Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, aj Ben's are here with fame, is it? Bitch?
Speaker 2: This is your daily Unfiltered podcast from March thirteenth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five oh three, two oh two five. Nice day today.
Speaker 2: You're gonna hit sixty degrees. Got to get the backyard
Speaker 2: ready for Roseley to plant flowers in a month or so,
Speaker 2: just in case it's not another freeze coming.
Speaker 1: You never can tell in the Midwest, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean when I got here a couple of weeks back,
Speaker 2: it was three degrees and now it's up to sixty
Speaker 2: sixty five.
Speaker 1: It's very strange.
Speaker 2: So uh, it's twelve good humming birds are coming around
Speaker 2: as you show out. The other day, I posted a
Speaker 2: picture of a red cardinal that we cardinals are red,
Speaker 2: a cardinal that came to the bird feeder in the
Speaker 2: window on the day of my father's death March seventh.
Speaker 2: It was also right above a framed picture when when
Speaker 2: nephew Jackie was young and just began to swim competitively
Speaker 2: in school, and it that picture is inside the room,
Speaker 2: and above that picture is the window where the bird
Speaker 2: feeder is. And it's like I said to Rosalie, is
Speaker 2: this Jackie or is this daddy, who knows, but it's
Speaker 2: amazing to see this. And then another one came and
Speaker 2: landed on a tree branch about fifteen feet past the window.
Speaker 1: That's two. Now.
Speaker 2: I never see two cardinals together. I don't know where
Speaker 2: you live, but that's not an ordinary sight. So I
Speaker 2: always feel good and shit like that happens. It's an
Speaker 2: amazing thing, messages from the Great beyond, signals and signs
Speaker 2: that some of us don't really get in tune with,
Speaker 2: and others completely look for them and feel them as
Speaker 2: they happen. Speaking of which, as I said the other day,
Speaker 2: Rosalie and I stayed up late the other night just
Speaker 2: talking watching the pasta Queen on Amazon. And you know,
Speaker 2: I always pepper her with questions because look, man, I
Speaker 2: mean not that she's ill, but you know when people go,
Speaker 2: when people leave, they leave with all knowledge and information
Speaker 2: about your family and your family tree, the legacy.
Speaker 1: It's there's no one.
Speaker 2: Else to go to to talk to, to find out
Speaker 2: stuff about the people who were there before me, were
Speaker 2: the people who were there when I was very young,
Speaker 2: and she was seventeen years older than me. So Rosalie
Speaker 2: knows all the secrets and all the stories and I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe I heard this story. I never knew this,
Speaker 2: and I was like, how would you not tell me this?
Speaker 2: So apparently, well not apparently. My mother's mother had I
Speaker 2: think six kids, Louis, Anna, Josie, Jenny, my mother.
Speaker 1: That's five.
Speaker 2: She had five kids, and then there was always Uncle
Speaker 2: Frankie and Uncle Vinnie. And I know that there weren't
Speaker 2: Grandma's kids. Grandma died before I was born. My mother
Speaker 2: was pregnant when her mother died, so I never saw her.
Speaker 2: But I do have her middle name, Joseph. She was
Speaker 2: Joseph Fiene, but she went by pitt Panella pit Beennie
Speaker 2: doing in Sicilian, and she took those two other boys
Speaker 2: in because her sister died and she took those two
Speaker 2: boys in. So now she's raising seventy kids. Uncle Frankie
Speaker 2: i'd met many times. He was fine. I was a
Speaker 2: young boy, but it was fun to be around. It
Speaker 2: looked like looked like family. He was family. I didn't
Speaker 2: know at that point he was not really my grandmother's son,
Speaker 2: but in the years to come, I learned that. But
Speaker 2: I never knew that the other brother, Uncle Vinnie, was
Speaker 2: a flat out fag.
Speaker 1: I could have. I'm like, how could you not tell
Speaker 1: me that I had a big gay uncle or great uncle?
Speaker 1: What have you? Oh, you didn't know? How could I know?
Speaker 1: He died before I was even born? I believe. No,
Speaker 1: he died like when I was very very young. I believe.
Speaker 2: And I think I might have met him once, maybe
Speaker 2: or twice. It's kind of foggy, but yeah, big gay uncle.
Speaker 1: I did not know that. Not does anything wrong with
Speaker 1: having a big gay uncle.
Speaker 2: But back in those times, back in that era, he
Speaker 2: must have led a very interesting life, a life full
Speaker 2: of lies, because you had to back then before being
Speaker 2: found out to be gay or having a male lover.
Speaker 1: I don't even know.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's so hard when you know when when when
Speaker 2: you go back at your history. These are enough things
Speaker 2: you're gonna hear from Henry Gates on that TV show
Speaker 2: about your family tree. But there's so much mystery surrounding
Speaker 2: my mother's mother and father. And I've brought this up
Speaker 2: several times in the past about my uncle, my grandmother,
Speaker 2: my grandfather, Nicholas, who died when I was two. There's
Speaker 2: one picture of me sitting on his lap. I can't
Speaker 2: find it. Never looked like any of us. He actually
Speaker 2: looked like somebody that done what's that paint through paints
Speaker 2: the American portraits family. You know that those famous paintings
Speaker 2: are people, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: He looked like that, like very Middle America, kind of
Speaker 1: looked nothing sicilian, a Bolidan. Nothing about him looked like us.
Speaker 1: I always thought this is odd, but what'll I know?
Speaker 1: And then you come to find out that Grandpa quote
Speaker 1: unquote no married Grandma because it was an arranged marriage.
Speaker 1: When Grandma got off the boat from Italy and saw him,
Speaker 1: she immediately didn't want to marry him. But his brothers
Speaker 1: were ma fiosa.
