WEBVTT - Tom Freston 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.240 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.880 My guest today is Tom Fresker. He was chairman of 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:20.280 MTV Networks, chairman of Viacom, is chairman of the board 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.040 of the One Campaign. Tom. Great to have you here. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.079 Great to be here, Bob. So what's going on with 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.800 the One Campaign. Well, we're in full mode these days 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.480 with the pandemic. We've kind of pivoted you know, One 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.519 the One campaigns and activists organizations, so basically think of 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:39.520 it like as the n r A for the extreme poor. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:44.280 We're trying to lobby politicians either directly or through people 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.440 who are you know, activists, who who who worked with 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.839 which are millions of people, and to get them to 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.160 do the right things for the people, the poorest people 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.840 on the planet. And we focus on Africa, and since 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.200 March it's been COVID COVID but the whole time and 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.919 these days it's all about vaccine equity, which you read about. 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:07.840 You know, the fourteen percent of the people have seventy 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.760 percent of the orders in for the vaccines. There's hardly 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:16.720 any in Africa. And until everybody on this planet is activated, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.200 is inoculated, or we reached some kind of herd immunity. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.000 This thing is going to continue to mutate, could come 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.919 back and bite us in They asked us fourteen percent 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.600 of the people in the northern countries. So we're all 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.640 about that and we've been you know, it's been a 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.040 real uh change with Trump leaving and Biden coming in, 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:40.160 because right away he committed to six billion dollars for 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:45.000 vaccines for people in uh less developed countries. And that's 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.520 sort of what I'm doing. It's all vaccines, all the time. 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.800 Tell me more about the organization, the history and how 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:55.000 many people are working in fundraising, etcetera. Well, you know it. 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.880 Bano started it, and uh he had had a thing 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.520 called the One Campaign, and he had a thing called Red, 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:04.960 which was a different organization that sort of was an 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.360 arm into the private sector. And then he had another 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.000 organization called Data, which sort of assembled a lot of 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.600 data essentially about what was going on in the world. 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.800 This is back in two thousand and five. So he 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.399 started this organization and the idea was, let's see how 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.119 many members we can get and let's begin to put 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.880 pressure on some of these key legislatures in the States 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:32.080 and elsewhere. He was able to assemble basically a gaggle 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.359 of billionaires to fund this. I mean, we it's are. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:35.800 What we say is we don't want your money, we 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.960 want your voice. But we've got Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.960 Susie Buffett, you know, Jeff Skull, John Door, there's a 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.160 whole he's a great door opener, let's put it that way. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.040 So it's funded privately. We've got about a hundred and 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:54.480 seventy employees. We've got twelve offices, uh main one is 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.640 in d C. But then we've got five or six 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.239 in uh in Africa, and we're you know, we're in Brussels, 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.359 were in Berlin, were in London, we're in Paris, we're 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.320 in Johannesburg, in Dakar, and the population of the people 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.280 who worked there are largely activists. I mean, we're not 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.239 not for profit. And uh, they're young, and they're smart 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.560 as hell, and they have swung literally billions and billions 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:24.119 of dollars from uh, you know, government budgets. Two Uh 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.919 do the right thing in a smart way. And I'm 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:31.079 not talking about a you know, uh foreign aid necessarily, 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.760 but it's been it's been very focused on health, also 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:38.120 agriculture and governance. So, um, we've got a board. I've 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.240 been the board chair for god, I guess it's like 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.480 thirteen or fourteen years. Now we've got an interesting board 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:48.080 and uh, you know, it's very fulfilling work for me 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.000 and very different. You know what I found when I 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.920 left MTV Networks and Viacom. You know, Bonna was the 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:56.960 first guy to call me up when I got fired. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.880 He called me from dub and the next day we 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.280 had had her We had a we were friends and 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.960 had been together for a long time, not together, but 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:07.840 I mean MTV and you two kind of came up 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.640 and he said, why don't you come run Red, which 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:12.760 I barely knew about any I said, you know, I 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.520 just got fired last night. I'm not I'm not not 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:17.920 ready or really to make any big decisions right now 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.760 that he has. Bill Gates called me Steve's jobs call 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.760 me anyway. I put it off, And then about three 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.160 months later I went and saw him Paul at Paul 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.480 McGinnis is asking saying, please help this things kind of 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.520 you know, kind of coming apart. I said I would 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.760 study work for three months and see if we could 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.440 reorganize things, which I did do and in the process, 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.800 fell in love with the organization, fell in love with 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.880 what they did, and uh, it was like a whole 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.720 different group of young people, you know what I which 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:48.680 I have been working with for most of my career. 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.479 But they were they were activists. So I said I'd 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.799 stay on as the board chair and there I am today, 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:57.039 still doing it. How much of your time does it require? Well, 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.640 now it's about a third, I'd say. You know, our 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.839 CEO was just taken from us by Biden. He just 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.760 hired her, uh to come in and be sort of 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.200 the special envoy on vaccines. All the things we're advocating 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.839 for the USA to do, we now go to her 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.680 because she's in power and can and make those kind 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.000 of decisions. So it's inconvenient to lose your CEO. But 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.839 when you find out that she actually has the job, 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:26.839 that is the key to the highway, so to speak 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.680 for you know, helping us move along the vaccine equity spectrum. 