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Chrysler Dodge Jeb Braham. It's Bilified the Bill Moran Podcast. Well, hello
and welcome. Thanks for getting your pot on. Thanks for telling a friend.
That's how we spread the word about the pirate ship. I'm very excited
today because Arnie Rothschild has agreed to come in for a one on one.
And I was looking up Arnie just online just to see how you're described these
days. Why would you see, o, dear, it has strategists and
consultant at Arnie Rothschild Political Consulting. Then there's another thing that says, Arnie
Rothschild is the current chairman and CEO of the Rochester Broadway Theater League, which
really has been a project of yours and you've spearheaded for many years. Arnie
was previously the owner of Arnie Rothschild Political Consulting and Rochester Broadway Theater League.
Did you own the Rochester Okay? I always asked, yeah, five oh
one C three That's what I thought. Yeah. Uh. And then it
says president CEO of Normal Communications and Growth Marketing of New York political strategist,
board chair at RBTL. How would you describe yourself today? Oldest? You
know, when you when you have all those things describing you. You've got
to be elderly, Okay, all right, I wouldn't say elderly. I
think that there's a lot of energy and youthfulness there, right, appreciate.
No, Well, you've got to be sharp to be in charge of all
these different things. The I don't know about sharp, but you have to
be you know, probably delusional. I think that's probably a better word.
Where does it all begin for you? Where? Where? Where did you
grow up? What did your parents do? So? And actually this is
kind of a fun story in terms of of the Rochester Broadway Theater League.
So, okay, I grew up in Syracuse. Okay, my dad was
a boxing promoter. I remember you saying this. That's why I wanted to
ask. My dad was a boxing promoter who promoted the first title fight in
Las Vegas in nineteen sixty one. That's amazing. Yeah. He also when
there was a fighter that ended up living in Rochester named Carmen Basilio, and
uh in my dad's promotion punch every time I saw him. Yeah, I
know, he was great. And I grew up you know, around Carmen
at the Main Street Gym in Syracuse, New York. But but my dad
was a boxing promoter and my mother was a vaudeville tap dancer. Really so
so part of the allure, if you will, of urd BTL is,
you know, my dad's promotion mindset and my mother's tap dancing. Yeah,
yeahs strange. Did she do vaudeville in Syracuse? She did vaudeville around New
York State, around New York State. Yeah, because and because her real
name was Adel Levitts. Her her stage name was Maxine Reynolds. So Ada
Levits dodn't sound like a tap dancer, no, right now, it doesn't,
right? And so did you learn any of these things? Did?
Did you tap as a child? Did you play piano? Sadly? My
mother made me go to tap lesson sure, as a guy. But then
you look get older and you think what a cool skill to have? Well,
and and it would have been cooler if I didn't, you know,
just lay down on the floor all the time because I hated it, and
so I got I got dishonorably discharged from from tap. Then she wanted me
to play the accordion. I have no idea why, but the and and
then I traveled out with my dad when he was promoting fights. Yeah,
so were you at that first fight in Vegas in nineteen sixty one? I
was not. I was. I was when Carmen Vasilio fought Jean Fulmer,
which probably about nineteen fifty eight fifty nine in Salt Lake City, which was
the second time they they fought. Okay, I was in Salt Lake for
the summer and and I and then my dad also promoted the first co promoter
the first title fight in Nigeria, which was was Gene Former who was a
middleweight champion, fought a Nigerian fighter named Dick Tiger whose real name was Ahidi
I had you but the uh and and that was in I believe Ligos.
Wow. So I wouldn't even begin to think like overseas fighting, especially Africa,
right, I just you know the well, you know the although Ali
fought George Foreman in Africa. But but you know, so we're talking about
in the late in the fifties and early sixties was when my dad was really
active. Yeah, and that was sort of a prime time for boxing.
It was there was something called the International Boxing Club. They and the International
Boxing Club held the television contract and there was there was Wednesday Night fights.
There were Friday night fights that then moved to Saturday night, but the IBC
International Boxing Club owned by a very wealthy guy from Chicago named James Norris.
The fights came from Madison Square Garden or Saint Nick's Arena, Okay, Chicago
or Syracuse, those were the locals. Wow, I wouldn't have thought Syracuse.
I knew Madison Square Garden. And my grandfather was loved boxing, you
know, when I was a kid, he was a big boxer. He
was supposed to be in the Olympics. Was sprinting down at Madison Square Garden
and tripped over a reporter's knee who was taking pictures and had ribs break and
puncture his lung and actually his heart floated. But they didn't realize that he
had the punctured lung for a while, so that, you know, cause
all kinds of infections and things and prevented him from going any further in that.
