty twelve. When I came
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: out April twenty, I said the rest of my life
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: would be to serve. And that's currently what I'm doing,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: doing the best I can.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, Johnny, this has been an amazing journey. I want
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: to thank you for sharing it with my audience.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: You, Moll the Mouk. I'm nice meeting you. Hope he
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: gets hope you can make something out of it. I
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: know it's been disjointed.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: Till next time. This is Bob left sets