Speaker 2: And they more or less said to her, or made
Speaker 2: sure she knew if she didn't go forward with this
Speaker 2: arranged marriage, they would send word back to her village
Speaker 2: in Italy saying she's a big bhutana here in America,
Speaker 2: a big tramp just to hurt her name and image
Speaker 2: and whatever you want to call it, be disgraceful. So
Speaker 2: she marries Grandpa Nick Nicholas Nicole, and they go on
Speaker 2: to have all those children, but the last two were
Speaker 2: taken in by Grandma because her sister died. However, my
Speaker 2: mother and my uncle Nikki, the last two children, the
Speaker 2: last two siblings. Dare I say this, But they had
Speaker 2: a different look. They had a darker look and the
Speaker 2: features were different than their other siblings. And me and
Speaker 2: Rosalie and Lorraine and Grace, Mee and my cousin Joanne,
Speaker 2: we kind of all look alike, but not the same,
Speaker 2: not in the same way. Actually, Grace may looks a
Speaker 2: lot like Roselie and myself. But it was just weird
Speaker 2: that I always felt in my bones that is this
Speaker 2: really our grandfather?
Speaker 1: He doesn't look anything.
Speaker 2: Then you come to find out the big story that
Speaker 2: my mother and her sisters desperately didn't want us to
Speaker 2: know that at some point in his life Grandpa Nick,
Speaker 2: who was a bricklayer, fell off a building. I don't
Speaker 2: know how how high it was, but he never recovered.
Speaker 2: He always act like he was a young kid. He
Speaker 2: just his whole personality changed from this head trauma. And
Speaker 2: I heard from relatives and my sister he play hide
Speaker 2: and seek with the little kids, and he wasn't.
Speaker 1: A father or a man anymore.
Speaker 2: And Grandma, if she's anything like me, you know, loves love,
Speaker 2: loves passion, loves desires, has a fire in a heart, Well,
Speaker 2: where would she go because her husband was no longer
Speaker 2: being that kind of man.
Speaker 1: Along comes a man named Monino.
Speaker 2: I was always told half black hair fattalion, or part
Speaker 2: black and half for that. Whatever it was, it was
Speaker 2: a mixture, that's the way. That's the story I got.
Speaker 2: Rose says, no, that's not true, but I heard it
Speaker 2: from another relative. Either way, The story goes that since
Speaker 2: Grandpa couldn't perform anymore, was just out of his head.
Speaker 2: Grand Grandma took in Moneino, this this man as a
Speaker 2: border you know, he pay rent. Grandma had a knack
Speaker 2: for money. Both my grandmothers knew how to hustle and
Speaker 2: make money more than the men did. So she brought
Speaker 2: him in and he lived I guess in the basement,
Speaker 2: whatever the hell, and he paid her portion of the rent.
Speaker 1: But then proceeded to have two children with her.
Speaker 2: As the story goes, my mother and uncle Nikki, and
Speaker 2: at some point Grandpa Nick walk up out of his
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it, and said, something's wrong here,
Speaker 2: something's wrong, you know, I he understood that he wasn't
Speaker 2: having sex with his wife. I get this, two more kids,
Speaker 2: she's pregnant again, and again, what's going on and apparently,
Speaker 2: so the story goes, he had made a reference to
Speaker 2: Monino that he'd had it and he's got to get
Speaker 2: out of the house, and whatever manhood he had left,
Speaker 2: he expressed that, and this man Monino left because it
Speaker 2: was the respectful thing to do. There was also a
Speaker 2: story about a television arrived in the house. He bought
Speaker 2: allegedly bought a television for my grandmother so the kids
Speaker 2: could see TV, et cetera. And that was the final
Speaker 2: straw for Grandpa. In addition to the children, there's now
Speaker 2: a television set where they didn't have one. He knew
Speaker 2: he wasn't working to afford that, so it was always
Speaker 2: strange and he just wouldn't have it. Years years, years later,
Speaker 2: it stayed in that apartment in Brooklyn with one of
Speaker 2: my aunts who had passed away, and I said, go
Speaker 2: to the apartment, I talk to her daughter.
Speaker 1: I want to get any kind of things that I.
Speaker 2: Think was Jenny who died, maybe Josie, I forget, but
Speaker 2: I want to get anything that would be something that
Speaker 2: I have close to my heart that once belonged to that.
Speaker 2: I went to Brooklyn to Benson Nursta and went in
Speaker 2: that room. It was like she still was alive. Everything
Speaker 2: in that apartment was just so old. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: this in the late eighties, and it looked like I was.
Speaker 1: In the fifties. It was a time capsule. I took
Speaker 1: that TV.
Speaker 2: I tied it to the top of my Mazda RX seven,
Speaker 2: big black and white console TV with rope and straps,
Speaker 2: and I went from Brooklyn back to Long Island, fifty miles.
Speaker 2: I said, let me try and put it on and
Speaker 2: see what happens. I plug it in the garage. Nothing,
Speaker 2: so I start to mow the lawn. It's getting kind
Speaker 2: of dark out and a sunset, and I'm not paying
Speaker 2: attention to the TV. It's in the middle of my garage.
Speaker 2: It's getting dark out, and I plug a TV and
Speaker 2: then forget about it. And about ten minutes later, the
Speaker 2: garage and the fucking TV is on and it's a
Speaker 2: black and white movie, believe it or not, which made
Speaker 2: it even more eerie, and I forget what channel was.
Speaker 2: But I turned the volume up and the TV worked.
Speaker 2: Don't get me startled the fact that I no longer
Speaker 2: have that TV. It got all mixed up with storage
Speaker 2: and who's moving where I'm going to the city. I'm
Speaker 2: going to Los Angeles. I just couldn't keep lugging it around.
Speaker 2: So what's gone.
Speaker 1: But there's so much mystery in that story.
Speaker 2: We don't even know for sure if that's our grandfather,
Speaker 2: if Monino was our real grandfather. There's even stories that
Speaker 2: I think are very true, that you know, my grandmother
Speaker 2: made wine and pasta and she would feed the local mafios.
Speaker 2: So that was both my grandmothers did that and they
Speaker 2: loved her. And back in the day, there were tunnels
Speaker 2: underneath Brooklyn. They might still be there today that led
Speaker 2: from different neighborhoods of different neighbors, basically for bootleggers and
Speaker 2: during the Prohibition era. And everybody associates al Capone with Chicago,
Speaker 2: but al Capone was born in Brooklyn, and my relatives,
Speaker 2: especially Grace Mary, has always said that grandma fed al.
