Speaker 1: From Workhouse Connect and aj Benze fame. Uh, he'd liked
Speaker 1: to be walked on a leash and play really dirty,
Speaker 1: kinky sex games. He's uh the guy put the cock
Speaker 1: in the peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey, everybody aj Benzi
Speaker 1: here with fame is a bitch. This is your daily
Speaker 1: Unfiltered podcast for August fifth, twenty twenty five. Oh eight
Speaker 1: oh five two oh two five sounds good. I like
Speaker 1: the cadence of that. Oh eight oh five too. Oh
Speaker 1: to five sounds cool. By the way, I didn't get
Speaker 1: a chance. I don't even know why I missed this opportunity.
Speaker 1: But when I said yesterday that it was Joey and
Speaker 1: Julia's seventh wedding anniversary, when we went all went to
Speaker 1: Florida to be with them, which was a great trip.
Speaker 1: I just sent them a gift certificate certificate to eat
Speaker 1: at the really great restaurant we went to. Andrew and
Speaker 1: I went there. We loved it, so Endzo and Michael.
Speaker 1: It's in Laurel Grove, what a great restaurant. It's in
Speaker 1: a big house. And I didn't mention that Rosalie and
Speaker 1: Jack on the same day August fourth, were married fifty
Speaker 1: seven years. Jesus Christ. That's something else. I know. Every
Speaker 1: year ain't great. I'm not trying to say fifty seven
Speaker 1: years are fantastic jubilation. No, it's not what marriage is.
Speaker 1: But still, in all, fifty seven fucking years unbelievable on
Speaker 1: well believable, and I hope it goes on. You know,
Speaker 1: there's an Italian expression. It's a weird thing. It's what
Speaker 1: we say when we're leaving someone's house, or they're wishing
Speaker 1: us a safe drive home, whatever it is. You you,
Speaker 1: you say givitine gimbtye as you're leaving. It's an Italian expression.
Speaker 1: It basically means if God wants, but the way it's
Speaker 1: really pronounced is c divoli, citivoli or diovolndo. But because
Speaker 1: scilion is so crazy that sidivoli becomes givitem I don't
Speaker 1: even know why, and calibrace is even crazier. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they would say, But so to that, I say,
Speaker 1: more years for Roslie and Jack, more years for Joey
Speaker 1: and Juliet, givety, even though doesn't make much sense. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what really threw me the other night. You know,
Speaker 1: I got an email I got so many emails and
Speaker 1: texts from you folks who care about me and you know,
Speaker 1: wish me well, and I love you all. I don't
Speaker 1: want to dwell, but you know I do because you're
Speaker 1: the best. But of course there's some emails that come
Speaker 1: in from people who just they don't know what to say,
Speaker 1: you know, and I just I'm not going to get mad,
Speaker 1: but I hear you know, there's some emails that come
Speaker 1: in and go bro, dude, dude in all capitalists, Dude,
Speaker 1: you got to stop talking about yourself. That's the problem.
Speaker 1: That's the problem with your show. Stop talking about yourself.
Speaker 1: Take two weeks off, like the normies do, go play golf. Dude.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not a fucking normy and golf's for fags, don't.
Speaker 1: You don't know what I go through every day. I
Speaker 1: don't mean golf for fags. I'm just saying it's not
Speaker 1: my sport. I still want to play contact sports, but
Speaker 1: I enjoy the fact that there's golf out there. And
Speaker 1: if you're with your best friends and you're hitting balls
Speaker 1: across a beautiful green course, yeah it's fun three hours,
Speaker 1: four hours, I get it. But I want to play
Speaker 1: pick up basketball. I want to play tackle football, even
Speaker 1: at my age. I don't give a shit. Let's get
Speaker 1: it on, Honeyham, Where was I? Hey? So I get
Speaker 1: these emails and I appreciate all of them. You guys
Speaker 1: have you know, you've made me cry many times, so
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep talking about it. But you
Speaker 1: know who you are. You know what you said and
Speaker 1: sent and offered, and it's absolutely amazing. I mean, for
Speaker 1: a Boston Red Sox fan living in Massachusetts to invite
Speaker 1: me to stay at his home and take me to
Speaker 1: a Yankee Red Sox game in September and agreed to
Speaker 1: cheer for the Yankees. Do I have any idea how
Speaker 1: over the top that is? That's Paul went Ahead. Never
Speaker 1: knew I'd meet people like that in my life, never
Speaker 1: never knew. But let me take you into a little
Speaker 1: bit of a ghosty situation which to me made me
Speaker 1: feel great, made their hair stand up on my arms,
Speaker 1: and you know, made me more of a believer than
Speaker 1: I've always been. Saturday night, or as my mother would say,
Speaker 1: Saturday night, Saturday night taking Roco to his buddy's house.
