Speaker 1: From Workhouse Connect and aj Benza fame. He'd liked to
Speaker 1: be walked on a leash and play really dirty, kinky
Speaker 1: sex games. Is uh the guy put the cock in
Speaker 1: the Peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey everybody, aj Benzi here
Speaker 1: with famous of Itch. This is your daily Unfiltered podcast
Speaker 1: for December third, twenty twenty four. One two zero three,
Speaker 1: two zero two four. Not a big fan of threes,
Speaker 1: but hey, we're in December. There's not many fraudays left
Speaker 1: till Christmas. What are the three fridays left till Christmas
Speaker 1: or something like that? Let me see one, two, three, yeah, three, wow,
Speaker 1: three weekends until Christmas. I'm a double XCEL gang, just
Speaker 1: just putting it out there, you know, to make it
Speaker 1: easier for your people. I'm only kidding. Talk to Agavino
Speaker 1: the other day about me. I'm definitely giving you guys
Speaker 1: a final exam, and it will come before the end
Speaker 1: of the year, and you better know that I'm going
Speaker 1: to go look for answers to questions from year one.
Speaker 1: So those of you who weren't involved, or can I
Speaker 1: tell you those of you who are longtimers, tippy toppers,
Speaker 1: oh creaming the croppers, shouldn't get these wrong. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things on our mind, so I get
Speaker 1: it it could be a bit of an issue for
Speaker 1: some people. I'm not sure the logistics how I'm going
Speaker 1: to make it happen, How you get your answers to me?
Speaker 1: And who I consider the winner or let's say top
Speaker 1: three winners. I'll get some merch out to you guys.
Speaker 1: That Acabino's got a box of merch sitting in storage.
Speaker 1: It's gone to three different, three different addresses these days,
Speaker 1: but it's sitting there. So that's coming up. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at myself on this on this app or
Speaker 1: platform that I record the show on riverside, and maybe
Speaker 1: it's the room in the outside Vegas, the strip and
Speaker 1: the lights behind, but I have a green hint to
Speaker 1: my face. It reminds you of oh God, minds you
Speaker 1: of wicked, which I fucking can't stand it anymore. How
Speaker 1: does anybody look? I understand families of lovingness. Once again,
Speaker 1: this is not for dads. Yes, you could take your
Speaker 1: little girls to see it or girl, whatever you want.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll get a kick out of what she loves,
Speaker 1: just like we all sat through some of the shitty
Speaker 1: animated movies of our past. If the kids loved it,
Speaker 1: I loved it millions. I'd rather kill myself than watch
Speaker 1: minings with another baby, But I did it. You know,
Speaker 1: we all watch things five hundred times that the movies
Speaker 1: the next time kid go to sleep. I get it.
Speaker 1: But wicked enough these two Arianna and Arivo, with the
Speaker 1: way they're acting toward each other. And the green By
Speaker 1: the way, did you know there is actually I forget
Speaker 1: where I'll do more of this tomorrow. There's a trigger
Speaker 1: warning now for some people who see the movie because
Speaker 1: of the green skin. I forget the entity, but some
Speaker 1: people think it might be. You know, this movie could
Speaker 1: be triggering for those with green skin. Who are these
Speaker 1: people with green skin? Are their livers? That bad? Who?
Speaker 1: The grinch? Who's green? I don't know. I'll give you
Speaker 1: more on that tomorrow. Sorry about the sound on my
Speaker 1: bracelet hitting the glass table, but I'm into a Johnny
Speaker 1: Depp brain. Well I'm always a bracelet man. But now
Speaker 1: I got like four in each rist with things hanging
Speaker 1: from them, which I found little crucifixes. What have you
Speaker 1: I need to help? I can get I saw something
Speaker 1: funny on Instagram. Today, a husband was dropping off his
Speaker 1: wife at her high school reunion. Look to be in
Speaker 1: their late forties, right, And she's giggling as she gets
Speaker 1: out of the car, and her husband's like, I have
Speaker 1: a good time. I guess he figured I don't want
Speaker 1: to go to these things. I know nobody. You're from
Speaker 1: a different state, friends I've ever met. It's uncomfortable for
Speaker 1: a party to go to a you know, a reunion
Speaker 1: like that. You just want to talk and get lost
Speaker 1: in your years of high school. And there's your husband
Speaker 1: and wife sitting there doing nothing. So he's dropping her
Speaker 1: off and as she's about to leave, she goes, He's like,
Speaker 1: have fun, honey. She goes, I will, and she turns
Speaker 1: back and goes, remember somebody these guys fingered me. I
Speaker 1: mean that just killed me. They have that kind of relationship,
Speaker 1: and I love it. It's very funny, and they allowed it.
Speaker 1: I liked that they allowed on Instagram. You know, if
Speaker 1: they didn't allow on Facebook, I'm throwing off Facebook for
Speaker 1: a while. Well, I'm looking at Jennifer Flavan and Stallone
Speaker 1: right now on Sean Hannity, sly looks better than he looks.