Speaker 1: Caponent when he was very young, before he moved on
Speaker 1: to Chicago.
Speaker 2: I don't know, guys. I know I'm spending ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Oh it's eleven minutes and eleven seconds.
Speaker 1: That's another sign either way. It was a very eventful
Speaker 1: evening learning about family history.
Speaker 2: Whether how much of it is true, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but It certainly takes on a life of its own,
Speaker 2: but let's get into the present day. Sorry for that
Speaker 2: trip down memory lane, here's a good story. Finally, sick
Speaker 2: of all the girls claiming men rape them. I'm fine
Speaker 2: with people saying P Diddy raped them because he's a
Speaker 2: sick though, but enough is enough. So many women are
Speaker 2: saying men rape them and it turns out not to
Speaker 2: be true, and we can go down the Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 2: rabbit hole, but I don't want it today either way.
Speaker 2: It's just been going on forever. And finally a guy
Speaker 2: fought that. Jay Z has been fighting back this particular
Speaker 2: claim that this woman has had that he raped her
Speaker 2: cup of decades back actually twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: With Sean P.
Speaker 2: Diddy COLLMBS after the Video Music Awards in New York
Speaker 2: City back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that was a big story. Is jay Z
Speaker 1: like Diddy? All these hip hop guys and rappers crazy?
Speaker 1: First she went by Jane Doe, this girl, but.
Speaker 2: It turns out, well, she's now identified, but it turns
Speaker 2: out she now says that never happened. He was just there,
Speaker 2: she said, but he didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 2: any sexual acts toward me. An investigator asked her did
Speaker 2: he have anything to do with any sexual acts towards you?
Speaker 1: And she said yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, jay Z, like I said, always denied this and
Speaker 2: was ready to fight and is still fighting. But elsewhere
Speaker 2: in that same recording by the private investigator, this girl's
Speaker 2: call her Jane Doe is now saying her lawyer Tony Busby,
Speaker 2: pressured her to follow this suit against jay Z. She
Speaker 2: said he was the one that kind of pushed me
Speaker 2: towards going forward with this and blaming jay Z, And
Speaker 2: the investigator says, Buzzby did, she says, yeah.
Speaker 1: Busby is the.
Speaker 2: Guy that's representing a bunch of P Diddy accusers that
Speaker 2: have filed charges against the rapper, And this one turns
Speaker 2: out to be not true. And I'm glad, And you know,
Speaker 2: people might say, you know, we got in the habit
Speaker 2: of saying, hey, if these guys aren't gonna counter sue
Speaker 2: these girls, that they're probably guilty.
Speaker 1: Well, jay Z was very quick.
Speaker 2: With counter suing and he's continuing to do so, the
Speaker 2: lawyer and her, So I hope he does well in court.
Speaker 1: God knows he has enough money.
Speaker 2: But I don't see jay Z as a rapist the
Speaker 2: way I look at P Diddy in some of the
Speaker 2: assholes he hangs around with. To me, jay Z, he
Speaker 2: has a little more class and didn't have to live
Speaker 2: that kind of lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Not that he's a real looker in the looks department.
Speaker 2: But you know, he has a confidence and a swagger
Speaker 2: about him that make him very New York and you know,
Speaker 2: very powerful in his own image. But I'm glad, I'm
Speaker 2: glad this happened. This girl finally coughed up and said, no,
Speaker 2: this didn't happen. And you know, I gotta tell you
Speaker 2: this forrest Gump of my.
Speaker 1: Life.
Speaker 2: I was at that those VMA's at Radio City Music
Speaker 2: Hall in two thousand.
Speaker 1: It was like it was one of.
Speaker 2: The last Hollywood type things I did, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like I still had connections into the hip
Speaker 2: hop world, and I I remember that night I took
Speaker 2: two Brazilian girls, one was like a bathing suit model
Speaker 2: that they were in New York and hanging around rock
Speaker 2: Though's friends. His girlfriend was Brazilian. They all knew each other,
Speaker 2: so I took them both to this party and looking
Speaker 2: back with an asshole like really, I did that just
Speaker 2: for Cloud obviously. I mean, my head must have been
Speaker 2: so far up my ass. I can't believe it, even
Speaker 2: like this is embarrassing. But when Harvey Weinstein, and at
Speaker 2: that point his partner at Miramax's books was the famous
Speaker 2: British editor Tina Brown, were working with me on my book,
Speaker 2: and we had many meetings together.
Speaker 1: And at big.
Speaker 2: Meeting was we're taking pictures of aj because he wrote
Speaker 2: they were gonna put an excerpt to my book in
Speaker 2: Talk Magazine, Harvey Weinstein's magazine that Tina Brown was the
Speaker 2: editor of. And uh okay, we're gonna do his shoot
Speaker 2: at Lotus, which was the best night club in New York.
Speaker 2: I went there every night. It was like my Cheers,
Speaker 2: where everybody knows your name. I held court there on
Speaker 2: top of the grand piano. It was a magical time.
Speaker 2: So it's stage, the picture of stage with a red
Speaker 2: velvet rope and people around.
Speaker 3: The door can't get in, and me walking through the
Speaker 3: through the aisle with this stunner six foot Brazilian blonde
Speaker 3: model forget the name Anna something, I.
Speaker 1: Forget, tall, beautiful, all her legs were up to my chest.
Speaker 1: Just a monster.
Speaker 2: And Harvey's like, this is gonna look great, and I'm
Speaker 2: such a what the fuck. I'm like, no, I want
Speaker 2: two girls. He's like one, I said, I want to
Speaker 2: have two girls, one on each arm. I think that's
Speaker 2: even cooler. How many guys take two girls out? I mean,
Speaker 2: of course it's been done, but I in my own
Speaker 2: mind of narcissism, I'm like, I want too. He got
Speaker 2: me another one. I forget her name, another stunter. And
Speaker 2: that picture in that magazine ran with me walking through
Speaker 2: the velvet ropes with people trying to kind of picture paparazzi.