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:35.040 It's it's it's good, but it's not full time. Historically, 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.640 there's been an issue of getting the money from the donors, 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.359 whether it be countries or individuals, into the hands of 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.159 the end user. I'm talking about foreign aid in general. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.719 So what happens with the vaccines, Well, the vaccines go 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.240 through they get distributed. It depends by country, but basically 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.320 again they get distributed through the ministries of health in 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.120 these various countries who you know, and and funny in Africa, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.960 because they've had a lot of experience with a bola 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:09.280 and other things, they actually are pretty set up for pandemics. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.440 They have some experience in this area. So this is 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.040 not the type of thing that's likely to fall astray 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:17.960 and where you lose a lot of money. I mean, 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.160 they're getting vaccines, they're not getting they're not getting money, 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.760 but they you know, they and they already have existing 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.480 staffs and they can mobilize people to do these inoculations. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.560 But that's not to say it's going to be an 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.240 easy task. And what is the status as we speak? 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.960 The virus is raging in India, to what degree is 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:42.360 it under control? And are there vaccinations in Africa? The 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.280 thing in India is really a mind blower because the 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.640 people thought Indian sort of had come through this. But 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.200 in Africa, Africa has so far gotten off a lot 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.520 easier than people thought they were. That's not to say 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.680 it hasn't been bad. In South Africa in particular, it 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.599 has been bad, but you know, they have a very 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:08.400 young population, uh and there's a lot of anybody's running 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.400 around from other infections people might have had, so they 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.640 have not had the death rates the hospitalization rates that 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.640 we've seen, say in America, of course no one's seen that, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:24.200 but uh they are. You know, I think countries have 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.560 maybe twenty thousand vaccines done. That would be a high amount, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.960 you know in a country like Ghana, now you see. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:38.040 But but we've there's a big public relations efforts, so 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.720 to speak, to address this, and people are realizing that 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.800 it's on our own self interest to have this happen. 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.480 And now, like America, we have all the sexcess vaccines already. 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.520 I mean, anybody can get a vaccination we have. Canada 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.640 has four times as many vaccines as they have people. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.360 These are they haven't all been delivered yet, mind you, 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.080 but that's what they have on order. And it's about 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.120 the same for the United States. I mean, we have, 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.880 you know, hundreds of millions of extra vaccines to go. 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.720 So at some point it wasn't really uh kosher to 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:12.520 be pleading for these vaccines to go to Africa. Before 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.120 we got our own population under control and vaccinated and 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.160 people felt comfortable. But we're at that point now, certainly 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.960 in the States. Since you're a king of marketers, we 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.200 have the issue in America where many people do not 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.120 want to get the vaccine. What can be done and 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.000 what what you might have done, you know, putting on 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.000 your hat of marketing not only the young people but 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.400 the public at large. Well, I mean, if you really 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.440 look where the and there's there's the anti vax people 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.080 that have sort of existed before, but you know, now 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:50.080 you see really the vaccine hesitant people are largely in 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.240 the Republican Party and they're largely evangelical. Those are the 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.440 two biggest groups. I mean, if someone like Donald Trump 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.079 came out and uh did p s A is along 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.439 the lines of what Elvis Presley did with polio back 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.080 in the fifties, that would be good to a lot 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.800 of these people. You can't really you know, you can't 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:14.360 really dissuade them with facts. Uh, there's this hardcore there's 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.720 probably never gonna get vaccinated, but there is this group 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.800 that can't be moved, and it's gonna take marketing and uh, 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.360 some kind of promotion. A doctor that I know in 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.240 Boston told me that when they were vaccinating people over 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:28.320 seventy they could get the six and they hit like 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.080 a dead end. So they started basically doing promotions. They said, 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.440 if you bring somebody with you to get vaccinated, if 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.960 you're over seventy, will vaccinate them too. It's sort of 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.120 like dex they'll be giving out toasters. But they were 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.319 able to drive it from like six up to seventy percent. 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.440 I don't know where they are now, but it shows 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:48.760 you things can be done. I mean a lot of 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:53.960 it is gonna be uh you know what. They need 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.800 people to They need people that they respect and like 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.160 like Donald Trump in this case, or leading evangelical to 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:04.079 say it's okay, don't worry about it. So if one 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.600 third year time is with the one campaign, what are 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:08.680 you doing with the rest of your time? Generally speaking, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:13.679 obviously everything's crazy during COVID. Well, I've been spending a 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:18.080 lot of time, you know, these years since I work 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.120 with the Vice Media. Another thing that I've been working with, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.760 I've work with this company called Mobi Media, which has 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.960 been based in Afghanistan, and I really went and I 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.240 used to live in Afghanistan before I ever had a 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.920 career at and MTV networks, and I kind of went 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.280 moved back there too, because they started these television networks 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.960 which are now, you know, really the leading ones in 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.400 the market. There was no television there under the Taliban. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.200 So I'm spending a lot of time with them now 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.240 because of course we're looking at the Taliban maybe coming 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.280 back into Afghanistan, which is not going to be a 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.160 pretty picture. I work on that. I work on Red 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.120 UH and UH you know few other projects. I worked 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.440 with this company called Rain. They're a private equity company 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:09.560 and they do I've led investments like can Imagine Imagine 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.240 Entertainment with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, uh Matt and 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.280 Trey you know, the South Park guys. You know. So 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.280 UH RAIN will take a position in them and then 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.040 I'll you know, help work with their teams on things. 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.400 So I bounced around. I used to travel a lot, Bob, 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.280 I mean, I travel like four months a year, but 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.920 this last year has been grounded. Like everybody, let's go 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.160 back to Afghanistan. The last time we discussed this, you 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.199 had been going to Afghanistan, but then things changed and 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:43.840 the person was actually running your operation, UH was avoiding 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.280 killers So what is the status today of the stations 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.600 and the people running them. Well, it's worse. Uh, we've 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.000 kinda you know, they've they've killed a lot of our journalists. 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.000 They've set off, you know, suicide bombers have attack some 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.880 of our commuter us is to take people and it's 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.200 not you know, one of the success stories in Afghanistan 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.720 has been independent media and the independent media there is 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.440 more independent than is rated, even so more so than 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:17.160 in countries like India or Turkey. The Taliban does not 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.120 like this. We have a substantial news organization and the 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.480 people are really consumed by news when they're living in 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.280 a war zone, which they've been doing for forty years now. Uh, 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.520 but they've now had to basically enclose themselves in their 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:35.120 own many green zone. So when uh, my friend Satmossini, 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.040 who's the CEO, brilliant character, when he will go in, 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.840 I mean he goes in unannounced and he goes rather 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.200 than live in his house, he goes that is heavily 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:48.240 fortified compound and people come to see him there and 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.320 he'll stay a week and then leave on an unannounced basis. 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:57.680 So it's really hard for people to go anywhere. There's 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.480 the Taliban of the start of this assassination program. As 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.640 a result of their negotiations during the Trump hear they 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.200 sort of said they would no longer do mass terror, uh, 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.160 you know, things blowing up banks and public squares and 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.480 so forth. So they've sort of switched to just knocking 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:19.600 off Supreme Court justices, reporters, politicians, have people who work 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.480 at m G O s uh and uh. Anybody who 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.120 works at Too Low TV, which is the actual name 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.000 of it, there is you know, has to be very 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.760 careful and what is the reach of that TV network? 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.440 It reach us the whole country. There's right now there's 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.240 a there well when there was no television, now there's 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.560 a TV stations and loads of radio stations, and the 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.200 thing is and there's a lot of print publications. So 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.319 for the first time in its history, these Afghans are 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.559 connected to the outside world, which has made a big difference. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.400 They're connected to each other. Layer on top of that, 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.280 the fact that where there was eleven thousand cell phones 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.480 when the Taliban ran Afghanistan, there's now thirty five million 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.160 of them, so people aren nected with each other. So 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.480 they've there's been like this twenty year period where this 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.600 war has been going on, but we've been working kind 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.640 of going over the head of the war for this insurgency, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.400 and they've been they've really developed a lot of relative 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.800 freedoms that they've never had before. They've been connected to 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.480 each other, there's been a lot of social change. Women 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:23.080 are more liberated and empowered, and Uh, the sad thing 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.840 is right now, you've got about fifteen percent of the 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.960 population likes the Taliban. That's it. Of the people like 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.200 the government. The government's corrupt and predatory, and you know 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.760 figured that the Taliban is still like an armed religious 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:43.160 fanatic organization, still tied and intermarried with Al Qaeda. So 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.520 the there's my friend would tell me the best case 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.360 he sees in Afghanistan now is a civil war because 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.000 there's not going to be some kind of coalition government. 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.440 That seems extremely unlikely. And these characters have been living 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.840 up in the hills or in Pakistan for twenty years 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.280 and life has really changed. I mean, they're gonna be 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:04.800 like Rip van Winkle when they come back in the 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.840 cobble and they see people are on Facebook and they're tweeting, 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.480 and they all have phones and they're talking to each other. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.360 So it's gonna be Uh, it's gonna be interesting to 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.440 see how this plays out. And I foresee it's not 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:23.520 gonna play out in a in a really uplifting fashion. Um, 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.600 should America ever have gone in and should they have 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.400 gotten now quicker? What do we know? Before the US 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.080 Russia was an Afghanistan and they ultimately pulled out without 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.680 any great achievements. Yeah, they they lost. They killed a 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.880 million Afghans this play six million others had this horrible ward. 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:46.520 You know they're not they're they're like, just just raise villages. Uh. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.200 And before them, the British were throwing up Afghanistan. There's 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.960 a long history of this, the Graveyard of Empires, as 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.440 they like to say. We went in and vanquished the Taliban, 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.560 and we immediately set out and made threshold mistakes. That 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:04.200 kind of of uh kind of destined. It's kind of 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:06.200 was destined. What was gonna happen When it was over, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.320 the Taliban wanted to negotiate a surrender to be part 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.000 of the process of the new government, and Donald Rumsfeld said, no, 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.640 we're not going to negotiate with you your terrorists. Now. 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.680 Mind you, when people have civil wars or things like 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.880 this is not uncommon. We've seen it in South African 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:26.800 other places. The opposing sides get together and work something out. Uh, 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.320 that didn't happen. So the Taliban was sort of shun 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.280 it off to Pakistan and uh, you know, resentful, and 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.360 Pakistan would fuel them. Uh. And then we we set 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.840 about putting in place. They centralized government for the country 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.080 in their new constitution, which they've never had before, which made, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:48.120 of course corruption easier to do. We empower a lot 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.040 of old guys who actually they were so bad, these 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.480 warloades that they their behavior led to the Taliban in 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.320 the first place, and then we just dumped a lot 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.080 of money at it. You know, there's American hubris and 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:05.040 naivete and uh, we were like destined to fail. I 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.040 can understand why Biden wants to get out because I 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.440 don't see that things are going to change. I mean, 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.560 it's like pushing a string there. It's just I don't 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.879 know what's gonna happen. Some miracle really needs to happen 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.040 for the Taliban to try and assimilate into what has 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.879 been this newer, more modern culture that's turned up at 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:29.480 least in urban Afghanistan. So you were in Afghanistans decades before. 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.239 And you said, this was before they had a lot 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.280 of technology, and you've been there. Now the average American 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.520 doesn't even have a passport. But what was the appeal 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:43.520 of Afghanistan for you? Well, I had I have been 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.240 working at the time. I had been I had quit 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.800 a job at an ad agency in New York. I 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.439 just couldn't take it anymore. And uh, they they were 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.920 gonna assign me to Sharman toilet paper. And I realized 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.000 that and I had been already been working on g 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.680 I Joe. Mind you, this was during the Vietnam War, 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.120 so I was just an alienated guy. And an old 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:02.840 girlfriend called me up from Paris and said, Hey, I 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.000 want to go across the Sahara Desert. I was on 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.920 a plane like a week and a half later, and 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.800 I met her. We did do that. We broke up 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:12.600 like a little we're a little bit Florida. How do 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.359 you go across the Sahara Desert in those days? I 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.239 went all the way down from Paris through Spain and 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.840 Morocco to the very southern point of Morocco where the 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.639 road stopped, and then you get into what was basically 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.520 the back of a Ford truck pickup truck, not a 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:31.919 pickup truck. It was like, you know, a dump truck 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.440 and you drive a hundred and fifty miles at the 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.880 border of what was then a place called the Spanish Sahara. 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.280 It was Spain's last colony and you had to camp 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.159 out for a few days. So they opened the border 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.320 and then you'd go in and then you'd uh, you know, 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.760 tool around the Sahara. And I I did that for 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:55.800 about a month and ended up we split up, and 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:57.520 I ended up continue to travel for a year and 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.600 I met somebody in Greece, this girl in Greece, and 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.040 she said, you know, you gotta go to India. That 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.480 was the Holy Grail. This is like nineteen seventy two, Bob. 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.040 So when I went to it, it was like the 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.760 day I went to Afghanistan. My life sort of changed 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.240 because I was having a great time and soaking it 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.120 all in. I mean it was hitchhiking around and riding 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.280 on the back of trucks. I was a kid basically. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:18.800 But when I when I showed up at the Afghan 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.680 Iran border, I went through Iran, Uh, it was like 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.280 I was in another world and a whole other planet 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.439 that the guy who was an immigration stamping passports he 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.800 was wearing his jacket was there was a jacket from 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.080 the high school band at the Akron High School. You know. So, 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.320 and what's often lost with people because they think Afghanistan's 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.600 just a place of continual war and terrorists. The Afghans 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:49.000 are actually hilarious and people go there. One of the 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.280 reasons we probably stayed this longest because at the top 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.440 military levels they all you get entranced then really engaged 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.960 with the Afghans. They're wonderful people. They got this great 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.800 soul and uh I fell for that and about that. 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:02.960 This was the most exotic place I'd been and I 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.960 wanted to try and figure out a way to support 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.000 myself and live there. And I basically I started a 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.520 company and I lived there for eight years there in India, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.480 where I also started another company. Does a whole other, 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.000 a whole other lifetime, ago, a whole other career. It 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.800 was those are my defining great years. I love them. Okay, 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.679 what'd your parents say when you jettison the path and 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.880 went off across the god? You know, they were already 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.320 annoyed because uh I had gotten out of college. I 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.120 was gonna get drafted. I went to graduate school, which 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.840 was still possible. I wanted to get Someone said I said, 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:42.840 I got to get drafted, and said, we gotta go 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:44.520 to graduate school. Since well, I don't want to be 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:46.480 a doctor or a dentist or a lawyer. Sai, why 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.040 don't you go to business school? I was so out 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:49.600 of it, Bob, I didn't know there was such a thing, 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.879 you know, get an m b A. So I signed up, 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.880 went to n y U. And that's sort of when 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.800 I got out of there, I decided, Uh, I had 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.600 gotten out of the draft. How'd you get out of 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.560 the draft? Well? In then, at the end of my 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.520 first year of a two year program, they said, okay, 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.080 he's graduate school. Deferments are over. I'm back in the 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.760 draft pool. I said, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.760 I can't do that. So I I found a guy. 