Speaker 1: On Tulsa King, but Jennifer Flavan still looking good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then when I went to Slis house way back
Speaker 1: in ninety six, she was under the weather in the
Speaker 1: living room, under a big blanket, and I walked in
Speaker 1: and he introduced us, and you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: strange to see her under a blanket sick while stallone
Speaker 1: showing me the house and everything. But yeah, so Facebook
Speaker 1: kicks me off for a week. You know. I posted
Speaker 1: a picture of Roxy and Rocco when they were kids,
Speaker 1: when we lived with Rosalie. And Roxy's in a bikini.
Speaker 1: She's seven years old, a little yellow bikini, nothing revealing.
Speaker 1: She's running on the lawn and there's her brother, three
Speaker 1: or four years old, probably three, in a diaper and
Speaker 1: no top but his long blonde hair, and they're both
Speaker 1: running around the lawn having fun like kids doing faithbook. No,
Speaker 1: this is coming down nudity, nudity. Did they think Rocco
Speaker 1: was a girl because his hair is so long and
Speaker 1: his nipples are out? What's nudity? Can't show my kids?
Speaker 1: And they tell you, Okay, we have make a decision.
Speaker 1: We're gonna throw you off for a week. Here's why
Speaker 1: do you want to appeal it? Yeah, I do. And
Speaker 1: you can't even tell them what they got wrong. There's
Speaker 1: no place for that to write that in anyhow. By
Speaker 1: the way, I'm not glad this happened, but it happens
Speaker 1: often enough that people who are out there trying to
Speaker 1: get followers and be so oh be that person with
Speaker 1: the perfect post on Instagram, it just well. Look a
Speaker 1: Russian born vacationer in Thailand. She's there with a boyfriend
Speaker 1: and she decides, I'm going to strike a beautiful yoga
Speaker 1: post on this gorgeous cliff in Thailand. And you could
Speaker 1: see her. She's struggling because she is on the cliff
Speaker 1: in a beautiful yoga pose and the water's coming in.
Speaker 1: Suddenly a big wave comes and knocks her off the rock.
Speaker 1: Now you see in the footage she's struggling. There's currants,
Speaker 1: and the water is getting all choppy and white. Some
Speaker 1: guy who saw this jumps in the water to try
Speaker 1: to help her. It was unsuccessful, and no one knows
Speaker 1: where he went. But she, this woman Belatskaya, she called
Speaker 1: this beautiful spot, she called it home. She called it
Speaker 1: the best place on earth. While she died there, all
Speaker 1: you could see was her pink yoga mat swept away
Speaker 1: in the ocean, and then somebody named Chaia porn Suprasert.
Speaker 1: He's the head of the rescue center in Thailand. He's
Speaker 1: telling Look, he says, we have warning systems everywhere around
Speaker 1: the beaches. We tell tourists of the possibility of bad
Speaker 1: swimming and coastline conditions. And he says, you know, during
Speaker 1: monsoon season, we constantly warned tourists, especially in high risk
Speaker 1: areas like Chiwang and Lamai beaches where red flags indicate
Speaker 1: no swimming. She wasn't swimming, mister super Whatever the fuck,
Speaker 1: mister Supersata, She wasn't swimming. She was sitting on her ass.
Speaker 1: This is why I can't love yoga, or can I
Speaker 1: be honest. Outside of Shiji Levanzi, who's a yoga fanatic
Speaker 1: yoga people, I can't. My brother law, the wife's the
Speaker 1: wife's sister and her husband were yoga people, and the
Speaker 1: way they talk, and I know what they're really like
Speaker 1: in person, and yet they act like everything's under control.
Speaker 1: I mustay bullshit. I know these people underneath, they know
Speaker 1: different than you or I. They fly off the handle,
Speaker 1: they say things that don't mean, they do crazy stupid shit.
Speaker 1: Now mistake. How about not my ass stay because they're
Speaker 1: full of shit. I don't know why yoga people always
Speaker 1: think everyone else wants to see them doing their stretchers
Speaker 1: outside at the park, on the beach, at a lake
Speaker 1: in the oceans, in a boat where you're eating lunch.
Speaker 1: We don't want to see it. If she did yoga
Speaker 1: in her hotel room, she'd still be alive, and so
Speaker 1: with the good Samaritan and tried to help her. You watch,
Speaker 1: and a week democrats will call it climate change. The
Speaker 1: woman died because of climate change. Just the term swept away,
Speaker 1: it's a very scary term, but I'll tell you it
Speaker 1: does remind me. Boy, when I was a kid, thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, maybe there was a movie called swept Away,
Speaker 1: famous movie, foreign film. Obviously, one night my father comes
Speaker 1: down the stairs. I got the TV to myself. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I was watching, but I know whenever
Speaker 1: he came downstairs, it means he couldn't sleep. And I'd
Speaker 1: hear the hand down the banister and he would always
Speaker 1: say the same thing, more or less, and it was,
Speaker 1: why don't you make Papa a Scotch? All right? Dad?
Speaker 1: And he'd sit in his requirer I'd go behind the bar.
Speaker 1: We had a little bar in the living room. Make
Speaker 1: a miss Scotch and water. What have you? Always take
Speaker 1: a little sip. I touch it to my lips. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it was so powerful back then as a kid.