Speaker 2: It was stage, but that's that's the magazine world.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I know that when I left New York
Speaker 2: for Los Angeles, it made me feel alone and untethered.
Speaker 2: That's a perfect word, because I was losing my way.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I missed Jack and Rowe and the guys, and the
Speaker 2: guys I held down New York City with, whether it's Frankie, Giant, Mario, Joey, Jack, Chico,
Speaker 2: you name it.
Speaker 1: I missed them all terribly.
Speaker 2: And I've told this to Mike and Kenny because they
Speaker 2: thought I was out there, and they kind of were right.
Speaker 1: For a while.
Speaker 2: I was a little bit too fucking stupid and acted
Speaker 2: like I was the shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But I never felt that way, and I always longed
Speaker 2: to be back with those guys, but they didn't know
Speaker 2: that with that's water under the bridge now.
Speaker 1: But that's the way they felt for a while.
Speaker 2: I don't blame them, but I was taking those necessary
Speaker 2: steps to become quote unquote famous. It's a dumb thing
Speaker 2: to chase if you think about it, and I have,
Speaker 2: but I was very lucky to have a TV show
Speaker 2: waiting for me as I landed in Los Angeles. Most people,
Speaker 2: if not all, people, come to Los Angeles and chase
Speaker 2: the dream. Well, my dream was given to me on
Speaker 2: a silver platter to host mysteries and scandals. There was
Speaker 2: no guarantee it would work or succeed, but the E
Speaker 2: Network gave me that shot. You know, here's your chance.
Speaker 2: Can you be a TV star or pardon the word star?
Speaker 2: Can you be a TV host and make your your
Speaker 2: lane in that capacity? No guarantees it was gonna work
Speaker 2: or succeed, But when I got to LA it was
Speaker 2: like I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I can't explain it. When I'm in New York. When
Speaker 1: I used to be in New York.
Speaker 2: I felt it from my heels up to my ass.
Speaker 2: It's a different feeling standing in New York City. There's
Speaker 2: a rhythm, there's an energy about it.
Speaker 1: It might sound corny or stupid to you.
Speaker 2: I don't feel it in Illinois, although I love Illinois,
Speaker 2: love Chicago, but I.
Speaker 1: Don't feel anything on my feet. I have images in my.
Speaker 2: Head of how beautiful it is and green and water
Speaker 2: and nice people, well mannered.
Speaker 1: But in New York, my feet hit the ground.
Speaker 2: I swear to God, there's an energy that shoots up
Speaker 2: my legs into my immediate midsection area where a lot
Speaker 2: of arousal is sparked and just fireworks.
Speaker 1: I mean, you may have that feeling with where you live.
Speaker 1: I don't know. In La it was different.
Speaker 2: You know those things in airports that what do they
Speaker 2: call travelators, Those moving walkways that some people just stand
Speaker 2: on and some people walk on while it's moving to
Speaker 2: get to their gate, quicker whatever is. I felt like
Speaker 2: I was on one of those things every day, all day,
Speaker 2: you know, because you got a team of people all
Speaker 2: of a sudden doing things to you, making plans to you,
Speaker 2: arranging your schedule, photo shoots, gym appointments.
Speaker 1: You know, what are you eating?
Speaker 2: Everybody's eyes are on you because we're gonna sink a
Speaker 2: lot of money into you.
Speaker 1: Buster. Don't fuck up, you know.
Speaker 2: Wardrobe trips to Barney's to get Mike suits to the episodes,
Speaker 2: And that only happened because Johnny Boy Calvani, my man,
Speaker 2: was friends with a guy named Michael Sharky who worked
Speaker 2: at Barney's. In this special, how do I say this
Speaker 2: when stars go in to shop, this is the guy.
Speaker 2: Michael Sharky is one of those guys that can shut
Speaker 2: the store down for a star that kind of shit.
Speaker 1: Now, he didn't do that for me, But.
Speaker 2: Because I knew Michael Sharkey, he was agreeable and amenable
Speaker 2: and know that people were like this at the time
Speaker 2: to let me wear suits at Barney's and return them
Speaker 2: after they were dry, clean, properly, shirts, suits, ties, you
Speaker 2: name it. Of course, the shoes I kept, but he
Speaker 2: had a small budget, so I couldn't keep all the suits,
Speaker 2: but I ended up.
Speaker 1: With a lot of them. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: can't fit in any of them anymore.
Speaker 2: But Michael arranged that at the time, only myself and
Speaker 2: padd O'Brien, the TV host and sports sports analysts was
Speaker 2: allowed to go to Barney's, get their clothes and return them.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was kind of a big deal in
Speaker 2: the sense that the family that owned Barney's, I know,
Speaker 2: they air Jeene Pressman, came to my wedding because that's
Speaker 2: how close people were together at Barney's, and that all
Speaker 2: came from Johnny Boy Calvani's connections.
Speaker 1: But with all those.
Speaker 2: People and an entire network around me, it just helped
Speaker 2: to keep my mind off how heart broken I really
Speaker 2: was to leave New York City. But still, I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember that day when I was told about getting
Speaker 2: the gig, and of course I was happy, but I
Speaker 2: was bitter. I felt bittersweet because I knew I had
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: I had to go.
Speaker 2: I did always want to be on TV and movies
Speaker 2: and be quote unquote famous.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That word fame is associated with me, whether you think
Speaker 2: I was famous or not. It's just I can't hear
Speaker 2: that word without thinking of me, the show, my book,
Speaker 2: the TV show. It's just now, there are worse words
Speaker 2: to have associated with your life, you know.
Speaker 1: But I remember the day I knew I was going
Speaker 1: to go. Plans were in effect.
Speaker 2: I had, the tickets were sent, blah blah blah, and
Speaker 2: I went to my ex girlfriend, Calie Young's apartment in
Speaker 2: the West Village, and you know, I was crying where
Speaker 2: he sat in the back patio, and I cried that
Speaker 2: I got to go.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was already thinking of before I
Speaker 1: even went there.
Speaker 2: I was taking how soon can I get back, how
Speaker 2: often can I get back?
Speaker 1: How long can I stay? You know that kind of shit, and.