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:18.360 I knew a guy. The only thing that I got 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.000 in the Navy Reserve, which had it was one year 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.119 of meetings and then you had to go an active 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.560 duty for two years. And I had been working in 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:28.919 Lake George with this guy who ran a bar, but 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.119 he also ran a big steamship which used to be. 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:33.760 You know, in World War two they had cut it 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.600 up and brought it up to Lake George, and he 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:38.560 was in the Naval Reserve and he was able to 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.560 get me in. I mean, think about that. And then 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:42.760 I once I got in, I it was determined I 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.600 had some medical problems, so I gotta I got at 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.120 the ferment. And then just when I graduated, my parents said, 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:50.720 he's getting on the conveyor belt. He's gonna get a 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:52.880 grown up job. I split for a year. I went 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.120 to ask him and uh the Virgin Islands. And then, 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:58.680 you know, they were not happy about that. But then 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:00.720 I got a job at ben in ball Holes, which 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.600 they were elated about. And that lasted about two years, 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:06.800 and uh, I was just alien it. And then I 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.239 quit again. I took five thousand dollars and left, and 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.080 they were just sort of slack jawed. But you know, 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.360 what can they do. I was, you know, twenty two 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.240 or something like that, twenty three. What did your father 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:22.080 do for a living? Your mother? He was, Uh. I 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.040 grew up in in Fairfield County, not far from you. 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.720 I was from Rowait in Connecticut, of course, just a 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.520 little down the line. And my father, actually he was 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.439 in one of the mad Men guys. He worked in uh, 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:38.520 in public relations for a paper bag company called Union Bag, 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.120 which meant all my life I got free lunch bags. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.000 You know, I didn't have to recycle him like my 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.800 fellow students did. So he you know, and he had 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:50.440 a lot of friends that are awaiting who were sort 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.760 of in that world of advertising public relations, and they 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.520 were what I saw. There was a window of what 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:58.879 I could. I I saw that was possible to be 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.199 in business and actually have a good time and do 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.399 something like these people were creative. I wanted to always 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.840 be around creative people. So anyway, they took it and 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:09.639 stride when I left, and then they became proud of 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.080 me because my company became very successful. I had no 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.480 idea what I was doing, but we build warehouses and showrooms, 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:20.080 and then of course I got wiped out and lost everything. Okay, 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:21.840 let's go back to the beating for a second. How 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:24.600 many kids in the family. There was me and my brother. 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:27.359 I'm a younger brother, right And what's he up to 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:29.840 right now? I mean I met up a couple of times. 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:33.280 For the people who don't know, uh, he's started retired. 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:36.679 You know, he was just Libby. He was he had 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:39.280 had it with the pandemic, so he got vaccinated and 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.800 went to beck Way, which is an island in the Grenadines. St. 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.000 Vincent and the Grenadines is one of the last island 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.800 nations in the Caribbean. It sounds like a rock band. 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:51.760 And he was the island of beck Way, and he 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:53.520 had rented a place for three months and he was 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:55.639 enjoying it there. He likes living on islands. But then 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:59.359 they had just had this volcano in St. Vincent. So 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:01.520 he got a vacuated by the American government and a 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:04.440 cruise liner that took him to Saint Martin. So he's 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.960 back in New York now a little up perturb, I said, Bill, 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:09.840 only you could get, you know, run from a pandemic 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:13.480 and then you have to get evacuated because of a volcano. Okay, 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:16.840 did you go to public school or prep school? I 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:21.959 went to a combination. I went to public schools in 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:25.400 Connecticut until my father wanted me to have a good 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:28.800 Catholic education. See, so he said, sent me to Fairfield Prep. 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:31.919 Right down the street. I mean literally right down the 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.880 street pass if we only knew, you know, that's where 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:38.080 I saw my first concert Ray Charles at Fairfield University. 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:42.600 I saw the Beach Boys at Fearfield University. Enough you 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:45.359 were there and there was another concert with the Young Rascals. 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:47.960 This was in the sixties. I think you might have 0:24:47.960 --> 0:24:50.800 been in college at that point. Yeah. Well, after two 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:54.479 years of that, and I wasn't that happy because you know, 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:56.400 I have it's an hour and a half up there 0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:58.880 and back, and you know, all my friends I didn't 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:01.560 really have. I kind of was contact with my local friends. 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:03.719 And my father said, I'll make you deal. I'll let 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.959 you transfer to the local high school and finish here 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:08.879 because I can see you wanted to play hockey, you 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:11.639 wanted to do this, meet some girls, and you know, 0:25:11.760 --> 0:25:13.920 I want to be happy, but we gotta make a deal. 0:25:14.160 --> 0:25:16.040 If I do this, you have to commit to me 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:20.040 that you go to a Catholic college. Wow. So I 0:25:20.080 --> 0:25:22.160 had to. I took the deal that was on the table. Bob, 0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:25.000 I said, I'll deal with that other one later, you know. 