Speaker 1: It's like seven point fifteen Pacific Coast time, and on
Speaker 1: the radio, Bohemian Rhapsody comes on from Queen loved the song.
Speaker 1: I remember when it first came out, all the kids
Speaker 1: from the neighborhood screaming, when is it gonna come on again?
Speaker 1: We would wait by the radio for hours to hear that.
Speaker 1: I see you, little little I mean, you know, it
Speaker 1: was like it was like nothing ever we've heard before.
Speaker 1: So Bohemian Rhapsody comes on, and I say to rock
Speaker 1: Or you know, this is Chico's song. Yeah, yeah, I said.
Speaker 1: He would sing it at the top of his lungs.
Speaker 1: And Chico had a great voice, and he would sing
Speaker 1: from the diaphragm the right way, not the top or
Speaker 1: the back of his throat like most of us do.
Speaker 1: He sang down low, and he could belt out Elvis
Speaker 1: Skinny or Fat Elvis. He could belt out Humperdink, Tom Jones.
Speaker 1: And we used to sing in his basement for the acoustics.
Speaker 1: His basement had great acoustics, and him and I did
Speaker 1: a great rendition of you don't bring Me Flowers. I
Speaker 1: know sounds gay. We're sixteen years old, seventeen, whatever the hell,
Speaker 1: and going down to his basement to sing you don't
Speaker 1: bring me Flowers, and he would graciously take the streisand
Speaker 1: part because Chico had a higher octave than I did.
Speaker 1: And I took Neil Diamond because I could imitate him
Speaker 1: and we'd sing and he would go up with high.
Speaker 1: You don't me flower, you don't send me love songs,
Speaker 1: and I come in hardy only talk to me anymore
Speaker 1: when it comes to the end of the day. I'm
Speaker 1: not doing Neil Diamond justice right now. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: killed it in that basement. So let's go back to
Speaker 1: the last phone call, the last talk. The last time
Speaker 1: I heard Chico's voice he was telling me is twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: He was telling me he was looking at twenty five
Speaker 1: years of federal prison time for crimes he committed with
Speaker 1: some young mafiosa kids in Florida. He was involved with
Speaker 1: these kids, well not kids, they were young men. They
Speaker 1: were all sons of fathers and uncles who served time.
Speaker 1: So for them, going to prison for five, six, seven
Speaker 1: years was a right of passage. They could stand on
Speaker 1: their head and do that time. In fact, one of
Speaker 1: Chico's friends told me that at his funeral, he says,
Speaker 1: you know, our guys like us. His name was Frankie,
Speaker 1: No frank He says, you know, Chico wasn't cut out
Speaker 1: for prison. You know, guys like us, our dads, our
Speaker 1: uncles did it. It doesn't mean nothing to us. We
Speaker 1: go away five years to come back bigger than ever.
Speaker 1: But guys like us, we grew up on Long Island,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't think that way. So Chico's on
Speaker 1: the phone telling me I'm at Rosley's house on Long
Speaker 1: Island and he's calling me from Florida. He says, you know, Pope,
Speaker 1: they're throwing it. They're throwing twenty five years at me
Speaker 1: like it's candy. They want me to talk. They woman
Speaker 1: to name names to reduce my time, or maybe even skate.
Speaker 1: I can't do it, Pope. I'm not a rat. And
Speaker 1: I knew he wasn't, you know, because when we lived
Speaker 1: in New York City together on Madison Avenue, the FEDS
Speaker 1: would show up at our building right and come home
Speaker 1: from work, and I'd see Chico on the couch with
Speaker 1: two or three Feds with the windbreakers on and the
Speaker 1: fucking Joe Biden sunglasses. And before I even got upstairs,
Speaker 1: I'd see their car parked out front the Crown Victoria
Speaker 1: with no white walls. I mean, we all know the signs.
Speaker 1: And I'd walk in and I'd hear them say the
Speaker 1: cheek hey you know, hey, Tim, will you joined Team
Speaker 1: America and beat the bad guys. Let's let's beat the
Speaker 1: bad guys. Tim, what do you say, joined Team America?