Speaker 2: Anything to try and make this long distance relationship work.
Speaker 2: It worked when we lived a half a mile apart,
Speaker 2: but three thousand miles that's tough. And she saw my tears.
Speaker 2: She cried too, but she straightened me out. And I
Speaker 2: don't want to sound corny, but she said to me,
Speaker 2: you're a star. I mean again, I feel funny saying
Speaker 2: that we use that word star a lot back in
Speaker 2: the day whenever we see people in New York who
Speaker 2: are doing great.
Speaker 1: But we said that he's a fine star. I don't
Speaker 1: mean it in the sense like a movie star, but
Speaker 1: we said that she's a star.
Speaker 2: It's just the word we use. And she said, you're
Speaker 2: a star. You've been a star here in New York City.
Speaker 2: Now you got to go be one in LA. You
Speaker 2: have to grant this and be You give her a
Speaker 2: lot of credit for standing up like that. But I
Speaker 2: knew we'd no longer be together. I knew i'd lose her.
Speaker 2: I knew the miles would be very hard on us.
Speaker 2: But you know, truth be told, A lot has been
Speaker 2: said about she then moving on to Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: how it made me so terribly angry, Like I'm talking,
Speaker 2: filled with rage I never have felt before or I've
Speaker 2: ever felt since.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was the kind of anger that that song by
Speaker 2: Cypress Hill here is something you can't understand. How I
Speaker 2: could just kill a man that was beating in my
Speaker 2: head every fucking I threatened to kill him on the
Speaker 2: Howards Thronshaw Live. I was nuts, But I'd be lying
Speaker 2: if I said that. When I got to Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: I began to be blinded by the beauty around me everywhere,
Speaker 2: not only in my office, in my apartment complex, in
Speaker 2: every night club, every bar.
Speaker 1: And when you're a.
Speaker 2: Guy on TV and you got a little game and
Speaker 2: you're decent looking, and you wearing the nice suits and whatever,
Speaker 2: you got a good line of shit you're from New York.
Speaker 2: You're talking quicker and faster than any guy Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: The girls come around, and then you begin to what well.
Speaker 2: I began to weigh allse miles, I'm not gonna see
Speaker 2: you for three weeks. This beautiful woman is presenting herself
Speaker 2: to me. I began to, you know, have a lot
Speaker 2: of fun before the Donald Trump shit began. So as
Speaker 2: mad as I was that that happened, I was no
Speaker 2: fucking boy scout, you know what I mean, So that
Speaker 2: that part never gets said in this whole conversation about Trump.
Speaker 2: I haven't listened to me and him arguing on stern
Speaker 2: for several years. But whatever I do, it makes me win.
Speaker 2: Some of the things I said about him, if you
Speaker 2: stack it up with how much I love him now,
Speaker 2: like I am crazy about him. I'd rather see him.
Speaker 2: I want to see a Trump TV channel, just have
Speaker 2: him on all day like Sea Span. I want to
Speaker 2: watch him walk in the oval, get on the phone.
Speaker 2: I just do because I'll tell you some guys, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to make it political. I was around him,
Speaker 2: you know, the billionaire building and the fucking phone calls,
Speaker 2: he got, the women around him, the swagger he had,
Speaker 2: He had everything never thought of as a president, but man,
Speaker 2: he was as.
Speaker 1: Big as one of his buildings.
Speaker 2: And I just love what he's doing with the country,
Speaker 2: and I love the fact that I knew him and
Speaker 2: know him, and I swear in the next three and
Speaker 2: a half years, I got to get down tomorrow Lago
Speaker 2: and make sure he knows how much I've been, you know,
Speaker 2: been behind him and did my share of whatever I
Speaker 2: could do.
Speaker 1: He's unlike any president we've ever had.
Speaker 2: I know, he's got qualities that make people pissed off,
Speaker 2: but there's so many great qualities about him that time
Speaker 2: will be the final judge. I think, all right, this
Speaker 2: is sounding insane. He's not gonna be Winston Churchill. There's
Speaker 2: no big war in America right now. But I think
Speaker 2: that his name in the next thirty forty years, when
Speaker 2: all this bullshit calms down from the progressives and everything else,
Speaker 2: he'll be known as one of the greatest men of
Speaker 2: his era, along with Elon Musk. Right now, the verdict
Speaker 2: is still out because so many people disbelieve what he
Speaker 2: sees and what Elon sees and jd.
Speaker 1: Vance has yet to do.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be fine anyway, I'm way off the point,
Speaker 2: you get it.
Speaker 1: So it was a different time to come out.
Speaker 2: To LA and make it and try to make it
Speaker 2: and get bigger and bigger, and either way, eventually I
Speaker 2: settled down.
Speaker 1: I got used to La.
Speaker 2: I would go back to New York time and again,
Speaker 2: and when I did, I would say with her. If
Speaker 2: I wasn't alone island, I was staying with her, either
Speaker 2: at a hotel or at her apartment. And then it
Speaker 2: got fuzzy because that's when we kind of crossed swords
Speaker 2: one of my trips, I was with her.
Speaker 1: The next trip, I see him and her in a
Speaker 1: magazine that I'm back in New York. I'm with her.
Speaker 1: It got weird, and god, I'm glad it's all over.
Speaker 1: It was a horrible time, but I loved it. I
Speaker 1: loved our relationship. I love the man.
Speaker 2: We've all moved on with families, new wives and husbands,
Speaker 2: and it's way over. But it is what it is.
Speaker 2: I'm getting way off the topic. I want to talk
Speaker 2: about Naomi Watts and leave Schreiber's youngest kid, Kai Schreiber. Okay, uh,
Speaker 2: careful trigger. Whenever you hear a name that's not quite decipherable, girl,
Speaker 2: a boy Kai. Okay, this is the new world. Genderless
Speaker 2: names whatever you wanna call him, uh names that could
Speaker 2: be either gender. We gotta go down the rabbit hole
Speaker 2: to find out, get to know the kid, the special kid.
Speaker 1: They're all special. Nobody has a transgender kid and has
Speaker 1: a problem with them that they can say. He's just
Speaker 1: like any other kid, or she's just like any other kid.