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:28.879 So he said, uh, that's that's what he said. So 0:25:28.960 --> 0:25:32.720 when it came time to apply to college, my choices 0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:34.320 were a lot more limited than the other kids that 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:37.200 were in school with and I I, you know, I 0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:39.760 ended up going to a small college in Vermont, which 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:41.439 I never even visited. At that point in my life, 0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:43.760 I've only been in two states, New York and Connecticut, 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:49.080 so you know, so I went to a combination and 0:25:49.720 --> 0:25:52.560 so you went to St. Michael's in Vermont. There were 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:57.840 no women there, right exactly, but they had a important point, 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:01.840 a recurring theme with these ethnic schools. But there was 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:05.000 a There was a a school called Trinity College or 0:26:05.040 --> 0:26:07.920 sort of the sister college in Burlington, right across the river. 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:10.879 But there were a lot of other colleges. There was 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:13.240 a lot of uh, there was sort of a college 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:15.320 town Burlington. It was a really cool town to go 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:17.720 to school. And if you weren't in St. Michael's, but 0:26:17.800 --> 0:26:26.720 you could meet girls. I made a point of that. Okay, 0:26:26.760 --> 0:26:30.160 growing up, were you like the leader of the group? 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:33.320 Were you popular? And then when you get to college, 0:26:33.400 --> 0:26:36.760 were you, you know, the guy who was hanging with 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:39.600 everybody or you were more independent? What kind of kid 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:42.480 were you like growing up? I was independent. I mean 0:26:42.520 --> 0:26:45.400 I really wasn't in any big click or anything like that. 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:47.840 But I was well liked and I got along. I 0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:49.640 got a well, I I got I can get along 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:51.639 with anybody, so I would get along with everybody. Was 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:54.119 just a big bruiser guy, a bully. I could somehow 0:26:54.160 --> 0:26:57.399 befriend him. And when I went to college, like I 0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:00.560 made a fortune. I was. I took a cut and pay. 0:27:00.560 --> 0:27:03.000 When I graduated, I was. I had all kinds of 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:06.920 jobs from dishwasher to where because I had had to 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:08.600 kind of work my way through college. But but I 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:12.240 got a little money in the system. So uh, but 0:27:12.400 --> 0:27:14.639 there I was. Most of the other kids in that 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:18.119 school were from Upper New England. There was only a 0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:21.479 few of us from the Tri City area who we 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:23.600 thought we were hit but we were nothing. You know. 0:27:24.000 --> 0:27:26.000 All I really knew was like listening to New York 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:28.720 City radio growing up in terms of you know, never 0:27:28.760 --> 0:27:30.320 really went into the city much. So I went to 0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:35.600 graduate school. Okay, you were an Aspen We never discussed this. 0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:37.720 You were a big skier. You mean, that's the reason 0:27:37.800 --> 0:27:40.560 to go to Aspen, especially back then, although Aspen was different. 0:27:40.600 --> 0:27:45.200 That was before all the chain stores were there. Oh yeah, 0:27:45.359 --> 0:27:47.879 like people hadn't even heard of Aspen in nineteen seventy. 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:52.000 But what have you know. Sometimes you can remember something 0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:55.360 with total clarity, and I can remember at the beginning 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:57.920 of my sophomore year in college, I was at a 0:27:58.040 --> 0:28:00.399 part I went before school started. I was at the 0:28:00.480 --> 0:28:04.320 University of Ramondic of fraternity and I had made friends 0:28:04.359 --> 0:28:07.280 there too. And then this guy I knew kind of 0:28:07.680 --> 0:28:10.800 this is in the afternoon, he's on a Bonneville motorcycle. 0:28:10.840 --> 0:28:13.040 He kind of comes through and he I said, Hey, Tom, 0:28:13.080 --> 0:28:15.080 how are you doing? This is his name is Tom too. 0:28:15.080 --> 0:28:16.879 He says, Oh, Man, I just had the greatest summer. 0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:19.640 I was down in this place, Lake George. It's while 0:28:19.800 --> 0:28:21.720 down there. You know, there's all these girls. You can 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:24.000 make a lot of money. It's a beautiful place, and 0:28:24.080 --> 0:28:26.679 you know you're crazy to go home and for the summertime. 0:28:27.960 --> 0:28:30.080 I decided right then and there, this is what I'm 0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:32.560 gonna do. I'm gonna finally be free, away from my parents, 0:28:32.600 --> 0:28:35.680 away from the rules of college. So I went there. 0:28:35.680 --> 0:28:38.360 And when I was there, like the cool gang in 0:28:38.360 --> 0:28:41.000 that town where all these guys from Aspen they would 0:28:41.040 --> 0:28:43.160 they would like be on the circuit. They would work 0:28:43.160 --> 0:28:44.840 in Lake George, they would work in ask when they 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:48.360 go to the Caribbean, then run pot. They ran bars. 0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:51.720 But they were like bohemians. My first real encounter with 0:28:51.800 --> 0:28:53.920 and they there, they theyre they didn't even think of 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:58.280 having a career. They were, but they struck a nerve 0:28:58.360 --> 0:29:00.480 with me, and I saw like a window for me 0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:03.040 to have a more interesting life. But they always said, hey, man, 0:29:03.080 --> 0:29:05.959 come out and finsess this in a Aspen. So as 0:29:06.000 --> 0:29:07.600 soon as I got out of school, I bought a 0:29:07.600 --> 0:29:10.880 car for like a hundred bucks and drove to Aspen 0:29:10.960 --> 0:29:12.680 and showed up at the It was in the Aspen 0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:17.400 and it was now the rich Carlton stands in its place. Yeah, 0:29:17.560 --> 0:29:20.440 So I went in. I say where's Gary? And Gary 0:29:20.480 --> 0:29:23.040 comes out and I said. He says, Tom, what are 0:29:23.040 --> 0:29:25.320 you doing here? I said, well, this was a pilgrimage 0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:27.280 for me. I wanted to check it out. You got anything, 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:29.760 you got any nice job for a for a hard 0:29:29.760 --> 0:29:32.560 working man. He says, everyone filled up. You shouldn't let 0:29:32.600 --> 0:29:35.600 me know, but you could be a dishwasher. And this 0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:38.200 was like the nitty Gritty dirt band would play there 0:29:38.400 --> 0:29:41.320 and Steve Martin and it was. It was a hopping place, 0:29:41.360 --> 0:29:43.560 but I knew all the guys who kind of ran it. Well. 0:29:43.600 --> 0:29:46.920 I worked my way up and I spent uh. Then 0:29:46.960 --> 0:29:49.040 he sends me to go get a room at the 0:29:49.120 --> 0:29:52.240 Independence Lodge, which is at the base of Ajax. It's 0:29:52.240 --> 0:29:54.800 now a Ralph the Ren store, and they gave me 0:29:54.880 --> 0:29:57.040 a room with no window. And then the guy says 0:29:57.080 --> 0:29:59.360 to me, you're not gonna need a window if you're 0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:01.720 working at the s spen in. I go, what is that? 0:30:02.120 --> 0:30:04.520 He says, because those guys are wild. You'll be They'll 0:30:04.520 --> 0:30:06.760 have you all night at some parties in Red Mountain 0:30:06.760 --> 0:30:08.680 and you'll be thanking me that the sun's not waking 0:30:08.720 --> 0:30:12.360 you up. You can sleep all day. So that turned 0:30:12.400 --> 0:30:15.560 out to be, you know, that turned out to pretty 0:30:15.600 --> 0:30:17.960 much be the case. But I I was there. I 0:30:18.240 --> 0:30:20.040 skied a few times, but I had to rent all 0:30:20.040 --> 0:30:22.560 my equipment, so it was really uh, you know, I 0:30:22.560 --> 0:30:25.200 didn't have my own stuff. Wasn't a great skier, but 0:30:25.240 --> 0:30:26.920 it was. I really fell in love with the town. 