Speaker 1: He'd looked at me and laugh. He wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: But they they, they came. They came by a lot
Speaker 1: because he eventually decided to leave because they kept coming
Speaker 1: to our apartment and he knew I had a big
Speaker 1: job at the Daily News. I was a big columnist
Speaker 1: and I didn't need that heat. He had an organized
Speaker 1: crime file. They were compiling one on myself because I
Speaker 1: was with them constantly, so we both had OHC file.
Speaker 1: So that's not good. So he says, Pope, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: I'll go to Florida. I'll get out of you. I'll
Speaker 1: got out of your hair. Hugged and kissed and cried
Speaker 1: and he split. But that day on the phone in
Speaker 1: Long Island was so weird, and I flat out and
Speaker 1: asked him, what are you telling me you're gonna split?
Speaker 1: Is this curtains? What do you He says, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't want the twenty five years,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm not gonna rap, he says. It's
Speaker 1: different from me. You know, I got nobody. You got
Speaker 1: a family, you got beautiful kids and a wife. I
Speaker 1: don't know. There's nothing tying me down. I can leave
Speaker 1: whatever I want. That was August twenty third, twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: That was when around the time Hurricane Irene hit and
Speaker 1: there was a five point eight magnitude earthquake that hit
Speaker 1: Virginia and was felt in a lot of states around,
Speaker 1: including New York and even on Long Island. It's actually
Speaker 1: still the large tremor to hit the East Coast in
Speaker 1: the last one hundred years. And I'm on the phone
Speaker 1: with him, and he's telling me this about I don't know,
Speaker 1: I said, he is it Curtains. I don't know, Pope,
Speaker 1: but you know, And I look at the ceiling fan
Speaker 1: in the bedroom I'm sleeping in with my son, and
Speaker 1: it's shaken, it's moving. And I said, cheek, I think
Speaker 1: we're having a fucking earthquake. He says what I said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the fans are moving. I'll call you back. Never called
Speaker 1: him back. It was an earthquake. Never called him back.
Speaker 1: We hung up. The next day I get the phone
Speaker 1: call from his brother that he killed himself. So how
Speaker 1: about this? That night, I took Rocko to his buddy's house.
Speaker 1: I came home to hear that a small earthquake had
Speaker 1: just rocked parts of New Jersey and New York. This
Speaker 1: is Saturday night when I took him to his buddy's house.
Speaker 1: It was a three point zero quake. It was six
Speaker 1: miles beneath the earth in New Jersey ten eighteen pm,
Speaker 1: thirteen miles from midtown Manhattan, and tremors were felt everywhere
Speaker 1: from the Bronx to Staten Island to Long Island, you
Speaker 1: name it. And you know these things, Matt, I mean
Speaker 1: these things. These are signs to me. It just signs
Speaker 1: to me. The last time we talked as an earthquake.
Speaker 1: Then I hear his song on the radio, and I
Speaker 1: say to rock Oll, I gotta hear this song. It's
Speaker 1: Chico's song. And then they come back to the apartment
Speaker 1: and there's another fucking earthquake. And don't forget this. Some
Speaker 1: of you are new you don't know this. The night
Speaker 1: he died, after I cried a good cry for a
Speaker 1: minute because I didn't want my kids to see me,
Speaker 1: and I ran downstairs to Roseley's launger room and I
Speaker 1: buried my face and towels and I cried for a
Speaker 1: good minute or two, and then I cleaned myself up
Speaker 1: and got back to being daddy. But after that I
Speaker 1: went to the supermarket to get some stuff. What have you?
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody comes on the goddamn radio. Okay, so I
Speaker 1: know there's something going on. And in addition to that,
Speaker 1: I'm not making this up. I'm not that creative, and
Speaker 1: I've said this story before. In addition to that, I
Speaker 1: get to the front windows of the supermarket and there's
Speaker 1: a poster or a piece of paper on the window,
Speaker 1: a missing pet poster. It's a parakeet or a parrot
Speaker 1: named Chico. I wish I rely on, but I'm not
Speaker 1: tried to do what you can to get in touch
Speaker 1: with that part of life. If you can do it,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to explain to you how to
Speaker 1: do it. But if you can do it, if he
Speaker 1: sits still and let the music and the memories of
Speaker 1: the people you love wash over you, you might find
Speaker 1: yourself in situations where you just can't believe this is
Speaker 1: really happening. Unbelievable I finally sat down to watch Netflix
Speaker 1: has a documentary on the great Sam Cook and his music.