But and then after that, was very very cautious with my dad and
my uncle in terms of sports, was very afraid of them getting hurt.
So the only sport they really did was swimming because it was less likely to
get hurt. Me he could drown. But if you could swim, you're
alright, right, and there's less there's less injury in that in that sport,
unless you're Riley Gaines and you run into Leah Thomas and you can get
hurt. Very good art, very good. So then from in Syracuse,
is that where the radio career begins for you? Do you go to uh
Syracuse University? I don't know. I went. I went to a small
college in Iowa called Parsons really in Fairfield, Iowa. What what What was
the attraction to Iowa? I wanted to play baseball, Okay, and it
was it was actually a college with very lucid mission standards, which I needed
at that stage in my life. The U and but but and then when
I went back to Syracuse, I started working in radio, then moved to
television, okay, and then I left the business for about ten years to
help my dad open a car dealership in Fulton, New York. And then
I went back to radio at ws YR in Syracuse, and then came Most
people don't even know I worked in radio, by the way, which is
really funny. In Rochester people, Yeah, people know me from OURBTL,
but they don't know that I ever really was in eloped in the broadcasting business.
Yeah, that is that is very interesting. So were you what was
the attraction baseball in Iowa what we think field of dreams and that and that
whole thing there. Did you were you looking to play possibly professionally semi pro
Oh everybody that yeah, everybody that thinks they can play at that level.
Yeah, you know, their aspiration is to play in the major leagues.
Did you get a look from anybody at any point? I got a yeah,
yeah. But but the but I caught a guy named Charlie Williams who
the New York Mets signed. And then Charlie was the the New York Met
that got traded to San Francisco to bring Willie Mays back to New York to
finish his career. Wow. And then Charlie uh became a New York City
cab driver. That's amazing and then passed away. Yeah. Now, so
when you say you were a catcher, I was, yeah, and that's
one of the toughest positions I think on the on the baseball field. It
was the way I played it. Yeah, I always think it really,
I mean, you're squatting down that entire time wearing all that gear, you
got to see what's happening on in all aspects of the field. If you
can see something, you can kind of tell the other players in terms of
batting stance and being able to read those guys. You know, I've been
watching I don't watch baseball very much, but I watched how much the position
of catcher has changed. Yeah, you know that because the catcher used to
be essentially the quarterback. That's the way I saw it. Yeah, and
you call it cutoffs and you position people, but that's really not the you
know, the dugout kind of overwhelms things now. And the other thing is
I wish that I had the equipment that catchers where today, because did you
have the throat guard then or no? He didn't know. I got hit
in the throat with a foul ball one day immediately after I broke two fingers.
I broke two fingers at the beginning of the ending. Then I got
hit in the throat by a follow tip later in the ning. Yeah,
that's one of the hard I mean, that really is the position where you're
the most contact of the ball. Right, But besides the picture throwing and
he's hopefully not going to injure himself in any way, and then you were
catching what hundred eight? Yeah, not, you know, not not in
my era. People didn't throw with that loss and he the I marvel at.
I mean, the game has changed so much. You know, I
said to someone recently that I couldn't even hit in today's environment. That you
know, the hitting technique has changed so much that it's all about trajectory now
and that old Charlie Low kind of breakaway with your trailing arm stuff. But
so that that's so I went. I went to college to do that.
Uh, played two years. Then when I stopped playing, I went to
work for a college radio station and started doing color in baseball and then became
it became a play by play guy in football, in basketball really, and
then I went to I went. So we were at college station, and
you know, you would know the term carrier current, but others won't carrier
current stations weren't over the air. They came through you know, electricity in
the building. Yeah, and the so I went to the town station and
said I wanted to put my game broadcast basketball on the town station, which
was an ABC daytimer. Uh. The the general manager slash owner told me
I could do that if I sold the commercials. So I went out and
sold commercials to put my broadcasts on, and then came out at school and
went to work for an FM network, then moved to television. Yeah,
that's uh interesting that the hustle, right, I mean, I feel like
in a way, for a while, it was guys on the air were
also selling. Oh yeah, I was. I was gonna do mornings at
w R and Y and run New York and sell Yeah, And that was
that was kind of the way it was done. And then it became over
the years. When I started in radio sales for the Pariah, you didn't
want to talk to them, and it was, you know, everybody got
on the air was doctor Johnny Fever and the cool guys, and that's who
you wanted to hang out with. And as I got further and further into
the business, I went, this is a this is the wrong philosophy here.