Speaker 1: They're pain in the ass.
Speaker 2: Everybody who's got a trans kid acts like they are miraculous.
Speaker 1: Hold on water break.
Speaker 2: And it bugs me. It bugs me. We all think
Speaker 2: our kids are miraculous. We all think our kids are
Speaker 2: are the bomb and the best. Won't tell me your
Speaker 2: kid who already arrived. God, don't get mad at me,
Speaker 2: a little fucked up in ahead. Now he's miraculous. So
Speaker 2: this kid Kai walked the runway for Valentino at Paris
Speaker 2: Fashion Week. She's six off, it's sixteen years old. Uses
Speaker 2: she her pronouns obviously was born a boy sixteen years ago,
Speaker 2: but walk the catwalk wearing all these crazy outfits, leopard
Speaker 2: print mini dresses. You know, got long legs like her mother,
Speaker 2: but the girl's got her face like her father. The girl,
Speaker 2: this transvestite or transgender person looks like Ray Donovan in
Speaker 2: a mini dress. It doesn't work on the runway. The
Speaker 2: days are gone when models walk down the room with
Speaker 2: a sullen, serious face like every bad thing in the
Speaker 2: world just happened to them that day. Smile, beat chipper,
Speaker 2: give a wink, blow a kiss. When monos throughout the
Speaker 2: crowd goes wild. I loved fashion Week. I was always
Speaker 2: front row speaking the Devil with Donald Trump and Russell
Speaker 2: Simmons and other people. People who've been Pete Diddy, a
Speaker 2: lot of bad guys who've been put away. Some became president,
Speaker 2: some became podcasters. But she, I'm sorry, I'm gonna say
Speaker 2: she because it's a model I'm talking about. I know
Speaker 2: it's a boy, and I don't know. Well, I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's no operation yet. She he still has the package in.
Speaker 1: The middle of his pants, so it's all weird to me.
Speaker 2: It'll never make sense to me. And I'm sure their
Speaker 2: appearent's out there right now. Or listen to the show
Speaker 2: who might have a kid that's trans. My heart goes
Speaker 2: out to you. I'm not stupid. I don't think.
Speaker 1: How I say this.
Speaker 2: It's so hard to go through life as just a
Speaker 2: sixteen year old kid, whether you're a boy or girl
Speaker 2: to transition, who would heap that much more trouble on
Speaker 2: their back? Like I said, life's hard enough, and it
Speaker 2: fucking bites back. So I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2: I don't think they're all lying, but I think a
Speaker 2: lot of it is a lie.
Speaker 1: I just do. I think it's a cry for a
Speaker 1: ten clout. Is that sounds weird? I apologize, but.
Speaker 2: I don't believe it all, not not every It's like
Speaker 2: it's like these rape cases.
Speaker 1: I don't believe all the cases.
Speaker 2: I don't believe all these transgender cases are all the same.
Speaker 2: Believe all women, no, believe all transgenders. Absolutely not believe
Speaker 2: all men. No, everybody's different.
Speaker 1: But we treat these transgenders like they're so miracted, gifts
Speaker 1: from the heavens, none than that.
Speaker 2: And look their parents, so of course they're gonna be
Speaker 2: there looking over and writing tweets about how gorgeous she
Speaker 2: looked and he looked.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to say, might be still my beating heart.
Speaker 2: Naomi Watts said, live, so that's my Mason Valentino.
Speaker 1: Baby, I'm squealing with pride. Okay, I've met lev.
Speaker 2: Actually it was in a movie with him, Ransom, great
Speaker 2: fucking guy. I mean, one of the most serious actors
Speaker 2: out there. Do I think he's lying?
Speaker 1: No, he loves his child, she loves her child. I
Speaker 1: get it, but I don't know what are we doing.
Speaker 1: And then all the.
Speaker 2: Other people out there with Linda Evangelista and the kid
Speaker 2: that's Amelia Hamlet, Lisa Renna, and Harry Hammerin's life, they
Speaker 2: have to go on the internet and say how great
Speaker 2: and beautiful she look.
Speaker 1: No, she didn't, she didn't. Can we just stop this?
Speaker 2: It's no different than calling Lizzo healthy and that's the look,
Speaker 2: and she looks great, and she shocked people with this outfit.
Speaker 1: People are blown away by Lizzo a bikini. We got
Speaker 1: a fucker. Stop.
Speaker 2: Amy Shuma walked into a restaurant the other day with
Speaker 2: a long dressed I had horizontal stripes. Anybody with a
Speaker 2: weight issue do not wear horizontal stripes in a dress,
Speaker 2: big bold, horizontal stripes. And of course the caption was
Speaker 2: Amy sure was stunts. I'm fucking stunned at anybody look
Speaker 2: her well recorded her. Give me a break. This is
Speaker 2: no longer a fan. This whole transgender bullshit and Hollywood
Speaker 2: family is thinking it's great.
Speaker 1: This is the normal in Hollywood, many not many.
Speaker 2: Several years ago, when I was doing Lonette Corolla's podcast,
Speaker 2: I Forget, and I'm glad I forgot her partner's name
Speaker 2: because I don't I don't listen to that show.
Speaker 1: But at the time, Lynette and I were getting tight.
Speaker 2: And she was really sweet to me, and I was
Speaker 2: getting enveloped in the Corolla family and I loved it.
Speaker 1: They're great people. Linette and Adam are great people. I
Speaker 1: hate that I'm not. I'm no longer on his radar.
Speaker 2: And it's just nothing happened between Lonett and I was
Speaker 2: written up and read it.
Speaker 1: We had an affair. We did not. It's all bullshit,
Speaker 1: but I know. I also came out.
Speaker 2: Of the hospital after thirty days and needing a story
Speaker 2: from my podcast, and I knew they were getting a divorce.