Speaker 1: Sam Cook was great man, beautiful voice. We did an
Speaker 1: episode on Mysteries and Scandals all about him, obviously, but
Speaker 1: guy was shot and killed at a three dollars fucking
Speaker 1: motel down and comped it the same area I used
Speaker 1: to go to to hit the after hours clubs and
Speaker 1: mingle with the gangs and the pimps and the hookers
Speaker 1: and the people will come out at night. I did
Speaker 1: that for several years. I liked it. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I like seeing the undersided life. I wanted to come
Speaker 1: back and report those stories. I believe that's what a
Speaker 1: good journalist is. And you just got to stay nosy.
Speaker 1: I mean I overdid it. I had a pension for
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol, and it was there. Whatever you wanted, alcohol, guns,
Speaker 1: you name it, black superstars, gangsters, they were all there.
Speaker 1: But when you look at the Sam Cook documentary, and
Speaker 1: you should watch it, it's something else. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of talking heads who give their opinion. Smokey Robinson, a
Speaker 1: lot of guys like that Quincy Jones that you go wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, these guys know what it was. There's a
Speaker 1: part in a documentary where Quincy Jones says, can you
Speaker 1: believe this? And Quincy john is there is there a
Speaker 1: better composer, a better producer in our lives than Quincy Jones,
Speaker 1: from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, get the fuck out
Speaker 1: of here. But he says there were times where they
Speaker 1: performed down South with the Jim Crow Laws, and you know,
Speaker 1: they couldn't stay at hotels. In fact, they slept sometimes
Speaker 1: in more cheerees. And Quincy Jones said, with me and
Speaker 1: a few guys from the band would be sleeping up
Speaker 1: in a room with six or seven caskets of dead
Speaker 1: people upstairs in a mortuary that was our motel. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And Sam Cook was a good looking kid, and he
Speaker 1: was brought up in the church, you know, brought up
Speaker 1: down south. Grandmother was a slave. His daddy figured out
Speaker 1: how to get them from Mississippi up to Chicago, and
Speaker 1: he was a preacher. He got at church, and of
Speaker 1: course he put his kids up front to sing. And
Speaker 1: it's an amazing thing when you think about religion. And
Speaker 1: you know now that I'm getting into it, or at
Speaker 1: least really trying to understand it, and reading parts of
Speaker 1: the Bible and parables, et cetera. You know that when
Speaker 1: things are really bad, you turn to God like this,
Speaker 1: You just I don't care who you are. I don't
Speaker 1: care how agnostic or atheist you are. When you're getting
Speaker 1: wheeled down that cold hallway in the hospital and you
Speaker 1: see those overhead fluorescent lights and you're almost in the
Speaker 1: operating room, you will begin to talk to somebody that
Speaker 1: is God. That's just the way it is. You'll see.
Speaker 1: If you haven't done it yet, you'll see. And if
Speaker 1: you've done it and you talk to him and you
Speaker 1: still here, maybe you ought to thank him. But Sam
Speaker 1: Cook is young and hot and cute, and the girls
Speaker 1: like him. And you know, he wanted to sing God's music,
Speaker 1: which he's been singing all his life as a kid.
Speaker 1: But that devil music got him dancing. He saw people
Speaker 1: dancing to devil music. By that I mean rock and roll,
Speaker 1: rhythm and blues, and that devil music got him wanting
Speaker 1: a woman, got him wanted to taste of some liquor,
Speaker 1: got him wanting to let loose. And you know what,
Speaker 1: we all deserve to let loose. And you know, back then,
Speaker 1: if you switched over and you know, you were singing
Speaker 1: rhythm and blues and didn't work out. You wanted to
Speaker 1: go back to go to church or go back to
Speaker 1: your band. It was a big risk. They wouldn't the
Speaker 1: public wouldn't accept it. So it's a big risk. Guys
Speaker 1: like Chuck Berry, little Richard, you know, playing the piano,
Speaker 1: his leg up on top of the baby Grant. That
Speaker 1: was a devilish kind of look. You know, Sam was singing,
Speaker 1: I know you send me very pretty, little Richard Cook, Golly,
Speaker 1: miss Bolly. I mean, come on, completely different songs, Johnny
Speaker 1: be Good. I mean, that's devil music. Back then, Sam
Speaker 1: Cook knew like I could. I got that in me, man,
Speaker 1: I want to see the women dance. I'm want a
Speaker 1: little liquor in my tongue. That happens, man, that happens.