Speaker 1: He didn't stop me, only let it. I just a
Speaker 1: little bit to my lips. He would say, good, you
Speaker 1: like it? No, good, don't like it. Well I ended
Speaker 1: up liking it, but that's not his fault. So he goes,
Speaker 1: let's see what's on home box He loved it. No
Speaker 1: one called it HBO. But then let's see what we
Speaker 1: got on a home box office. So it was swept Away. Great,
Speaker 1: great film by the filmmaker Lena Wertmueller, terrific director. The
Speaker 1: actual name of the film was Swept Away by an
Speaker 1: Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August. I love
Speaker 1: it so basically in this movie, no spoilers, but it's
Speaker 1: been fifty years, guys, it's a trip. They're on a
Speaker 1: boat in the Mediterranean Sea and basically it becomes a
Speaker 1: trip into the discovery of how society's frameworks of the
Speaker 1: rich and poor are very delicate and also temporary. It's
Speaker 1: a lot about class warfare in Europe. So it starred
Speaker 1: one of the best Italian actors ever, gian Carlo Giannini.
Speaker 1: I love him, and an actress named mari Angelo Melatto.
Speaker 1: So Malatto, blue blonde eyed, from Northern Italian, Northern Italy, right,
Speaker 1: and she represented the rich capitalists, you know, the white Italy.
Speaker 1: She spoke Milanaise Italian with a you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a French inflection, which a lot of Northern Italian people
Speaker 1: have that sort of pride about them. Well, Jane Carlo
Speaker 1: gene Edie, he's a dark skinned guy, he's kind of uncouth,
Speaker 1: he's uneducated. He's like me, Sicilian speaks with a very
Speaker 1: thick Sicilian accent. You know, I'm halfnboly Tan too. I
Speaker 1: never give my mother credit. She half of her was Neapolitan,
Speaker 1: so you know I got that knowing for me too,
Speaker 1: which is a wonderful trait. Neopolitans are always very you know,
Speaker 1: they like to calm shit down, Let's have peace, no
Speaker 1: more fighting. Sicilians are looking for way to put the
Speaker 1: knife in your back. Neopolitan's very diplomatic, and that's exactly
Speaker 1: my mother and my father. But now this guy on
Speaker 1: the boat who's driving her, is this lower class, all right,
Speaker 1: which really back then they considered black, honestly, and throughout
Speaker 1: the whole film, and you gotta see this movie, he
Speaker 1: tells her, you have to address me now as mister
Speaker 1: coruncio or a master, because he's been humiliated so many
Speaker 1: times by people of her ilk to be an underdog
Speaker 1: in the Italian society. He's gonna now take revenge on
Speaker 1: this woman. And he begins to really, you know, handle
Speaker 1: her and give her a hard time. He slaps her
Speaker 1: a few times whenever he's at a loss for words,
Speaker 1: which is a lot. He's maxer. I mean, he's very evil, right,
Speaker 1: but don't forget this guy's lived with humiliation and misery
Speaker 1: all his life from people just like her. And there's
Speaker 1: this rape scene, so called rape scene. This is when
Speaker 1: he's at his most angry, and you know he's sitting there.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget this scene because I'm twelve years old.
Speaker 1: Thirteen maybe now d never happens. But he's telling her
Speaker 1: what he's gonna do, and he's using racial slurs, very
Speaker 1: derisive language. And in this scene he tells her I'm
Speaker 1: in complete control now, I mean it's in Italian, but
Speaker 1: he's saying he's in complete control, and before they consummate
Speaker 1: the sex. What she eventually does, she starts to like
Speaker 1: him the way he is. She starts to like being
Speaker 1: told what to do by him. It's very uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's very dark, and uh, what's the word. Uh?
Speaker 1: I can't take of the word primordial. That's the word, right,
Speaker 1: because you know, she hasn't had much affection because of
Speaker 1: who she is. And they have this love affair, and
Speaker 1: he tells her when he's seducing her, he's behind her
Speaker 1: and in her ear he says to her, I am
Speaker 1: subdomizing you. I'm sudomizing you. And I knew it was
Speaker 1: a kid. Excuse me, I knew it was a kid.
Speaker 1: What's that word sodomized? I sees behind her. I didn't
Speaker 1: couldn't put two and two together. And my father just says, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's screwing her from the back, just turns to his
Speaker 1: right and tells that to his young son. Oh okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell you more. See the movie, but
Speaker 1: don't make a mistake, and see there swept away made
Speaker 1: by Guy Ritchie that starred Madonna. That is hell. Don't
Speaker 1: do it. It's garbage. Actually Madonna. You know, I had
Speaker 1: the brilliant idea to rewrite the movie Ladulce Vita, to
Speaker 1: rewrite the screenplay. I said, I'm gonna write leadulce Vita.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna rewrite it and take it out of Italy
Speaker 1: and put it in New York City and even Miami.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it all different. I went scene for
Speaker 1: scene and just like like a doctor, I said, okay,
Speaker 1: this scene instead of Italy, instead of this, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be this person, this girl. I knew the next scene,
Speaker 1: and I the whole movie like that. I called it
Speaker 1: Beautiful Lies, and I had a lot of respect for
Speaker 1: it because I said, look, if anybody can rewrite Adultivita,
Speaker 1: it's me. Marcello Mastroani is apparently related to me somehow,
Speaker 1: someway he started in that movie. He played a gossip columnist.
Speaker 1: I'm a gossip column both Italian. Well, give me a break.
Speaker 1: This has got to be the movie that I do. Right.