You gotta have a kind of a collaboration and the on air talent should
be at least part of the sales process rather the when I was at ws
YR, it was you were absolutely at arm's length with the on air folks.
Yeah, and one day, the sports director who shall remain nameless,
came to my cubicle at the time and he said, you know, for
the last twelve years I've gone to Indianapolis five hundred. They told me I
can't go this year unless all the commercials are sold. So I but two
days sold all the commercials, half of them to the che Chevy Dealer group.
And he came to my cubicle and he said, thanks very much.
Tell me what I can do for you. I said, bring me back
a program from the Indianapolis five hundred. So he went to the race.
He came back and he came to my Q bole and he said, hey,
listen, thanks again, here's your program. And I said, thank
you. He said, that'll be three dollars. Why they charged me three
dollars for the program? Kidding, No, I'm not. It's a true
story, but so he really charged me. But the uh, that's that's
that's out there there. You would meet some people like that, and radio
had the weirdest like as you got in and and and a lot of I
remember starting out in Poughkeepsie at w e OK and the first guy that I
worked for, uh, he just did the the AM and he was great,
but just a strange guy and sort of the same thing. But so
and I love uh Poughkeepsie. Yeah, I love the area. And w
KIP was where Franklin Roosevelt did the fireside chats. Yes it is, but
the but but it was funny because on the hundredth anniversary of Wham, one
of the on air folks, Joel Monico, came over and did an interview
with me. And I said to him afterwards, you know, most people
in Rochester don't even know I worked in radio, And he said, because
it's been twenty five years. And I went, Dam, I had no
sense of that, you know, but but you know I was. I
was fortunate because I was at I came here with Wham Radio, which at
the time was what we called an Mr. Middle of the road personality music
station where we played Andy Williams about every seven minutes in the and but we
were part of the I think the best Am turnaround that's probably ever been done.
Yeah. And then and then I was, you know, as I
got promoted through the company. Uh. Then we had a country station in
northeast Ohio that just exploded. We just you know, in beginning in about
nineteen ninety one. I think when when Garth Brooks started to change country music
and the so I was. I was involved with two great radio station turnarounds,
which were incredible fun for me. And you were what in what capacity?
Vice president of sales general man? Yeah, I was vice president of
sales for the company for them, and then yeah, well I got first
I got promoted over Rochester, then Rochester and Buffalo, then the company.
Then I got into what in the industry is called a sweat equity ownership position.
And then when the regulation came, we started selling the stations. So
when the Telecom Act passed. But and it's funny because it was my being
at Wham and the Rochester stations that led to my going on the board of
the Broadway Theater League. Yeah. Broadway Theater League was a struggling arts group.
Owed a lot of money to the to the properties, and it was
the kind of kind of board that I would call an arts headed board,
you know, where there were a lot of people that cared about the arts
and the company was upside down several hundred thousand dollars And the first board meeting
I was in was three hours arguing about a four color brochure, which another
new board member and I called the meeting to rearrange the deck chairs on the
Titanic because they had no sense that they they were going to go out of
business if they didn't do something differently. And and then, I don't know,
a year and a half or two years later, suddenly I was the
chairman. And so now for thirty one years, i've been under thirty one
years, well, thirty one years twenty nine as board chair. The last
seven also is or eight as CEO. So just let's go with the RBTL.
Then now staying at the Auditorium theater, callowing that their headquarter. I
always thought that was just such a beautiful theater. It is. But the
problem was, and I intentionally said, was that there's there's two thousand,
four hundred and sixty four seats there. And our concern was that with the
ever increasing cost of Broadway productions, that if we didn't have twenty eight hundred
and fifty seats to three thousand seats, that the cost of tickets would be
prohibitive. And fortunately, post COVID, the industry change their pricing model to
something that they're calling dynamic pricing, which is in no small part what airlines
do. As demand increases and sellout increases, ticket price moves up. So
now that the essentially twenty five hundred theater will work, where before we thought
we had to build new, Yes, And that was the impetus to begin
to look at the acquisition of the rest of the complex and in that complex,
because we only owned the theater, so the auditorium rest of the complex
house twelve churches at the time, there are old ritual rooms. This was
the Masonic headquarters of the Northeast and there are some amazing rooms in there.