Speaker 1: And his voice was so amazing, and he knew he
Speaker 1: made the girls go crazy. But I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: something that maybe a lot of people won't tell you.
Speaker 1: I understand what happens when you hear that kind of
Speaker 1: music and you have those kind of desires. It tends
Speaker 1: to hit a certain base tone in your body somewhere
Speaker 1: very low. Let's call it your balls right, and it
Speaker 1: just makes you want to get yourself carnally satisfied. That's it.
Speaker 1: You can feel it from the bottom of your feet,
Speaker 1: from to the top of your heart. You just need
Speaker 1: to get with someone, get a girl, find a chick.
Speaker 1: I need to love someone up, even for a night,
Speaker 1: even for a few hours, because that's what humans do,
Speaker 1: because we're animals, and sometimes, you know, we just act
Speaker 1: on how we feel. And he goes on and he
Speaker 1: sings you send me, and this is one of the
Speaker 1: most beautiful songs. Or you know that people hurt. Never
Speaker 1: says I love you in the song, but we all
Speaker 1: know what it means, and every girl swooned over it.
Speaker 1: He did it on that Sullivan, by the way, put
Speaker 1: a pin in that. Tom DeNardo, one of my patrons,
Speaker 1: O God, after I mentioned the Ed Sullivan doc last
Speaker 1: week Sunday Best, he put up a post on the
Speaker 1: instant on the Facebook page saying that he knew someone
Speaker 1: who knew someone that Ed Sullivan liked to be shit
Speaker 1: on and actually eat shit sandwiches. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true. The same can be said about Danny Thomas.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true, but I love the
Speaker 1: thought of it. Just anyhow, Sam Cook makes his way
Speaker 1: to Hollywood, and you know, you could even hear some
Speaker 1: of the hosts on these different TV shows and the
Speaker 1: way they spoke about it, it was almost like, you know,
Speaker 1: it was such a weird time. It was almost like,
Speaker 1: please excuse this negro on the stage, but you might
Speaker 1: like to hear what he has to sing. It's embarrassing
Speaker 1: to watch these old white people introduce this young black guy.
Speaker 1: And he would just kill it every single time he sang.
Speaker 1: And he was right underneath Elvis Presley in sales. That's
Speaker 1: some heady stuff. And then one day Elvis came to
Speaker 1: the studio where Sam was singing, and he was singing,
Speaker 1: we have it a party, dance into the music, and
Speaker 1: he was a great songwriter, by the way, and Elvis
Speaker 1: joined in and they had a great old time. But
Speaker 1: once Sam Cook got too close to James Brown, Malcolm X,
Speaker 1: and Muhammad Ali, well then his life got more difficult.
Speaker 1: He began to be looked upon as a militant, dangerous
Speaker 1: and back then those fucks in the FBI and what
Speaker 1: have you, they had their eyes on black performers like
Speaker 1: nobody's business. And it's really sad what they did, but
Speaker 1: his life got more difficult. I understand because I would
Speaker 1: have been the same guy if I were black during
Speaker 1: that era. You know, if I were dark skinned, wide nosed,
Speaker 1: big lips, I'd be the same motherfucker. Trust me, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have listened to anybody, and I'd be up for
Speaker 1: a fight every goddamn day. You know, I just I
Speaker 1: have an anger in me. For instance, I didn't finish
Speaker 1: the story the other day. Remember the girl across, the
Speaker 1: woman across the alleyway and the apartment complex who was
Speaker 1: fucking with my pots and took a cat pole off
Speaker 1: my stoop. Well met her outside. Uh, and I just
Speaker 1: and this is before I took my break. This is
Speaker 1: what I knew. A j Calm the fuck down. You're
Speaker 1: chasing people who give you the finger in your car,
Speaker 1: you're cursing out your naghbor. Stop it. But she comes
Speaker 1: out and I said to her, excuse me, are you
Speaker 1: moving this cat bowl off my stoop? Well, me and
Speaker 1: my husband feet my boyfriend feed the cats and we'd
Speaker 1: like to keep the balls on the floor. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is on my stoop. Okay, what's the worry? Well, the
Speaker 1: cat could fall the cat's gonna fall twelve inches and
Speaker 1: not land on his feet. I could throw a fucking
Speaker 1: cat over three story building. It'll land on his feet
Speaker 1: and it will not be injured. What is the don't
Speaker 1: touch my shit on my stoop? She couldn't believe her.