Speaker 1: But you know, suddenly swept the way comes out with
Speaker 1: Madonna and the word was out, nobody will remake famous
Speaker 1: Italian cinema. So there went me trying to to pitch
Speaker 1: Beautiful Lies. But I don't know why at twelve years old,
Speaker 1: thirteen years old, I get so turned on by that scene.
Speaker 1: But it was the words that did it, because there
Speaker 1: wasn't real nudity to look at, but the words got me.
Speaker 1: But Jesus, what was my father thinking. I'm glad he
Speaker 1: showed me, but what was he thinking? This? This? I
Speaker 1: gotta say, I look at the story because I know
Speaker 1: it's like right now in Gwyneth Paltrow's life, the waters
Speaker 1: are turning dark because Goop, her big big business, is
Speaker 1: not doing well. They've been getting sued, they've had layoffs.
Speaker 1: Things aren't going great, and everybody's saying that Gwyneth Paltrow's
Speaker 1: empire was crumbling. Well, she didn't care. She said that
Speaker 1: could be, but I'm gonna make sure I take me
Speaker 1: and Chris our daughter Apple, which we all laughed at
Speaker 1: when she named her that twenty years ago. If you
Speaker 1: could believe it, Apple, I guess it's Apple Martin, not
Speaker 1: Apple Paltrow. Apple Martin, who's very beautiful girl, made her
Speaker 1: debut at the La Balds Debutants over the weekend. A
Speaker 1: lot of a list people with daughters do this sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I'm not much for debutante bulls and what not.
Speaker 1: But more people than you know have put their daughters
Speaker 1: in this sort of thing. But you see, I mean,
Speaker 1: Apple is wearing this Valentino gown. There's stars everywhere and
Speaker 1: their daughters twenty to twenty five women who are being
Speaker 1: introduced into society at the Palace of Versailles. That's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty cool. The girls are between sixteen and twenty two,
Speaker 1: and their hand picked from all different countries, and they
Speaker 1: go through months and months of fittings. Who needs this shit?
Speaker 1: Months and months of fittings before stepping out in the
Speaker 1: costume or the catoo gown they love the most. Gwyneth
Speaker 1: Paltrow looked like she thought she was Marie Antoinette. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I think we should remind Gwyneth what happened to
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette. Didn't end too well. But this girl and
Speaker 1: other girls are walking around like they're literally bells of
Speaker 1: the ball. But I just felt like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: this goes on, this happens, but just just once in
Speaker 1: my life, I want to feel what it feels like
Speaker 1: to first of all, start to leave Hollywood as an
Speaker 1: OSC winning actress, then marry have a kid at a
Speaker 1: rock star, start a huge business where you can sell
Speaker 1: candles for seventy five bucks that smell like your vagina,
Speaker 1: and all sorts of other things you can do, like
Speaker 1: a fucking cap that goes on your head with red
Speaker 1: light therapy that helps men grow hair, which is nonsense,
Speaker 1: for only five hundred and fifty dollars. I mean, she catered,
Speaker 1: as we all know, to a very upper crust rich
Speaker 1: group of people, and then that's failing and she's like,
Speaker 1: fuck it, let's go to Paris for the ball. What
Speaker 1: a life? What a life? And it got me thinking.
Speaker 1: It got me thinking about, you know what it must
Speaker 1: feel like for those Pemigwyneth Paltrow has been famous for many,
Speaker 1: many years before her mother and father were famous, so
Speaker 1: she's always been around that sort of fame thing. And
Speaker 1: I got to think, in the other day, why what
Speaker 1: was it about me in my life that I decided, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going out to LA to be a celebrity or
Speaker 1: a star. And I always thought I'd do it, but
Speaker 1: then things began to happen with me that made it
Speaker 1: It all made sense for me to go forward, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave New York ever, but then
Speaker 1: I was kind of excited to get to LA because
Speaker 1: a number of things happened that really got me juiced up.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I've been through all these things,
Speaker 1: but for one, Howard Stern, who I got very close to, obviously,
Speaker 1: had just bought the rights to something, some kind of book,
Speaker 1: and he'd paired up with this TV producer named Craig
Speaker 1: Poligian who's a monster, done a bunch of stuff on TV.
Speaker 1: This is over twenty years ago, but he was still
Speaker 1: the guy to meet back then. So as I'm getting
Speaker 1: settled in Hollywood, Howard calls me and says, look, I
Speaker 1: got something going on. I bought the rights d blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah book. I'm gonna make it a show
Speaker 1: and we're gonna shoot a sizzle reel. I want you
Speaker 1: to host it because I was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how much they're gonna want to be out here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got something, you know, Because Howld I used to
Speaker 1: talk about, we'd write letters to each other. We call.
Speaker 1: After I had to get fired from that show, how
Speaker 1: was very supportive to me, called me you okay, man,
Speaker 1: how you doing man? I love you. I missed you
Speaker 1: on the show. But it wasn't my decision. That went
Speaker 1: on for weeks, and I'm like, of course, it's I
Speaker 1: get it, man, don't worry about it. And he said,
Speaker 1: I got something for you in my back pocket. Just
Speaker 1: stay calm. I'm gonna come back here. And he did.
Speaker 1: But then before he did, there was a big problem.