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:28.920 But I realized after three months I had to get 0:30:28.920 --> 0:30:31.120 out of there. I go crazy. That was sort of 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:33.640 my brief psychedelic period. There was a lot of bad 0:30:33.680 --> 0:30:35.560 things going on and Aspen in those days. I mean 0:30:35.560 --> 0:30:38.280 it was Hunter Thompson had just run for it was 0:30:38.320 --> 0:30:40.120 about to run for sheriff, but he had started that 0:30:40.240 --> 0:30:43.560 freak party thing which you probably knew all about. They 0:30:43.560 --> 0:30:49.000 were gonna fight the developers, the greedhogs, who ultimately turned 0:30:49.040 --> 0:30:53.520 Aspen into what it is today. Okay, so you leave Aspen, 0:30:53.560 --> 0:30:57.480 and then the next stop is I went through San 0:30:57.520 --> 0:31:01.080 Francisco and down do Big Sir Her and they went 0:31:01.160 --> 0:31:03.600 to uh San Diego. Had a friend of mine who 0:31:03.680 --> 0:31:06.240 was in the Navy. He lived in Mission Beach, hung 0:31:06.240 --> 0:31:08.680 out there a while. Then I I I tried to 0:31:08.720 --> 0:31:10.800 dry I finally I couldn't drive my car in Mexico, 0:31:10.960 --> 0:31:13.840 so I sold it in, flew to Port of the 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:16.080 Art and went to San Blass. I was there for 0:31:16.280 --> 0:31:18.400 not long, and then her friend called me. I was says, hey, 0:31:18.440 --> 0:31:21.560 I'm in the I'm in the Virgin Islands, and you 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:23.640 could probably get a job here at Tendon Bar. So 0:31:23.760 --> 0:31:25.960 I went there and spent three months in the Virgin 0:31:26.000 --> 0:31:30.360 Islands doing that. That was a whole other adventure. And 0:31:30.400 --> 0:31:34.480 then from there I went to Martha's Vineyard and got 0:31:34.480 --> 0:31:36.600 a job in the lamp post. And this was when 0:31:36.640 --> 0:31:39.440 I met Tom Rush, who you just had on and 0:31:39.480 --> 0:31:42.560 I met Jill Lumpkin who we talked about on your podcast, 0:31:42.560 --> 0:31:44.640 who was his girlfriend on the Circle Game, who I 0:31:44.760 --> 0:31:48.560 hired as a designer to work for me at my company, 0:31:48.640 --> 0:31:51.120 Hindu Kush. She used to be a bar to waitress 0:31:51.160 --> 0:31:53.840 at max Is in the city and she's living in 0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:56.280 Indian now. I I had, I had, I said. I 0:31:56.280 --> 0:31:58.920 sent her a copy of the link to your podcast. 0:31:58.960 --> 0:32:02.840 I said, well, Tom's really talk talking about you so small, 0:32:03.600 --> 0:32:10.040 small world. Why did your business in Afghanistan in India crash? Well? 0:32:10.080 --> 0:32:11.840 As good as it was and we were, we were 0:32:11.880 --> 0:32:15.400 making not crappy clothes, but really kind of stylish things. Uh. 0:32:15.440 --> 0:32:19.280 You know, the Afghanistan they had a communist coup. You know, 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:22.320 generally not good for business. I mean, we were going around. 0:32:22.880 --> 0:32:25.320 It was a big surprise to everybody in town, including 0:32:25.520 --> 0:32:28.360 pretty much the Soviets, because these guys weren't ready for 0:32:28.400 --> 0:32:31.800 prime time. And that was in April seventy eight. So 0:32:31.960 --> 0:32:33.720 I kind of bailed. I have been there for a 0:32:33.760 --> 0:32:35.680 coup in seventy three when they took out the king, 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:40.360 but that was like there's one oligarch to another. This 0:32:40.920 --> 0:32:43.520 was the These were communists and they were not big 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:47.240 on doing business. So I kind of gathered some stuff 0:32:47.240 --> 0:32:50.040 together and I said, let's, uh, let's go through the 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:52.160 Cobra Pass. And stay in pish hour and this thing 0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:56.560 blows over, and uh with Jill and whatnot, and it 0:32:56.640 --> 0:32:59.240 never it still hasn't blown over, Bob. They've been fighting 0:32:59.240 --> 0:33:02.760 for forty three years. But then the Soviets invaded, god worse. 0:33:02.840 --> 0:33:04.960 So I had a business in India at a house 0:33:05.000 --> 0:33:09.640 in Delhi. I doubled down on that. But then like 0:33:09.720 --> 0:33:13.040 six months later, Jimmy Carter, under pressure from the domestic 0:33:13.240 --> 0:33:16.960 uh you know, apparel people put a quota and an 0:33:17.000 --> 0:33:21.440 embargo on close from India and you had to get 0:33:21.520 --> 0:33:23.480 quota from the Indian government. Since I was one of 0:33:23.480 --> 0:33:26.400 the only kind of Caucasians doing this and didn't have 0:33:26.440 --> 0:33:30.240 the government connectors, I didn't get anything. So I went 0:33:30.280 --> 0:33:34.720 out of business, and uh I I came back with 0:33:34.720 --> 0:33:36.880 my tail between my legs, trying to get a job. 0:33:36.920 --> 0:33:40.000 And that's where when I ended up at MTV. Okay, 0:33:40.480 --> 0:33:42.640 since you said you'd only been to New York in Connecticut, 0:33:42.720 --> 0:33:46.160 where did all this wanderlusts come from? I think it 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:48.640 was just pan up. You know. My dad was in 0:33:48.680 --> 0:33:51.960 the Navy in the Pacific War, and he used to 0:33:52.000 --> 0:33:54.200 drive those boats that went up on the Pacific Islands. 0:33:54.240 --> 0:33:56.840 The door would come down Statar, Bryan Ryan, and you 0:33:56.880 --> 0:33:59.000 know of the guys get killed in Eily, he had 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:02.840 they called it shell shop then. But he went from 0:34:02.840 --> 0:34:04.840 a guy in my side like a hundred and ninety 0:34:04.840 --> 0:34:07.400 pounds to just pounds. And he spent the rest of 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:09.320 the war like a year and a half in Hawaii, 0:34:09.320 --> 0:34:12.319 and he was he just never wanted He never said 0:34:12.320 --> 0:34:14.640 a word to me about the war. I can never 0:34:14.640 --> 0:34:16.840 get him to watch like Victory at Sea or anything 0:34:16.880 --> 0:34:20.240 like that. And uh, he never wanted to go anywhere. 0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:22.040 The only trip we ever took as a family was 0:34:22.080 --> 0:34:26.920 a day trip to the Mystic Seaport. And uh So 0:34:27.000 --> 0:34:30.000 when I went to Vermont to college, I you know, 0:34:30.040 --> 0:34:31.759 I just got the jones I can do this. I 0:34:31.840 --> 0:34:35.319 just felt exhilarated to travel. And then I would hear 0:34:35.360 --> 0:34:37.800 all these stories like from these guys about Aspen in 0:34:37.920 --> 0:34:41.440 other places in the Caribbean, and it seemed so romantic 0:34:41.520 --> 0:34:43.560 to me, and I said, I want to do this. 0:34:43.600 --> 0:34:47.080 And meanwhile I kind of beefed up my you know, 0:34:47.239 --> 0:34:49.560 my reading with the beats and all of that. And 0:34:49.680 --> 0:34:54.280 you know, I just was into expanding experiences I might encounter. 0:34:54.440 --> 0:34:56.880 And uh, I gotta say this, all the traveling that 0:34:56.960 --> 0:35:00.640 I've done has been really the defining thing in my life. 0:35:00.719 --> 0:35:03.720 I mean in terms of you know, confidence and comfort 0:35:03.719 --> 0:35:07.080 about myself and uh, empathy for other people. I mean 0:35:08.440 --> 0:35:10.480 you said in the beginning less than half of Americans 0:35:10.480 --> 0:35:14.040 have passports. So true, and that's that's really sort of 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:16.359 central to our problem as a nation. I think. You know, 0:35:17.080 --> 0:35:19.320 so you never have that ability to look at America 0:35:19.400 --> 0:35:23.120 through someone else's prism. But anyway I had. I just 0:35:23.239 --> 0:35:26.759 love to travel, Okay. You know it's amazing because when 0:35:26.760 --> 0:35:29.239 you go to other countries, you're like UK. You know, 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:31.440 it's a nation of travelers, will go to go. Oh, 0:35:31.440 --> 0:35:33.560 We'll go, you know, things that people wouldn't even think 0:35:33.600 --> 0:35:38.560 of in America. But were you so successful because of 0:35:38.560 --> 0:35:41.880 what you learned in business school? Well, I had an 0:35:41.920 --> 0:35:44.759 innate drive and ability to put things together and do it. 0:35:44.920 --> 0:35:48.439 What I did learn in business school is I really 0:35:48.480 --> 0:35:51.800 straightened out. I mean I really applied myself in business. 0:35:51.960 --> 0:35:54.480 I mean on my studies. I kind of coasted through 0:35:54.520 --> 0:35:57.160 high school like hosted through college. I still made like 0:35:57.239 --> 0:36:00.520 the honor roll when I got to when I got 0:36:00.560 --> 0:36:02.960 to business school, I just got so turned on. I 0:36:03.000 --> 0:36:05.200 got I was number one of my class. I graduated 0:36:05.239 --> 0:36:07.120 number one of my class. I had this one professor, 0:36:07.200 --> 0:36:11.080 that's guy named Peter Drucker, who legendary. He was a 0:36:11.160 --> 0:36:13.600 legend and he was you know, he'd hold these classes 0:36:13.640 --> 0:36:16.759 and they were all about innovation and change. And I 0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:18.880 got someone that I said, there's a window for me. 0:36:18.960 --> 0:36:22.080 This is a this is you know, innovation and change 0:36:22.120 --> 0:36:25.000 is what kind of drives America had. And I realized 0:36:25.120 --> 0:36:27.320 if I could work on things that were new and interesting, 0:36:27.360 --> 0:36:30.799 put things together in an interesting way, that's a creative way, 0:36:30.840 --> 0:36:34.239 I could be a business person. So I was able 0:36:34.280 --> 0:36:36.239 to apply some of the things I learned there. But 0:36:36.320 --> 0:36:38.040 my success there I had no idea. What I was 0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:41.120 doing was just done through hustle. I mean, I knew 0:36:41.160 --> 0:36:43.279 when I was working there, Bob, nothing that I would 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:45.320 ever do in my life would be more complicated or 0:36:45.360 --> 0:36:47.799 difficult than that, And that's been the case. I mean, 0:36:48.320 --> 0:36:50.720 you know, you had the bride people, nothing was delivered 0:36:50.760 --> 0:36:54.440 on times, stuff was done wrong. You know, there was 0:36:55.800 --> 0:36:59.719 you know, this was really premass tourism. These places were 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:02.760 the uh you know, I think India had like seventy 0:37:02.800 --> 0:37:05.400 thousand tourists a year or something at that point. So 0:37:05.440 --> 0:37:08.040 you really had to hustle. So it was through determination, 0:37:08.320 --> 0:37:13.719 which I guess was in bred in me. Okay, and 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:16.040 where have you not been that you want to go. 0:37:17.239 --> 0:37:20.160 I haven't been to New Zealand. Love to go there. 