Speaker 1: What excuse me? Don't touch my shit? You even move
Speaker 1: my potted plants around you don't like the way they look? No,
Speaker 1: I just thought that, maybe stop talking, don't touch my property.
Speaker 1: I'm from New York. I was born in Brooklyn. I'm
Speaker 1: from there. You don't touch people's shit. Well this you
Speaker 1: know you're not in New York anymore. I said, fuck you.
Speaker 1: New York's in my heart. Brooklyn's in my heart that
Speaker 1: never goes away. Don't touch my shit. I'll tell your
Speaker 1: boyfriend to come see me. Came in the house. I
Speaker 1: felt like shit. And by the way, she had two
Speaker 1: uh gorge you know the gorge you buy for Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: during that time, right? She has them want to step
Speaker 1: and they're on top of each other. I said, what
Speaker 1: if I took one of your gorgs and I moved
Speaker 1: it on the other side of us? Doew? Could that
Speaker 1: be okay with you? I said, why do I just
Speaker 1: move your gorge. It was ridiculous. Anyhow, I stopped feeding
Speaker 1: the cats. I don't want to hear when I see her,
Speaker 1: I apologize profusely. But what I'm saying is we all
Speaker 1: got this anger in us. At least many of us do.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of you don't. God bless you if you don't.
Speaker 1: But you know, I just I understand to a degree
Speaker 1: what it must have felt like to have been black
Speaker 1: in that era and not be allowed to do anything,
Speaker 1: drink from the faested water felt, swim in the pool,
Speaker 1: sleep in the room, perform at a club. I can't
Speaker 1: even imagine how you could walk around and maintain your
Speaker 1: composure without killing a motherfucker. I would have so bad. Anyhow, Obviously,
Speaker 1: Sam Cook made white women very happy with his music,
Speaker 1: and that was a no no. And then we got
Speaker 1: to fast forward to nowadays when we contrack these white
Speaker 1: women's interest on Instagram, on Facebook and tiktop, and you know,
Speaker 1: all these white girls now you see want to have
Speaker 1: a black boyfriend. Unbelievable. Travis Barker, the drummer who's got
Speaker 1: a daughter, you know, Alabama Barker, who's white as the
Speaker 1: day is long blonde hair. All she does is talk
Speaker 1: black act black, tries to date black men, does date them,
Speaker 1: goes to parties and flirt with them. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I would do if I were him. I
Speaker 1: can't believe this, but this is the kind of shit
Speaker 1: that was happening when Sam Cook was singing and white
Speaker 1: women were getting woozy from his voice, and that was
Speaker 1: it didn't make American men feel good. Now I really
Speaker 1: don't understand it, you know. I mean, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: a white woman and a black guy shouldn't be together.
Speaker 1: I've been with black women. I have no problem with
Speaker 1: interracial relationships. They're fine. I don't give a shit. But
Speaker 1: why do these young white girls with white fathers show
Speaker 1: themselves as girls who just want black rappers with their
Speaker 1: pants below their assholes? I'll never understand that. Didn't you
Speaker 1: look up to your father or your brothers? Well, who
Speaker 1: did you see? Did your uncles wear their pants that way?
Speaker 1: What is it? Anyhow? Back to Sam Cook, a horrifying
Speaker 1: thing happened. His young son drowned in a pool. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you keep walking going back to that
Speaker 1: house and passed the pool where your kid drowned, and
Speaker 1: it fucked him up, as it would all of us.
Speaker 1: He was married, so he began to go out and
Speaker 1: he began to taste that liquor, and he began to
Speaker 1: be a bigger womanager than he ever was. And he
Speaker 1: poured himself into work and wanted to go on tour
Speaker 1: to hopefully forget about that awful death of his young kid.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, it's funny. There are people on
Speaker 1: the show that I knew when I was a journalist
Speaker 1: that are talking about Sam Cook because they knew him,
Speaker 1: and it's crazy. Look, we're all getting older, you know.