Speaker 1: Apparently Craig Poligion shot the Sizzle role behind his back.
Speaker 1: I wasn't included because Poligion didn't know who I was. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: Howard and him split. He wanted nothing to do with Poligion,
Speaker 1: so there went that opportunity. Then when things really the
Speaker 1: first thing that really kicked into gear for me was
Speaker 1: that when New York Magazine wrote that cover story on me,
Speaker 1: and a lot of things in my life went crazy.
Speaker 1: But one of the good things that happened was this
Speaker 1: Hollywood producer named Beverly Cammy Cimhe she loved this story
Speaker 1: written about me for New York Magazine, and she optioned
Speaker 1: the piece and had plans to make my story a movie.
Speaker 1: And she was motivated by the fact because years earlier
Speaker 1: she just missed out on optioning another story that was
Speaker 1: written in New York Magazine, written by a guy named
Speaker 1: Nick Cohen, and it was called the Tribal Rights of
Speaker 1: the New Saturday Night doesn't probably sound familiar, but that
Speaker 1: article was about a young working class Italian kid in
Speaker 1: bens and Urst, Brooklyn, my hometown, who spent this night's
Speaker 1: dancing at a local disco called two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Obviously that was Saturday Night Fever. So she flipped from
Speaker 1: my article contacted the writer asked about optioning it for
Speaker 1: a movie. But a guy that beat her to the
Speaker 1: punch for this article about the kid who dances in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: That's Robert Stigwood. He got it first, he purchased the
Speaker 1: film rights. He beat Beverly Cami, and he turned that
Speaker 1: into Saturday Night Fever, and then the director changed the
Speaker 1: title from it was just Saturday Night. Then it became
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Fever after the Beg's gave the soundtrack and
Speaker 1: it included the song night Fever that I've heard from
Speaker 1: the documentary I saw on the BEG. So I'm feeling
Speaker 1: a bit high on myself when the article hit. I
Speaker 1: met this young guy in New York City who's like
Speaker 1: tracking me down, and when he finally called up to me,
Speaker 1: he's like out of breath. And basically it's like, you're
Speaker 1: a j Benzon. Yeah, my mother's a producer. She loved
Speaker 1: the article about you in New York Magazine. She wants
Speaker 1: to turn it into a movie. I said, did that
Speaker 1: be great? And he said, look, we're gonna fly you
Speaker 1: out to LA have meeting with my mother. I'm like,
Speaker 1: your mother's gonna fly out to New York, you'll fly
Speaker 1: me out to LA either one. I said, well, toll
Speaker 1: he come here. He's like, yeah, she will. She's serious.
Speaker 1: I go, okay, she's this crazy for the story. And
Speaker 1: I meet her and she tells me, listen to me.
Speaker 1: Not since I read the article in New York Magazine
Speaker 1: that became Saturday Night Fever, have I wanted to option
Speaker 1: the story this badly. I think this story can be
Speaker 1: bigger than that. And by the time she got to me,
Speaker 1: I had to tell her, you know youugh. Hefner had
Speaker 1: already optioned the story rights, and he had six months
Speaker 1: to see if he could get anything done with respect
Speaker 1: to attaching a director and getting funding and shit like that.
Speaker 1: I said, after six months, it's yours. But you know,
Speaker 1: you get you get hooked when you hear stuff like
Speaker 1: that about these big players who like your property. And
Speaker 1: want to make you a star. So I'm walking around
Speaker 1: knowing that, okay, maybe Bev Camy' another ace up my sleeve.
Speaker 1: Six months comes and goes. I'm expecting Beverley Camey to
Speaker 1: rush over to me, but of course this is Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: There's something else she's wrapped up, and she's producing another movie,
Speaker 1: Something Cold Junior, with Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito I'van Wrightman directing,
Speaker 1: clearly a bigger get. And she also produced something called
Speaker 1: The Package with Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones. So
Speaker 1: she was for real, but now she's too busy and
Speaker 1: everything in Hollywood is timing. But I didn't know how
Speaker 1: Hollywood worked back then. But by the time that finished
Speaker 1: and she could have maybe done something again, my book
Speaker 1: Fame Ain't the Bitch comes out, and now Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: bought the movie rights and they're too similar to the
Speaker 1: magazine story, so Harvey's got it, and that caught my
Speaker 1: ear for sure. All these things happening, now, one of
Speaker 1: these things has to hit right. Maybe living in La
Speaker 1: ain't that big. Then everything falls apart, as it always
Speaker 1: does in Hollywood. And to be honest, I honestly had
Speaker 1: not developed the tough skin I needed to have to
Speaker 1: make a life in that town. But as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: with all those beautiful, promising possibilities, I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna have it easy. But you find out nothing comes
Speaker 1: easy in that town. And there came a point in
Speaker 1: like twenty ten or twenty eleven I finally got to
Speaker 1: meet Craig Piligian, who by this time was the showrunner
Speaker 1: for Deadliest Catch, Ultimate Fighter, Ghost Hunters, American Chopper, Dirty Jobs.