So currently there are four other stages that we can restore and I'm using the
word to restore intentionally as opposed to renovate, because we want to bring it
back to what its glory of nineteen thirty and And how what's the capacity in
those rooms, Well, they range from five hundred and thirty yeah, down
to one hundred, all different sizes. Now a performing arts center and its
purest use is a multi stage. Then you housed within a complex, and
the stages are of different size and different dimensions, so you can do different
kinds of things. So the and along along with the acquisition of the other
side of the building, which happened in March. We also acquired all the
parking lots behind, and then we bought a parking lot on the east side
of the building from the armory was across the street. And so now between
that, between our spaces that we own and a joint venture we've done with
Pike Construction right next door, we can accommodate over five hundred cars, which
solves a lot of the parking hills of the venue. Yeah, so you've
got the parking issue. And then you sold the naming rights, yeah,
which I think was a big deal, right. I mean that's especially when
I heard your opening and so there was so the with with Victor, right,
So yeah, we sold that. We sold on that as well.
So we sold the the naming rights to west her Automotive and west her Is
has thirty nine dealerships. They are the largest dealer group in New York State
now and the and we announced that a week ago. And it's a great
partnership because the CEO and majority holder is a man named Scott Bielder, who
whose sense of what we want to do with this building and what it can
mean for Rochester made it one of the easiest transactions I've ever been involved in.
Good about the third third meeting with this man. This is an extremely
honorable guy. And after the third meeting, I said to our folks,
you know I would do this deal with with him without a contract. You
know, this is the kind of guy you can you can do things on
a on a handshake. He's a very honorable guy. Uh. Jay Vanderstein,
by the way, Rochester Arian, it was Vanderstein. Toyota is the
person that that introduced us to Scott and and Jay had a had a strong
sense of what the auditorium could be and is. The auditorium is a little
unusual because you know, the it's it's a venue that the entire community embraces,
you know, the from the suburban community to the urban community. The
schools do graduations there, you know, so it's a it's it's really a
wide range of use kind of venue and all we can do now it's one
that many people are familiar with two, which which makes that a little more
reckonable. You know, when you deal with the arts, arts people seem
to have a different head than a business head, where you know, you
come in and seem to have that at a little both a foot in each
side in terms of even you know, you recognize talent radio wise, you
were able to sell that bringing the business knowledge to that. I think it's
amazing that they're very lucky to have you and have that. I appreciate that,
you know. The The interesting thing is that my greatest critics have been
you know, the traditional arts folks, and because for a couple of reasons,
not the least of which is I was saying something they didn't want to
hear, and it was well intended, and if I had it to do
all over again, I probably would have softened how I was saying this.
But what I kept saying to people was, first of all, government's not
going to subsidize the arts. They're there are too many other government priorities.
We're not going to subsidize the arts. And if your business model relies on
that, your shelf dated. And so unless you get into the realities of
of what you need to do to survive. You know, it's a business.
You know, you may love it, you recognize what it does for
a community, but but it is not going to be the role of government
to subsidize the arts. Now they can do tax incentive programs to do things
like get shows ready to go to the road, or movie tax credit programs
or but but in terms of operating dollars, it really it's going to be
very, very difficult for arts organizations. And you know, when you are
when you are the proponent of change and you're you're telling people that things are
going to change, that they don't want to hear are going to change,
you open yourself up your criticism. But that's okay because you know, in
no small part, I'm not sure what a calling is Bill, you know,
you know, but I'm not a theater guy, and historically I haven't
cared about going to the performances. I could stand in the lobby for hours
and watch people love it. But from the time I began to look at
the business model of what this had to be for people to survive in the
performing presenting entities, and I looked at the the aggregate of the arts as
kind of like college football team and basketball team allowed the fencing team, the
swimming team, the smaller and and the So we are in no small part,
by the way, give you another example. When Fantom of the Opera
came to Rochester, it was it was the a lot of people's first exposure
to anything opredic, and that gave birth to three tenors, and then three
tenors gave birth to a growth and opera. So we're kind of a point
of entry with a lot of the touring Broadway stuff. But it's going to
allow a lot of the other arts organizations to prosper because a rising tide does
in fact lift all boats, and when people are used to coming back downtown
and when they now would be able to accommodate smaller entertainment events and more diverse
entertainment events and do it in a cost effective way in the venue that we're
going to bring in it that no, Dad, it's going to help the
entire arts organization. Do I understand that? For a long time I was
a voice they didn't want to hear. I absolutely understand it. And by
the way, so I was watching comments on Facebook when we did the announcement
and someone said a Buffalo automobile dealership group and I wrote back, that employs
one thousand people in Rochester, and he wrote back, there should never be
a name on a the it or to which I wrote back, and if
you ran an arts group, how would you keep it in business. Give
me your plan. Yeah, because the truth it's very easy to criticize something
and it's very hard to execute it. I agree that is absolutely true.