Speaker 1: I Smokey Robinson who I know, Quincy Jones I know,
Speaker 1: and a few others who are journalists and I look
Speaker 1: at them and actually, one guy named Jerry Brandt v
Speaker 1: R A N d T. He was really big in
Speaker 1: the music scene back in the day. I used to
Speaker 1: have lunch and breakfast with him because when I was
Speaker 1: a gossip calmnist, Jerry Brandt was still hanging around and
Speaker 1: he was still pushing, you know, pushing music acts and
Speaker 1: trying to get people in the columns. It was a
Speaker 1: hard hustle. And he's there and he was there when
Speaker 1: Sam was big, and when Sam got killed, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that back then. I was too young to understand
Speaker 1: the history of a guy like Jerry Brandt and what
Speaker 1: he went through and the magnificent artists he dealt with.
Speaker 1: And that's what history does. You look back and go,
Speaker 1: holy shit, that was the guy that blew off for lunch.
Speaker 1: He could have told me everything I didn't know. But
Speaker 1: there came a point where Sam Cook got in a
Speaker 1: pickle with his contract and he called Jerry Brant before
Speaker 1: he died and he said, I'm going to get this
Speaker 1: asshole because he felt he was being robbed of money.
Speaker 1: So he's angry and he's drinking and he's carousing. So
Speaker 1: one night he goes to some Hollywood joint named Martoni's
Speaker 1: and a couple of Martine's in. He sees he wants
Speaker 1: to do a blues album and he's talking to some people.
Speaker 1: He pulls out a big bunch of money from his pocket.
Speaker 1: Is that just finish this blues album. I'm cool, I'm happy,
Speaker 1: All things are going to be great. And his friend says, hey, Sam,
Speaker 1: don't flash that money, bro. People don't want to see
Speaker 1: you have that kind of money. He didn't think that
Speaker 1: was important, so he shushed his fier. Come on, man,
Speaker 1: fuck that shit. So he gets up to leave, but
Speaker 1: before he left, he went to the bar and met
Speaker 1: this hot chit. I mean she ain't hot. You look
Speaker 1: at her now when they show you a video for
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. San ho. But who am I to say?
Speaker 1: It's that animal instinct, it's that I need a woman thing.
Speaker 1: And he starts chatting her up and laughing and carrying on.
Speaker 1: And they decided to go to a motel and it's
Speaker 1: a three dollar a night motel. That's how I remember
Speaker 1: going to motel's back in the nineties, late eighties. Thirty
Speaker 1: bucks but three dollars. Jesus Christ and this black chick
Speaker 1: he picked up. Now, that turned out to be the
Speaker 1: worst thing he ever did. They were fucking around, you know,
Speaker 1: having sex, what have you. But clearly she had him marked.
Speaker 1: There was there was something going on. And at some
Speaker 1: point she ran into a police booth, I'm sorry, a
Speaker 1: phone booth and call the cops, just five o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, and she's telling the cops that this guy
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and I'm afraid for my life, that
Speaker 1: kind of bullshit. And it's five o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: The phone rings, and his friends here that Sam Cook
Speaker 1: was shot. That nobody could believe it because he wasn't
Speaker 1: that kind of guy. His friends went to the police.
Speaker 1: They said, what's going on, and the police kind of
Speaker 1: acted like, hey, it's just another N word killed. But
Speaker 1: he went to this place called the Hassi End, the
Speaker 1: motel three dollars it up, and the chick said. He
Speaker 1: dragged her into this room and she started playing please
Speaker 1: take She said, please take me home. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be here. But that's bullshit because she's a whore
Speaker 1: or was a hooker. So he pushed her on the bed,
Speaker 1: she says, and she said, he said, we're just gonna talk.
Speaker 1: She said this in court, but she also said, I
Speaker 1: knew he was gonna rap me. So I picked up
Speaker 1: my clothes in my hand back and I opened the
Speaker 1: latch and I ran out the room. In the in
Speaker 1: the situation, in the in the hurry, she picked up
Speaker 1: his pants too. So now Sam Cook is alone, He's
Speaker 1: got no fucking pants on it, and this chick is split.
Speaker 1: So he runs to the manager the front desk. He
Speaker 1: runs to the back then and as it is sometimes now,
Speaker 1: you can't walk in. There's a window out front, and
Speaker 1: he goes to the window to say, you know, he's
Speaker 1: banging on the door. This chick just stole my shit.
Speaker 1: Ba ba bah. He's asking for help, and eventually he
Speaker 1: breaks the door open, and this woman who was the
Speaker 1: night manager there, said that he grabbed her arms and
Speaker 1: she started kicking and screaming, and she tried to bite
Speaker 1: him through his jacket, and she said he was fighting
Speaker 1: and there was scratching and biting and screaming, and she
Speaker 1: got up, grabbed the pistol she had behind the desk
Speaker 1: and started shooting him. She said she fired it three times,
Speaker 1: and she said his last words were, lady, you shot me.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew Sam Cook wasn't that kind of guy. He
Speaker 1: wasn't that kind of aggressive guy when it came to women.