Speaker 1: And in fact that's how Mike Rowe got the gig
Speaker 1: for Dirty Jobs. Poligion liked them and just handed them
Speaker 1: a series. And you know, he was in a meeting
Speaker 1: with Mike Rowe and suddenly there's Dana Whites in there
Speaker 1: with the Ultimate Fighter TV show and Mike Rose at
Speaker 1: the office and they're talking about who can host it
Speaker 1: or narrated and Pligon goes, no, I'm sorry. Dana White goes, hey,
Speaker 1: you're a voice of a guy. Say something. He goes,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, just say something? And he goes, okay,
Speaker 1: next on Ultimate Fighter and Dany goes, yeah, right, and
Speaker 1: he did ten seasons of that show. Mike Rowe has
Speaker 1: made a fortune because of that beautiful velvet voice, and
Speaker 1: I liked the guy. Meanwhile, Craig Piligeon's worth three hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars now, so he meets me. He likes me,
Speaker 1: and he says, look, the guy's he's an ex marine,
Speaker 1: tough guy, fighter. We hit a lot right away. Let's
Speaker 1: get this guy as show. He says, to his old office,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I want. And I pitched him some ideas.
Speaker 1: He liked him. I pitched him one idea he really liked,
Speaker 1: but he passed me off to another producer because he
Speaker 1: was slammed with four fucking shows he was running. But
Speaker 1: the guy put me with at a cocaine issue, and
Speaker 1: I knew about it because I knew my own issues
Speaker 1: back then, and I could tell, you know, this guy
Speaker 1: was not going to help me. And I couldn't appeal
Speaker 1: to Poligia because that you can't talk badly about the
Speaker 1: guys he has working for him. But I knew. I
Speaker 1: told my wife, this isn't gonna happen, you know, And
Speaker 1: I pitched the show. I love this idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been done, but go back, you know, ten twelve
Speaker 1: years ago, it wasn't really being done. I said, I
Speaker 1: want to just I want to interview cold murderers. I'm
Speaker 1: not scared of any of them. Put put us in
Speaker 1: a dark room. I want to talk to very bad
Speaker 1: bad men. Just me and a camera that moves around
Speaker 1: the table in a circle. The criminal is not going
Speaker 1: to be handcuffed. All we got is a bottle of
Speaker 1: water and we talk, and I'm gonna try them on
Speaker 1: to stand a guy because a while ago one of
Speaker 1: my my uncle Donnie, who did some prison time, and
Speaker 1: told me, you know, when we're in prison, we can't
Speaker 1: do bad things anymore, but we can't do good things either,
Speaker 1: and a lot of us want to help. And that's
Speaker 1: stuck in my head. And I thought, well, if I
Speaker 1: talk to these murderers and get down to the minni
Speaker 1: gritty of their crimes and shit, maybe we can uncover
Speaker 1: something like we uncovered the Bernanda's brothers getting sexually abused
Speaker 1: by their father. I don't know. I just thought, these
Speaker 1: guys don't get to talk enough about their life. We
Speaker 1: all know their crimes and with bad things they did.
Speaker 1: What else do we need to know about these guys?
Speaker 1: Never happened. This guy, the apartmouth, never got shit done.
Speaker 1: Pelige and fired him, and then Poligion lost touch, his
Speaker 1: career got extremely busy. Enter a company called Asylum Entertainment.
Speaker 1: Now this was twenty twelve. I thought, this is gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It's gonna happen. Asylum Entertainment was owned by two guys.
Speaker 1: Steve Michaels, who's the son of the famous announcer sports
Speaker 1: announcer Al Michaels, and I sit down on him and
Speaker 1: I thought, well, this is great. I've met Al Michaels
Speaker 1: and I thought, what a great dad. I mean, what
Speaker 1: a famous dad. I mean. I said to Steve, hey,
Speaker 1: you know you must be a big fan of sports,
Speaker 1: which is your favorite? He goes, I don't. I hate sports?
Speaker 1: He hates you hate Right away, I go, this guy,
Speaker 1: I will never work with this guy if you hate sports. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said why, He goes, because you know that's all
Speaker 1: my father did. And it hit me. Sports kept his
Speaker 1: dad away from him, So he hates sports. I go,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna be easy. But then enter his partner,
Speaker 1: big tall, strong guy named Jonathan Kotch. Jonathan Couch liked
Speaker 1: me from the get and I'd already gotten. I was.
Speaker 1: I was up for these two shows. Demons in the
Speaker 1: City of Angels, which is just a voiceover show narration,
Speaker 1: not me on film. I got that gig. Then they
Speaker 1: loved the idea of me doing something else, and we
Speaker 1: developed Case Clothes with aj Benz only eight episodes. I said,
Speaker 1: listen to me, if I get a million viewers, if
Speaker 1: we hit a million, can you guarantee season two? Because
Speaker 1: I know, like the pay wasn't outstanding whatever, six seven
Speaker 1: thousand a show, but you know it's something. It's good
Speaker 1: and I wanted my kids to see Daddy working on
Speaker 1: TV again, so I loved it. I would have done
Speaker 1: for free so my kids can see Daddy work. So
Speaker 1: now I have two shows. And I said to Jonathan Couch,
Speaker 1: listen to me, I'm gonna I'm gonna present something to
Speaker 1: you all. It was a big meeting with everybody in
Speaker 1: the office. I said, I want to be the Anthony
Speaker 1: Bourdain of the Reels channel. I said, I think you
Speaker 1: got Micro at Discovery, right, you got Bordain at CNN
Speaker 1: and whatever the fuck else he was at before that
Speaker 1: with with you know, no reservations. I said, I want
Speaker 1: to be that guy for Reels. You got some good shows.