Where does all this come from? I mean you were also a political consultant
and strategists and all that. So you've done many different things, but all
in the same vein of guiding people to reach their goals or their dreams.
Right, we want to keep theater. I think a vibrant city needs arts.
A vibrant city needs an arts community. It really does. And so
you've been able to keep that afloat. When you look at political strategists and
things, I mean, you're helping people get their message out. You help
people. Did you ever think of yourself that way as really helping people?
I know you said you don't know what a calling is, but you've been
able to help people get their message across, whether it was sales and radio,
possibly helping talent, you know, figure out how to say or communicate
more effectively. Doing all that, do you ever realize that when when I'm
just I'm putting that together as we speak, but I'm seeing kind of a
common thread throughout Arnie's career here you know, the first of all, with
OURBTL, I think I get way too much credit we have. You know,
there's a sounds like you get a lot of the criticisms. But that's
okay, that's that partly okay. So there's a really amazing guy named John
Parker's who knows more about about about everything in the business than anybody that I've
ever met, along with the person who is as knowledgeable named Linda Glosser,
who books a lot of the shows. John's our chief operating officer, Linda's
our executive vice president. We have a great Broadway producer partner and Albert Nachelino,
who who who's a seven time Tony Award winner. And we've got a
great young staff. You know. The one of the advantages in having gone
to Dumb Guy College is that I have to simplify concepts. So even in
my message in my political messaging strategy, or I do Batavia Downs Gamings messaging
and you know the Palmer family of companies. The I think that if I
can take something that's kind of complex and simplify it. You know, we
were talking about earlier about Franklin Roosevelt and w KIP Radio, so Franklin Roosevelt
knew that the United States wasn't ready to go into World War two, that
we didn't have the productive capability, you know that had to become ability,
and he had to buy time, and so he decided he could arm Britain.
But it was kind of a complex concept. So we went on w
KIP radio and he said, if your neighbor's house is on fire and you
have a hose, you loan it to your neighbor until the fire is extinguished,
at which time you expect the hose back or payment and kind with that,
which became len Lee. He armed Britain with that that simple explanation.
So one of the things that I hopefully can do in politics or for our
BTL or is take something that is somewhat complex and make it logical and simple
for people. I always think you had to make it like the iPhone.
You have to make things intuitive. Yeah, you know, I mean,
I think they dropped off, or at least I've read somewhere the iPad in
the middle of nowhere, Africa, and the hardest thing to do was to
figure out how to turn it on. After that, it was all intuitive
and people could figure it out and I think that that you know, with
messaging and anything, you need to make things user friendly. And in the
case of so during the press conference, I said something that that is absolutely
true. First of all, understand that Rochester, New York is the only
major city in New York State that doesn't have a state office building. That
Rochester, New York has not had a performing arts because back in the day
expression that I find interesting. But back in the day, it's the reason
that Thruway doesn't come up towards Rochester because what was called smugtown just thought they
were they didn't need anybody that Between Eastman, Kodak, Xerox, and Bauschan
Laum, everything got built because of those companies and they're officializing them. And
so people at my age or your age that should have been doing major capital
deals in a community didn't have to, and so the skill set wasn't there.
Well, we're in a different period of time and today, so it's
not going to be Kodak, Zerox or Bausch that are going to help us
do anything. And you know, so Buffalo is a great professional sports town
and they have great venues, and Syracuse is a great college sports town with
a great venue used to be called a Carrier dome, and Rochester is a
great music, entertainment and theater town with the dearth of the right venues.
So that's what we need. Yeah, it's interesting when you look at all
this stuff, you know, when you look at the arts or just entertainment,
politics, radio, all that, things have really changed a lot over
the years. But yet the messaging should stay the same. And it's a
form of communication, it's a form of entertainment, and we complicate this stuff,
you know. Do you think when you look at you had a long
career in radio, you were part of a group that owned in multiple markets
and things. But I wonder as I look at the like just the radio
model coming back to the local level, I think you start to see things
I think that would you know. I'll hear people in the business say radio
is dead, and I always think, no, it's not. I disagree
with that. I think that on the local level, you know, to
promote your local arts and to be able to talk about have a voice for
your local politicians. Bring it back to where almost a version of the fireside
chat, let's hear our account executive come on and be interviewed somewhere and have
one of them. And there seems to be with these big conglomerates now that
own so many and having been part of that myself, I mean, look,
I was on eighty stations around the country, right, it was one
voice you heard everywhere. My kids live in Athens, Alabama. I was
on in Huntsville. I mean, I've never been to Huntsville, you know.