Speaker 2: No one knew but me, well only journalists who knew
Speaker 2: was me, and I settled on the show and that
Speaker 2: that was not something he thought. I think he didn't
Speaker 2: like that I did that. I understand, I understand, but
Speaker 2: I wanted a big story, to get back on the
Speaker 2: horse and have you guys say, hey, AJ's back with
Speaker 2: a big story. Whatever it was, I regretted, and I'm
Speaker 2: out of the Corolla fold. But that fold is all
Speaker 2: weird now too. Adam is gone, but that who know
Speaker 2: how fuck knows. She's got a new girlfriend. She's got
Speaker 2: a guy. He's living in Marlable. The house burns down.
Speaker 2: Now he's in Nevada building another house.
Speaker 1: It's all weird.
Speaker 2: But her partner on her podcast was a woman who
Speaker 2: had a transgender child, and every I swear to God,
Speaker 2: almost every time she brought up her kid, she would
Speaker 2: always start the sentence by saying, well, I have a
Speaker 2: transgender child and whatever. It was, little league, sports, health
Speaker 2: and diet. I don't care what I was talking about
Speaker 2: on the podcast. Oh well, it's funny he said it.
Speaker 2: My child is transgender. And I finally said, I know
Speaker 2: you said it like four times. It's like me saying, well,
Speaker 2: my son Rock was six feet and he thinks this,
Speaker 2: Oh what does he eat?
Speaker 1: Well, he's six feet Now, shut the fuck up. It's
Speaker 1: not special.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna get special treatment for me because your
Speaker 2: kid's trends.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: She came at me on the internet, called me a
Speaker 2: pile of bullshit.
Speaker 1: I went back at her. Lynette was laughing because between
Speaker 1: me and you, Lenet can't stand her. But she did this.
Speaker 1: I guess they're still doing it. I don't even know.
Speaker 2: But she did it back then because she needed more
Speaker 2: of a profile because Adam and her were starting businesses
Speaker 2: like Corolla Drinks, and she was responsible for that. It
Speaker 2: was a whole thing that they did to market their products.
Speaker 2: And I understand good hustle on both their parts. But
Speaker 2: either way, I don't even know where this show's going.
Speaker 2: I'm just blabbing today. Thank you for letting me just
Speaker 2: talk and talk and talk. But I do want to
Speaker 2: say before I go. Jack Kirouac, the famous author. He
Speaker 2: died well today's March twelfth.
Speaker 1: Today. He died March twelfth, nineteen sixty nine. And he
Speaker 1: was a guy that I'm sure you've read all many
Speaker 1: you've read.
Speaker 2: Read On the Road, one of the first books I
Speaker 2: dove into when I really got into writing and wanted
Speaker 2: to know more about the Sallengers and the Kiillacs and
Speaker 2: the hunterres Thompson's.
Speaker 1: And I dove in.
Speaker 2: I'm not a big Hunter s Thompson guy, not really
Speaker 2: Salinger genius, Killac, so bold and so brave and so
Speaker 2: fucking crazy for words that he got me at Hello
Speaker 2: put it that way. But this guy was involved in
Speaker 2: the jazz era of the poetry era, the beatnick ear.
Speaker 2: He was a beat poet, a drift, or a dreamer,
Speaker 2: and he just every time he put pen to paper
Speaker 2: or a typewrite to paper, I saw everything he said.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to just end the show talking about
Speaker 2: him because of his spirit, the fact that he most
Speaker 2: of the time when he wrote things, he was making
Speaker 2: us well, reminding us is a better word, reminding us
Speaker 2: to live, to just go have new experiences, and for
Speaker 2: me that meant women jobs, chasing fun, going to different countries,
Speaker 2: going to countries behind the iron curtain.
Speaker 1: Just let's have a love of fair and Cuba.
Speaker 2: Why not just crazy shit, go out there and get
Speaker 2: a story, bring a story back. And that's what I
Speaker 2: was as a writer, even when I was doing high
Speaker 2: school sports. Go watch the game, bring back a story.
Speaker 2: I love that simple sentence. It's what I do every day.
Speaker 2: But Kirawak was one of the first writers who really
Speaker 2: made me understand about living loud. So I think today
Speaker 2: we should celebrate this guy, the King of beats. Grab
Speaker 2: one of his books if you got them, read some
Speaker 2: pages to your kids, even read them to the dog.
Speaker 1: You know, Andrew's been reading a book. She's reading right now,
Speaker 1: and the.
Speaker 2: Two dogs, Tutsi and Gizmo stare at her face while
Speaker 2: she reads aloud, and they like it, and they begin
Speaker 2: to fall asleep when she starts to fall a thing.
Speaker 2: It's a very strong These logs are fucking human, I
Speaker 2: swear to God. If you see pictures, they're human. And
Speaker 2: grab a Curauacic book if you got on the road,
Speaker 2: Read a few paragraphs, read a few pages, or finish
Speaker 2: the book in one city if you want.
Speaker 1: But get him into your head and heart.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've got a dusty shelf in the garage
Speaker 2: or a bookshelf somewhere that has one of his books.
Speaker 2: Go grab it. Read his poems too, man, his poems
Speaker 2: are great. Turn up the music, you know. Kirouac once said.
Speaker 2: One of the greatest quotes to me is the only
Speaker 2: truth is music, he said, And you know me with
Speaker 2: music that I believe that. Before I read that, I
Speaker 2: don't know. But music has always affected me in a
Speaker 2: great way. And it's true. Music is the only truth, man.
Speaker 2: But in the spirit of Jack Kirouac. I think we
Speaker 2: need to let ourselves live, man, you know, just forget
Speaker 2: about the bullshit on TV, the pre Palestine and doze
Speaker 2: and every just forget.
Speaker 1: It all for a few days.
Speaker 2: Go outside, sleep outside if you want, Go look at
Speaker 2: the stars at night. Go go climb a mountain, Go
Speaker 2: walk down a dark alley, Go dancing if you can
Speaker 2: find a dance hall somewhere.
Speaker 1: In his words, go mad for the day. You know,
Speaker 1: get on the highway, just go do it.
Speaker 2: Do something, something out of the ordinary, something that.
Speaker 1: Stirs your blood.
Speaker 2: Too many of us get lazy and complacent, and we
Speaker 2: forget what it's like to have a blood stirred.