Speaker 1: Let my voice cover these shows. Plus, you got two
Speaker 1: of my shows that are on guarantee a million viewers.
Speaker 1: If you can guarantee me season two on Case Clothes,
Speaker 1: if you get a million, and Jonath's like, I love
Speaker 1: the idea. I see it exactly. This guy was my hero.
Speaker 1: I said, fantastic results come in after the fourth show.
Speaker 1: A million viewers. Now right now, you look at TV shows,
Speaker 1: people are getting one hundred thousand people and they're called hits.
Speaker 1: A million was still a lot in twenty twelve. But
Speaker 1: then the Bean counters at Reels, which is owned by
Speaker 1: a billionaire who owns a bunch of radio stations. That's
Speaker 1: how he got his money. Forget his name, was it Hubbard?
Speaker 1: Some old timer? The Bean characters said, you know we
Speaker 1: like this show, well, we liked a million viewers. But
Speaker 1: you know, let's just for augument saying, say this show
Speaker 1: costs us I don't know, thirty two thousand dollars an
Speaker 1: episode to film, plus your pay. We can want to
Speaker 1: repeat what should cost to seventeenth down whatever the fuck,
Speaker 1: and get roughly the same amount of view as a
Speaker 1: little bit less. I said, yeah, but you're building something here.
Speaker 1: By the time we get the season two, three and four.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get a lot more viewers that people were
Speaker 1: memory for mysteries and scalings. This is just the beginning. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: fucking people who aren't creative at all, who've never done
Speaker 1: anything creative in their lives get to tell you no,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do it. I said, well, bullshit, I
Speaker 1: said to myself. Jonathan Kotch is gonna override them, and
Speaker 1: he told me he would. AJ Sit tight, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna let this happen. I believe in you. I believe
Speaker 1: in the show. Sit tight, all right, buddy, I will So.
Speaker 1: Now I'm producing the movie with my buddy Adam and
Speaker 1: we're making so be it. So I got income over there.
Speaker 1: Things are good and I'm going I'm gonna get more
Speaker 1: work from reels. This is gonna be fantastic. This is
Speaker 1: the second that the second coming of me. Jonathan Kotch.
Speaker 1: I won't get into the whole story because it's so dramatic.
Speaker 1: He's going to some common in DC for some television
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Al Michaels' his partner is there who.
Speaker 1: By the way, Asylum Entertainment got one hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: to make TV shows, so clearly they were the right
Speaker 1: people to be with. On the way to d C
Speaker 1: from La Jonathan Koch feels a little sick on the plane. Okay,
Speaker 1: guess that hotel figures he'll take a nap, take a
Speaker 1: nice shower, he'll be fine for the conference. Then he's
Speaker 1: in his room when he's thrown up. He's doing bed,
Speaker 1: he's sweat and he's got a big fever. He calls Steve,
Speaker 1: I can't make it. What do you mean I'm thrown up.
Speaker 1: I gotta feel all right, Hank tight rest. Well, you
Speaker 1: know you're not gonna miss much. I'll brief you. Just
Speaker 1: just get better, buddy, you got Jonathan Kotch was in
Speaker 1: a battle for his life. I forget this illness he had.
Speaker 1: It's a tiny little germ. It's almost like a spider
Speaker 1: meningitis or a crazy staff in infection. That by a
Speaker 1: time the next two days came, he'd lost I think
Speaker 1: a hand and a foot. I mean, this disease was
Speaker 1: eating him. And I would call people at Reels, going
Speaker 1: is Jonathan, Like, where's he at? I had a contact
Speaker 1: there and they couldn't tell me, Yeah, he's back. But
Speaker 1: then he had to run with his wife to blah blah.
Speaker 1: They were like stalling me. I said, look, somebody just
Speaker 1: tell me, is he back? What are we doing? Because
Speaker 1: you know I'm riding this guy to make me come
Speaker 1: back again. You know the second company. We're aware of that. AJ.
Speaker 1: He really likes you, but he's sick. And then he
Speaker 1: got better, but all like jumbled up. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what was going on. And then they finally told me, look,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna be working for a while. He can't walk.
Speaker 1: He has to learn how to walk, he has to
Speaker 1: learn how to use his hands. Again. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what's up with Jonathan Coach now. About six years
Speaker 1: ago we touched base on Facebook or Instagram and he
Speaker 1: said really sweet things to me and more to the
Speaker 1: effect of I wish I were around AJ, we'd have
Speaker 1: done something great. Guys like that are so important in
Speaker 1: this town. And when you when you fall into one
Speaker 1: of their arms or just happened to be there, when
Speaker 1: you're a pitch meets their interest level and you can
Speaker 1: make music together. That's a beautiful TV show. That's a
Speaker 1: beautiful career. That's like when Sandra Bullock saw George Lopez
Speaker 1: perform and in her mind. She has an idea, this comedy,
Speaker 1: this Mexican humor about the mother, the grandmother living with
Speaker 1: them and the kids, and there's so much gold here.