And I think that that sort of stuff really hurts the community in a
wet in a way that when we talk about the strength of community with arts
and and even local politicians people, you can see people who can be the
voice right and connect. I think coming back to that smaller stuff is the
way the future will go. I think. I don't know. So that's
proof of your theory. Yeah, is that small market radio is very healthy,
Yeah, I believe. And in small market radio they do very local
you know, like rido obituaries on the air, talking about garage sales or
Yeah. And the more local radio station is the better. So back when
we made the the change from music on WHAM, and you know what what
we decided to do was we decided to be first a breaking news station and
secondly, we wanted to be the station that everybody relied on for accurate weather
forecasts and storm warnings, and that was our point of entry. So and
what I used to say to people back in that period of time was think
of FM as a mall, and people wander around the mall and they look
in the windows. But think of AM as being like the old Hicky Freeman
factory store. You have to leave the mall to drive to that store.
Once you find out what's in the store, you may love it and want
to be there, you know, all the time, but you have to
get them out of the mall. So, you know, part of the
marketing challenge was getting people out of the mall to sample that radio station.
And then and then we had an ice storm. You know, we were
the weather station, and then we had an ice storm and everything exploded.
But and and that goes back to the same thing that we talked about earlier
with the role of touring Broadway. You got to get somebody to sample something
and then you can move them to other things. One of the most amazing
things about Hamilton about the show Hamilton's was the impact on teens who knew every
word of the of the song and they probably learned more American history about the
revolutionary period of time by seeing that show than they were learning in class.
And then in class, if they circle back to it, they go,
yeah, well, here's what happened when Washington had to split his force and
abandoned Kipp's Bay and moved towards Harlem. You know, I mean, it's
just like the so part of that we can entertain and educate at the same
time. And Rock had that, you know what I mean, And you're
absolutely right because one of the things we don't I think we don't do is
meet kids where they are. Yeah, this education system and that show was
was amazing. I would also tell you, by the way, that there
is a show in this season's lineup, which is a great lineup, but
there's a show about the Temptations called at two Proud Now. I was in
Buffalo the day of the top shooting. I was in the Chaise in Buffalo
seeing that show and it is an amazing show to begin with. H and
right before intermission my phone exploded because of the shooting, and then a swat
team had to secure the backstage because it's an all black cast and no one
knew if there were multiple Shooters. So here you are sitting in a theater
thinking, well, this is not a place I want to be right now,
you know. But the but when people have an opportunity to see that
show. The reason I say that is that music has transcend It transcends age.
So there's gonna be a lot of kids in high school who knew a
ton of Temptations songs, right And and by the way, I didn't know
this till I saw the show that there are twenty four different members of the
Temptations over the years. I didn't know that either. Yeah, I remember,
so I was such a radio file. But I kept that to myself
because it wasn't cool. I didn't think and I never shared that really with
my friends. But there was a morning team in Los Angeles called Mark and
Brian, and Mark and Brian got an NVC deal and it was really short
lived, but it was the Adventures of Mark and Brian. And I was
so excited because I was going to sit down and watch this show. I
had to be in maybe seventh or eighth grade. And one of the first
things they did was try out to be members of the Temptations, and they
went through the dancing and the singing and the whole thing. There's got to
be something on YouTube about that. And right after I was like, man,
that music's great. I hadn't, you know, I had never really
heard that. And my parents were strange at best when I look back at
things, because there wasn't a whole lot of music and stuff. But my
dad loved theater and my sister was all the leads and musicals, and growing
up ninety miles outside of Manhattan, we had people who came in from Broadway
to direct the high school musicals. The one guy had was written up in
the New York Times for having the most death defying feet in cats. I
guess he jumped and did some flip off on Broadway for years, and he
and his wife directed a couple of musicals up there, and my sister had
the lead and my father was in so there was always music like that in
there. But other than that, it was Janis Joplin and Simon and Garfunkel
and maybe a little Willie Nelson and I Love The Stones and the Grateful Dead,
and I don't know, so it was not as much as much exposure,
but you were exposed to the arts and things. I'm trying to think
of plays and things, you know, rhymeback you had woodstocks, certainly had
a summer stock and theater and all that stuff that you would go to guys
and dollars or remember as a kid. But I find the arts such an
important part of a city's culture, and I always thought that Rochester had a
lot of that. You ever surprised that Eastman didn't build a performing arts set.