Speaker 1: He wasn't domineering of people that didn't want to be
Speaker 1: around him. The check was a hooker. She was a
Speaker 1: Hollywood prostitute. She always went to that place. And this
Speaker 1: bitch threw his pass out the window and his pants
Speaker 1: pocket he had five thousand dollars cast and somebody was
Speaker 1: out there, probably her pimp, grabbed his pants and then
Speaker 1: she ran out with that with that guy and The
Speaker 1: rumor is that maybe there was the mob involved. Who knows,
Speaker 1: but it was ruled a justifiable homicide. But there have
Speaker 1: to be something more at play. I understand he answered
Speaker 1: his darkest, deepest addictions for wanting a good time and
Speaker 1: a woman and some liquor and some fun and some sex.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, we are all animals, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've been there yet, but it's there.
Speaker 1: There are times when they can get very dangerous. And
Speaker 1: yet there are people who think Sam Cook was getting
Speaker 1: too powerful and needed to be stopped. I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: There's also crazy theory that this guy named Klein killed
Speaker 1: Sam Cook. He loved Sam Cook, but he was also
Speaker 1: a thief. He also, you know, sold one of his songs.
Speaker 1: Alan Klein did some of the same shit to the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones too. He was also one of the forces
Speaker 1: that broke up the Beatles allegedly. But back in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, Alan Klein didn't have that kind of power
Speaker 1: to make this big, elaborate murder plan with the police.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't understand. It wouldn't have worked. He wasn't that
Speaker 1: powerful yet. But it's still something to think about, and
Speaker 1: the trippy thing is Sam's wife, Barbara sold Sam's music
Speaker 1: for fifty thousand dollars when it was clearly worth millions
Speaker 1: and millions, but she needed money fast. Now. The kicker
Speaker 1: is because there's not one death to Sam Cook, as
Speaker 1: the documentary says, the two deaths of Sam Cook. When
Speaker 1: he was dead. At his funeral, the singer Bobby Womack,
Speaker 1: who was Sam's friend and his protege, went to the
Speaker 1: funeral alongside his wife Barbara, actually wearing one of Sam
Speaker 1: Cook's suits and even driving his car. And Barbara and
Speaker 1: Womack married just three months after Sam died. How fucking
Speaker 1: awful is this? What a great life? It began in Squalor.
Speaker 1: It began with a grandmother who was a slave, a
Speaker 1: father who somehow found a way to move his family
Speaker 1: from that horrible place up to Illinois, having a church
Speaker 1: on State Street, where back then in Illinois that was
Speaker 1: like Black Wall Street. There were black owned businesses for
Speaker 1: only black people. It was a complete opposite of what
Speaker 1: it was down south. And then this kid leaves the
Speaker 1: church where he was singing like a lark and decides
Speaker 1: to become a star and becomes a star, and it's
Speaker 1: second to Elvis Presley in sales and is budding up
Speaker 1: to mohominally Malcolm x Martin, Luther King, James Brown, and
Speaker 1: he snuffed out because in my opinion of what many
Speaker 1: men suffer from at times when they're lonely, which is
Speaker 1: some place to find a girl and just be together.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if money is exchange, it don't matter. You
Speaker 1: could take a girl out to dinner and drop two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks and go back to your house and have sex.
Speaker 1: It's the same shit. She's not a hooker, but this
Speaker 1: money involved, right, Maybe you send her an uber, maybe
Speaker 1: you send her fight. Whatever it is money involved. Feel
Speaker 1: so bad for this kid, Sam Cook, because I think
Speaker 1: we've all been there. I mean, I've not been to
Speaker 1: a three dollar hotel in Compton, but I understand the
Speaker 1: demons that sometimes want you to think about going there.
Speaker 1: And many times you agree with the demon and you
Speaker 1: take that chance. And Sam Cook took that chance one
Speaker 1: night and it just wasn't in the cards room. It's
Speaker 1: just something to think about, because, like I said, we're
Speaker 1: all animals. Events And that was your Daily Untiled the
Speaker 1: podcast for August fifth, twenty twenty five. I'll talk to
Speaker 1: this tomorrow,