Speaker 1: And that's our gasoline. Man. You can't just let it
Speaker 1: sit there in the tank. You gotta read the engine
Speaker 1: sometimes on.
Speaker 2: One of his best passages is not a poem, but
Speaker 2: a passage in his book that says, the only people
Speaker 2: for me are the mad ones, the ones who are
Speaker 2: mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,
Speaker 2: desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who
Speaker 2: never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn,
Speaker 2: like a fabulous yellow Roman candle, exploding like spiders across
Speaker 2: the stars, and in the middle you see the blue center.
Speaker 1: Light pop and everybody goes ah.
Speaker 2: So that's what I mean by let it go. Get
Speaker 2: rid of your worries for a day or two. The bullshit,
Speaker 2: meaningless little fees you have that ordinarily don't come true.
Speaker 1: We're just always scared they're gonna come true.
Speaker 2: We've all faced so many battles, but you know what,
Speaker 2: we're still here.
Speaker 1: So the battles didn't beat us. We beat the battles.
Speaker 1: Live like that.
Speaker 2: Get the fucking anchor off your back, put all that
Speaker 2: bullshit pulsing in you, and just light it up on
Speaker 2: fire man.
Speaker 1: Just watch the smoke curl up with the sky. Just
Speaker 1: be bold, like.
Speaker 2: I always tell you, guys, we only got a few
Speaker 2: breaths here, We only got a finite time on this earth.
Speaker 2: So sometimes you gotta disregube your fears and inhibitions and
Speaker 2: just jump straight in, feet first, head first.
Speaker 1: Belly flop.
Speaker 2: I don't care, jump in, get in, forget yourself, forget
Speaker 2: the rules, forget the fucking clock on the wall. We
Speaker 2: are all just a flicker in the great wild rush
Speaker 2: of time. So throw it all in the fire, heart
Speaker 2: head bones, every ounce of your spirit, watch it burn,
Speaker 2: because Jack Kirouac said at one point it all ends
Speaker 2: in tears anyway.
Speaker 1: That's tough. So yeah, like I.
Speaker 2: Said, taping this on March twelfth, the day he was
Speaker 2: born in nineteen twenty two and Lowell, Massachusetts before he
Speaker 2: just raised as much hell as he could and went
Speaker 2: on to produce more beautiful words that go good together
Speaker 2: to the next twenty offors combined. The guy went for
Speaker 2: just forty seven years before he died in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: and he's got a lasting legacy like very few of
Speaker 2: the people. So the next time you listened to Bob Dylan,
Speaker 2: or or the Beatles or even the Doors, you gotta
Speaker 2: remember that he was their hero. They wanted to be
Speaker 2: like him. And as a kid who always wanted to
Speaker 2: play with the power of words, I always felt, this
Speaker 2: guy's the best.
Speaker 1: This guy's one of the best.
Speaker 2: He got me when I was young, and as many
Speaker 2: of you know, I have a roster of heroes in
Speaker 2: my heart that goes from Pete Hamill to Jimmy Breslin,
Speaker 2: to Muhammad Ali, to Dylan Thomas to Tennessee Williams.
Speaker 1: Salinger, Kiroak.
Speaker 2: I grew up wanting to be those guys, or at
Speaker 2: least in my time on this earth, be able to
Speaker 2: do something that maybe cast me in that same light.
Speaker 2: I know it's a very high order, but what's the use.
Speaker 2: What's the use in living if you don't set your
Speaker 2: sights above and beyond yourself. You know, there are faces
Speaker 2: of people I see when I write, and they flash
Speaker 2: across the backs of my eyelids, like an old sixteen
Speaker 2: millimeter film strip, like I saw my family in Brooklyn
Speaker 2: back in the sixties. It's almost as if these people
Speaker 2: who flash across, these men who flash across my minds,
Speaker 2: I'm not only seeking their advice, It's almost like I
Speaker 2: want their approval. And then there are times that I
Speaker 2: do things and say things and write things that I'm
Speaker 2: sure wouldn't meet their standards, and it fucking bothers me. Man,
Speaker 2: it just bothers me. I get up and that it
Speaker 2: doesn't keep me up, but it wakes me up early,
Speaker 2: sometimes at a god for saken hour, three o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning, and I'm up, why stewing in my bad
Speaker 2: decisions and misdeeds, just going over life. Those guys wake
Speaker 2: me up, I know they do. And I've always had
Speaker 2: this desire to be close to them. I got to
Speaker 2: work with Pete Haddele and Jimmy Bresden talk about reaching
Speaker 2: for things that were well beyond my reach, but I
Speaker 2: got them. I don't care they fired me. That makes
Speaker 2: the story better, man. But to be near them in
Speaker 2: a spiritual way is just I cannot split how great
Speaker 2: that feels, you know, just to want to know what
Speaker 2: they felt when the world was theirs.
Speaker 1: And as morbid as it sounds, I'm gonna say it anyway.
Speaker 2: There was that day a couple of Novembers ago, when
Speaker 2: I found myself thrown up black blood. Never saw a
Speaker 2: black come out of my mouth. That's blood. I didn't
Speaker 2: know that. Had to go to the emergency room, have
Speaker 2: somebody fix me, to bring me back from the brink.
Speaker 1: It was bad. Curtains were closing, man.
Speaker 2: Apparently they found that an ulcer in my stomach had burst,
Speaker 2: and I was in dire need of help. And yet,
Speaker 2: as awful and scary as that time was, i'd be
Speaker 2: lying to you guys if I said I didn't briefly
Speaker 2: think that maybe I'd gotten too close to Jack Kurouac's
Speaker 2: way of life. Since his manner of death was from
Speaker 2: an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking,
Speaker 2: and that was a little too close for me.
Speaker 1: I've told you to pass.
Speaker 2: It's not always fun to beetry heroes, but it can
Speaker 2: be disastrous if you want to be just like them.
Speaker 2: So you can still live your life in the spirit
Speaker 2: that Kirouac wrote about, but just don't pour any spirits
Speaker 2: as you set out to do.
Speaker 1: Just that. Have some fun on Jack. I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you guys tomorrow