Actually people don't don't know that they had a RBTL at one time merged
with the Philharmonic, okay, and then the Philharmonic decided they did not want
to do popular entertainment, and so in the in the early the mid eighties,
they they spun off RBTL. That went back. RBTL was founded in
nineteen fifty seven as what was at the time called the bus and truck kind
of theater company, where you know, the casts would come in a bus
and there might be a one truck full of sets. Yeah, and you
know, like Jerry Lewis and Dan Yankees. But but so they merged,
then they decided they didn't want to want them there anymore. And so that
was period of time when I came on the board as we were restructuring the
board and the but originally what we now call CMAC, which was early on
was called Flea Pack was supposed to be the summer home of the Philharmonic,
and in their period of time, John Parkhurst was running that venue on behalf
of the Philharmonic. But they they and the Eastman is not, you know,
because it's owned by the university. Their mission is not or their mission
has not been to uh to do popular entertainment. It was more that they
saw themselves as an education component that did classical music. And you know,
if you think about it today, if you you know, you you might
put the Pops out as the key part of the of what they do.
And again goes back to my my comments about opera. So somebody, here's
the Pops. They are enthralled by these great musicians and the amazing sound,
and that may allow them to recycle them. It's all on entry, right,
It's all entry. Exposure is the greatest thing that we can do for
people and exposed that. I always think that even in college and stuff,
I would always get the argument, but knowledge for the sake of knowledge,
if you can actually go, it is a luxury that we've turned it into
I have to have an endgame here and I have to be trained as well
whatever to pay back this enormous bill. And I think, yeah, but
if if you have the overall exposure and you could actually take the knowledge for
knowledge, you'll find your way in life so much better than having this path
that you're so young, you may not really like it, and you get
in there and it becomes a grind and you miss out on things. And
I think that exposure is the greatest thing you can have. And there was
I heard a line in the country song called the song is called by Dirty
But Yeah. The line, the line says, do what you love and
call it work. Yeah. And the thing is that, you know,
for me in the broadcasting business and what I've been doing with RBTL, what
I do in my political career, I don't feel like I've ever worked today.
Yeah, I just have fun, you know, trying to change things.
Who had the biggest impact on you, the biggest influence as you look
back, Was there anybody that kind of changed the trajectory? Was it your
dad with the boxing? I don't know. It was actually a man named
Bud Worthheimer now deceased, who was the majority holder the Lincoln Group, which
is a company that owned WHAM, the r p X, y H,
T, k w F, and Buffalo and stations in Ohio. Bud's real
name was Albert Lincoln Wortheimer. Okay, because he was born on the day
the date that Lincoln had been assassinated. It was the same you know,
calendar date month and and time month. But he was the most fascinating,
most fascinating guy to learn from. Uh. And he changed my mindset about
about what someone can do. Yea. He used to have a line it's
fun to watch people bite off more than they can chew and learn to chew
it. Yeah, which is true. And then and then there's a second
person that has had tremendous impact on me. That is a man named Kip
Palmer, who owns the Palmer family of companies. Uh, because what what
he what I've learned is and he's a great man of faith. But what
I've learned is that you that your values drive everything else. Yeah, you
know, we had to make it a decision during COVID as an operating company.
At ourbtail, we had a bunch of really great young people, no
one you know, we closed for what we thought was two weeks. We
reopened almost two years later. But we made a decision that what was important
was we had great young people and that we had to figure out how to
retain everyone, which is a really interesting mindset compared to what broadcasting companies and
other companies did. And when you start with that value, that that the
asset that you have is really people, it every other decision begins to follow.
Nine. When you start with the assumption, as Bud did and as
Kip has done, where your values and your belief system drive everything else,
it changes your entire mindset. We talked earlier about radio. If your if
your mindset is we have to deliver because of Wall Street, you make decisions
that have nothing to do with people. If your mindset is first and foremost,
we're going to protect our people because there are resource then it's a whole
different set of decisions. It is. And you know you'll also I'll hear
the word often all these big evil companies, these big evil things, they
don't start out that way. Everybody's trying to grow. You get to a
certain point and then you start serving maybe the wrong master, so to speak,
where you're going in a direction that's a little different, like investors and
things. People want their money back, and so that that becomes the thing.