Speaker 1: And George Lopez couldn't believe Sandra Bullock wanted a meeting
Speaker 1: with him to produce this show. And she said to George,
Speaker 1: he's nervous, Like, look, you know, she said, I just
Speaker 1: want you to be funny. Okay, I'll handle all the rest.
Speaker 1: I'll take all the meetings. They can't push me around.
Speaker 1: You be funny. I'll sell it. And she did. And
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for Sandra Bullock meeting George Lopez or
Speaker 1: having the idea to turn his act into a comedy series,
Speaker 1: a sitcom, where's George Lopez? Now? I don't even like
Speaker 1: the guy. I used to like it when he first
Speaker 1: came out. Now he's a prick. He looks like an
Speaker 1: evil person with that hair all over the place, takes
Speaker 1: his wife's kidney and cheats on it. Real slim, real slime.
Speaker 1: But that's the way how we can be. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: crazy talk about myself the whole fucking show. I'm sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: I didn't think i'd I'd do the whole show about me,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I just want to talk about me. I'm kidding, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm getting the show out to you guys late on
Speaker 1: Monday evening. Poker ran late, so Mike's gonna post this
Speaker 1: first thing, so you might, you might talk to me.
Speaker 1: You're gonna You're not gonna hear this till you get
Speaker 1: the show. Either way. I want to set this all
Speaker 1: up by ending the show with something that really hit
Speaker 1: me today. Because we're all in a hurry. We're all busy,
Speaker 1: whether you're a TV show run on like Craig Pligeon
Speaker 1: or Jonathan Kotch who's deal them with life and death,
Speaker 1: or myself trying to get my career back on track.
Speaker 1: Whatever you guys are involved in, and your businesses and
Speaker 1: your lives were all in a fucking hurry. I know
Speaker 1: the last few weeks have felt good because of the
Speaker 1: change and leadership in this country. Even though it hasn't
Speaker 1: happened yet, you can feel it. I feel differently. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of you too. But make the time
Speaker 1: to say hi to people, reach out to them, especially
Speaker 1: if they reached out to you two times three times.
Speaker 1: A few months ago, a kid that graduated with me
Speaker 1: at West Issap high school. Bobby Bridefeller, good athlete man,
Speaker 1: great diver on the swim team. We always had great
Speaker 1: swim teams. Bobby could dive. Not a real tall, tall guy,
Speaker 1: but a terrific diver. And I'm on Facebook a few
Speaker 1: months ago and i get a Oh, Bobby Bridefeller's waving
Speaker 1: or poking or whatever they do. And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't have any to say that. Bobby Bridefeld has been
Speaker 1: forty five years, whatever it is, whatever you know. I
Speaker 1: got my high school friends. I'm done. Kenny, I got Marve,
Speaker 1: got Galla, got Tony. I'm out. No, he keeps poking me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what does he want to do? And then
Speaker 1: he would he would send me a message. I got
Speaker 1: a weird like three thirty am. I'm like, uh, he's
Speaker 1: either drinking or in. The things he'd write to me
Speaker 1: didn't really sound right. I'm like, you know what, better
Speaker 1: not even to start a conversation. I found out this
Speaker 1: morning Kenny and Mike and my buddy Godzilla and Tony
Speaker 1: Godzilla's Gallagher, Bobby brad Phil died. What do you mean
Speaker 1: he dropped dead? What happened? He had health issues from drinking.
Speaker 1: He had lost a leg recently. I said, Fuck, this
Speaker 1: guy's been poking me and sending me messages. I didn't
Speaker 1: get back to him. I feel horrible, and I really
Speaker 1: do this morning, I feel like shit, Like, who the
Speaker 1: fuck am I not to just say something back to
Speaker 1: a guy who I was in class with and walked
Speaker 1: past in the hallways and we walked around his athletes
Speaker 1: in school. Was I that busy that I couldn't have
Speaker 1: said a Hi, Bobby, how you been? Buddy? Let that
Speaker 1: be a lesson to everybody out there. You're not too
Speaker 1: busy to say all to a friend, especially in those
Speaker 1: years where you became, you know, your formidable years. Those
Speaker 1: guys are everything to you. So he wasn't the closest
Speaker 1: friend of mine, that's for sure. But I just feel
Speaker 1: guilty that give him a chance to poke him back
Speaker 1: or give him a wave, or just go how you doing, Bobby?
Speaker 1: How you been? Buddy? He would have opened up and
Speaker 1: told me something. Instead, I knew nothing, and those advances
Speaker 1: he made toward me never got back to him, and
Speaker 1: maybe he knew he was dying. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I feel like shit. So don't do what I did.
Speaker 1: You're not too busy to say hi to an old friend.
Speaker 1: All right, that's my lesson for today. I'm aj Ben's
Speaker 1: a gang that was fame as a bit your daily
Speaker 1: Unfiltered podcast for December third, twenty twenty four. And I'll
Speaker 1: talk to these tomorrow if I'm here tomorrow. I'm being real.
Speaker 1: You never know, walk out of the cause you don't
Speaker 1: have a heart attack and die drop dead. People have strokes.
Speaker 1: Didn't TD Jakes have a stroke up there on stage?
Speaker 1: You know what? Just just be careful with yourselves, love
Speaker 1: each other, do the right thing. You're not too busy,
Speaker 1: that's all.