But you're absolutely right. And I would always say, and I say
this to my sons all the time, that one of the things is,
you know, you'll hear this whole thing in life of work hard and grind,
and I would change that slightly to instead of the grind, I get
to I get to do this because it's a mindset changed. The grind is
such an ugly word. And then the other is I would say, work
hard on yourself, because then you're going to be more valuable to everybody else
when you work hard on yourself values, that sort of thing, it all
falls in line when you do that. It's kind of a funny, funny
thing. So I went to you know, Parsons College was known to have
very loose admission standards, and to this day, I every day I work
out wearing a Parson's College T shirt because I never want to forget where I
came from. You know, no matter what what happens, or when you
think you're on a great role, or you know the good things have happened
to you, is that you have to always remember where you came from and
then and then your values can become kind of a right, kind of a
roadmap. My dad only went to seventh grade, and he was a boxing
promoter. He became the Republican chairman of Boundwey County. He ran the New
York State Fair, and and he wasn't a man of of great traditional faith.
But he had a poem that was his roadmap that he gave me.
And it's a poem by Rudyard Kipling called if, and it starts with if
you can keep your head when all about you are losing there is and blaming
it on you. You know, the thing is that there's there's a ticklist
here of things that you learn along the way. Earlier, you know,
we were talking about what's wrong with radio. If if the if, the
only measure becomes dropped to bottom line. If that's the measure, then what
you do is you eliminate localness, You eliminate staff, you eliminate and the
net result is that accountants begin to run a broadcasting company, and you end
up with no real sense of who you are. I said earlier, I
want to be sure that we bring this entire complex in without debt. I
don't want down the road that the RBTL is making decisions on what they do
because of debt and debt service. I want them to make decisions that are
that are based on what the market wants and needs. And we put eight
thousand kids through education programs last year, eight thousand. That's amazing. And
the thing is that, you know, we don't talk about it a lot
because you know, the I don't. It seems to me as though people
say, hey, look at me, look at what I did. You
know, I put eight thousand kids through education programs. No, that's your
value. Get it done. Figure out how you're going to pay for it
without you know, beating your chest. Uh So, what the move to
acquire the auditorium complex and restore it and renovate it. The relationship with West
turn sorry the people that ire that. The relationship with West tur is because
we're building a foundation for entertainment wherever that goes, because it's going to change
for the next fifty years to Rochester. Yeah, oh you know what I
like about it? The most though I was thinking of this is a word
of people use a lot as freedom. Well, what is freedom? Freedom
is being able to choose and do the right things without having to have someone
over your shoulder telling you what to do. So when you're making decisions because
you're in debt, we can't bring this in for and expose people to it.
And I think that that's really really smart. So to me, what
you've done is given the theater League freedom freedom to make you know, great
choices right, the freedom to do that. And you know, it's really
fun to be in a room when a decision is being made. You know,
URBTL, for example, has what we call a risk position, you
know that where you take half of the financial downside, and so we made
a decision to take half the risk on the Bob Dylan Show, which sold
out in a man hours, right, and you know, the you don't
know that going in. You just you try to understand your market and your
audience and what they want. You know, this is going to be an
amazing season, uh for OURBTL, because it's it's a mix of things people
want, including I talked about Am Too Proud. There's also the Tina Turner
show, Oh great, And then there's more traditional stuff like Mulan Rouge,
and then there there's something that we bring back with Annie, and there's you
know, Missus Doubtfire and on and on and on. But there's always there's
a play version of Missus Dowlfire. I didn't know that. Yeah, oh
I didn't know. Did they do that on Broadway? Yes? Oh boy.
By the way, I was in London about three weeks ago, and
uh and it's there. But I also went and saw Hamilton's there because I
think seeing a show about the American Revolution in London would be cool. And
they and what they did, which was really fun was they kind of changed
the character of the King from the American version and made him a much more
likable you know, he'd be over on you know, the side of the
stage when things were going wrong in America, kind of cheering and animated.
But the uh no, a lot of these, a lot of these shows.
Tina was in London. Lion King was in London, by the way.
When we did the press conference the other day, one of the great
things for me was that Garth Fagan came to the press conference. Yea,
and when you when you think about and I introduced him as if there's a
if there's a lion of choreographers, and it would be the man who choreographed
the Lion King and Garth Fagan. So just it's all a cool period of
time for our community. Yeah, it really is a cool period of time.
I appreciate your time. I know that. I'm sure you're very busy.
Got a lot of things happening. When you don't do things very well,
you have to do them over and over and you look busy. Well,
that's the way to the SS. What were here? That's what I
do every day. I have the as I hit the wrong thing, I
do that every day. I do that every day. Arnie Rothschild a man
of many, many talents, but I think the one calling would be helping
you get your message out right. You help people get their message out,
and I think that's wonderful. I'm Bill Moran, will see you Tomorrowail didn't
know what to do. I'm trying a TV and bad. Iron Smoke Distillery.
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