0:37:20.480 --> 0:37:24.760 I've been in Westralia, but only once. I'm I'm surprised, 0:37:25.320 --> 0:37:28.440 since you know it's a long way down there. I'll 0:37:28.480 --> 0:37:30.000 believe me. I know if I've been a few times, 0:37:30.000 --> 0:37:33.520 I know it's I'd love to go to way Antarctica, 0:37:33.840 --> 0:37:36.799 you know now I sent away The other day. I 0:37:36.840 --> 0:37:39.360 was browsing through Amazon. I said, Lonely Planet has a 0:37:39.360 --> 0:37:41.719 book on Antarctica. I said, well, I want to get that. 0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:46.600 Find out what's the cool hotel there. So I'm studying 0:37:46.680 --> 0:37:49.400 up on Antarctica. I haven't been to uh. You know, 0:37:50.680 --> 0:37:53.799 I've been to almost every country in Asia. I've been 0:37:53.880 --> 0:37:57.640 to half of the fifty countries in Africa. There's still 0:37:57.800 --> 0:38:02.279 I want to go to the Central African Republic Um. 0:38:02.400 --> 0:38:05.239 You know, the northern part of Japan. I don't know 0:38:05.239 --> 0:38:07.000 if you've been to Hokkaido Island, the one in the 0:38:07.040 --> 0:38:09.359 north where Sapporo is. They make that good beer up 0:38:09.360 --> 0:38:11.480 there and they do all that skiing. That's supposed to 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:13.360 be amazing. That was where I was going to go 0:38:13.400 --> 0:38:15.640 if it wasn't for the pandemic. That was my I 0:38:15.680 --> 0:38:17.319 always like having a trip in the back of my 0:38:17.400 --> 0:38:19.719 head that I can, you know, fantasize about. That's gonna 0:38:19.719 --> 0:38:23.960 be coming up sometime over the horizon. So if you 0:38:24.360 --> 0:38:27.880 told someone who really hadn't been anywhere two countries to 0:38:27.920 --> 0:38:33.120 go to, what would you say? You Well, depend I 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:36.440 guess on a type of person, but let's put the 0:38:36.440 --> 0:38:39.520 pandemic inside. I would always put India on top of 0:38:39.560 --> 0:38:41.440 the list. It's the greatest show on Earth. I mean, 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:47.040 anything could happen any that's just a mind blower no 0:38:47.080 --> 0:38:51.640 matter what. Uh India would be there. Greece, I mean, 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:53.439 I've been going to Greece. I've been renting a house 0:38:53.440 --> 0:38:55.920 in Greece in the summers, is on a little island 0:38:56.680 --> 0:38:59.759 where it's a lot less expensive than the Hampton's and 0:39:00.239 --> 0:39:02.520 Greece that the people are wonderful, the light is great. 0:39:02.560 --> 0:39:05.440 Greecent Italy pretty cool in Europe, and in in in 0:39:05.680 --> 0:39:11.160 uh Africa, Senegal, you know, great, great music scene. And 0:39:11.280 --> 0:39:13.680 Ethiopia is the other one who has a whole different 0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:17.440 music scene. I'm very much into you know, African music, 0:39:17.480 --> 0:39:19.640 and you know it's just a daily occurrence going to 0:39:19.719 --> 0:39:23.840 clubs there and meeting and seeing musicians. And for the 0:39:24.719 --> 0:39:29.480 American how safe is it in Africa? Say, oh, it's 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:33.080 safe and very safe. I would assume in all your 0:39:33.120 --> 0:39:35.520 travels though around the world, you've had a couple of 0:39:35.840 --> 0:39:40.120 scary experiences. Yes, yes, I have, and I had the 0:39:40.120 --> 0:39:44.680 worst one was in Africa. Actually I went to uh 0:39:44.960 --> 0:39:47.319 this thing called the festival in the desert and north 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:49.279 the Timbuck too. I was once again back in the 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:53.640 Sahara I went. I I assembled a group to go. 0:39:53.800 --> 0:39:55.360 Is that they've been doing this thing for a bunch 0:39:55.360 --> 0:39:58.879 of years. And I got Chris Blackwell to go and 0:39:59.040 --> 0:40:02.360 Jimmy Buffett to go because number one, he loves to travel, 0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:05.400 but he also had a jet. So we flew to 0:40:05.440 --> 0:40:09.719 tim Buck two and we hired some guides and you 0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:11.680 better have to drive like six eight hours in the 0:40:11.719 --> 0:40:13.560 desert to get there. And the look. We had a 0:40:14.360 --> 0:40:17.040 couple of people who came with us from from Bombaco 0:40:17.120 --> 0:40:20.040 to Capital. But there was this guy from tim Buck 0:40:20.080 --> 0:40:23.960 two who was gonna steer us in the wrong direction 0:40:24.920 --> 0:40:28.879 and have us kidnapped, which happens frequently there by people 0:40:28.920 --> 0:40:30.759 who ended up being in al Qaeda, who had just 0:40:30.840 --> 0:40:34.000 killed some German tourists. Now we didn't know this at 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:36.080 the time, but after about four or five hours, we're 0:40:36.080 --> 0:40:37.879 going to go, where the hell are we? We were 0:40:37.880 --> 0:40:40.279 gonna get there, and then they jammed the brakes on. 0:40:40.360 --> 0:40:43.400 We had like a little caravan going through, just blowing on, 0:40:43.600 --> 0:40:46.000 you know, just going over these sand dunes, and uh, 0:40:46.680 --> 0:40:48.359 they get out and this guy pulls out a gun 0:40:48.400 --> 0:40:51.160 to this local local guy's head. He's like he's gonna 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:53.879 kill him. He says, you're you're cheating on me, You're 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:56.279 taking us in the wrong place. So they we we 0:40:56.280 --> 0:40:58.600 we left him in the desert and turned around and 0:40:58.640 --> 0:40:59.799 head of the other way and made it to the 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:02.960 fast stable. But I'm saying, oh, man, I just would 0:41:02.960 --> 0:41:05.719 imagine every day we were these people that they kidnapped, 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:08.040 they were taking to Mauritania. They keep you like for 0:41:08.080 --> 0:41:10.560 a year or two, you know. I just imagine waking 0:41:10.640 --> 0:41:14.440 up every day and Chris enemy you and your fucking ideas, 0:41:14.480 --> 0:41:17.960 you know, your big ideas. So that was that was scary. 0:41:17.960 --> 0:41:22.480 But I didn't know how scary it was actually until afterwards. Okay, 0:41:22.560 --> 0:41:26.440 let's go back to Vice. Vice was a media in 0:41:26.560 --> 0:41:29.680 stock Darling and then it all kind of blew up 0:41:29.719 --> 0:41:33.200 in Shane Smith was a bad actor. You brought in 0:41:33.200 --> 0:41:36.480 a new ceo. What what's the status of Vice today? 0:41:36.760 --> 0:41:39.480 You know, it took a few hits. It was I 0:41:39.520 --> 0:41:42.799 loved the Vice guys and originally, you know, I met 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:45.480 them when I was a CEO of I when I 0:41:45.520 --> 0:41:48.319 was CEO of viacom and and and did a deal 0:41:48.320 --> 0:41:51.720 with them. They had a vision, they had a voice. 0:41:51.760 --> 0:41:53.720 They were from the streets. They were running up business 0:41:53.800 --> 0:41:56.920 on borrowed furniture. So I really like these guys. They 0:41:56.920 --> 0:41:59.640 could make they were ready for YouTube was breaking and 0:41:59.640 --> 0:42:01.400 they were gonna be able to do video at a cost. 0:42:01.440 --> 0:42:03.960 And they really had a good ear for eye for 0:42:04.040 --> 0:42:06.160 stories and uh an ear for stories and an eye 0:42:06.160 --> 0:42:07.959 for making them good. And then you know, they kinda 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:11.160 we got a little Huber's in there. They took some 0:42:11.320 --> 0:42:14.799 meat too, bumps. And then we saw you know, which 0:42:14.840 --> 0:42:17.759 decimated sort of the upper ranks if you will, of 0:42:17.840 --> 0:42:21.359 some colorful characters. And that was a big hit. And 0:42:21.400 --> 0:42:24.440 then we had the whole thing. If you're a publisher, 0:42:24.560 --> 0:42:28.360 you know this in UH online where Google and Facebook 0:42:28.360 --> 0:42:31.360 are taking eighty to nine of all the advertising revenue, 0:42:32.040 --> 0:42:34.520 taking a lot of companies and putting them out of business, 0:42:34.560 --> 0:42:36.800 a lot of people doing good work. They just couldn't 0:42:37.000 --> 0:42:39.600 have a business model that worked, so we had to 0:42:39.680 --> 0:42:42.160 kind of dig ourselves out of the hole. Now. Oddly enough, 0:42:42.200 --> 0:42:44.960 coincidentally and I was on a board meeting today and uh, 0:42:45.000 --> 0:42:47.600 you know, we were profitable last year they recast. Uh 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:50.080 we had a hot run with HBO that left. Now 0:42:50.760 --> 0:42:53.640 we've got the news operation on showtime and we also 0:42:53.760 --> 0:42:58.120 have a sizeable presence online. But their engagement with people 0:42:58.200 --> 0:43:00.960 is up thirty. They're profitable. They're sort of they're they're 0:43:01.000 --> 0:43:03.560 they're back. I mean you may not know it, but uh, 0:43:04.760 --> 0:43:08.680 you know they they they ran really hot and then 0:43:08.680 --> 0:43:12.799 they cooled down. And Nancy Dubuke, who's the CEO there 0:43:12.840 --> 0:43:15.160 now very talented as brought in pretty much a whole 0:43:15.200 --> 0:43:18.200 new crew. And of course they've had the work remotely 0:43:18.239 --> 0:43:20.520 all this year, but they've made they've made good progress. 0:43:20.560 --> 0:43:24.399 It was it was an encouraging call. Okay, let's talk 0:43:24.440 --> 0:43:29.440 about the landscape, first, the news landscape, then the media landscape. 0:43:29.760 --> 0:43:32.319 What's going to happen in the news landscape on some level, 0:43:32.360 --> 0:43:36.240 we have consolidation in newspapers such that there's the Big 0:43:36.280 --> 0:43:38.759 three and you know, not really everybody else. When it 0:43:38.760 --> 0:43:42.439 comes to network news, that is dying, and cable news 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:45.319 doesn't reach that many people. You know, for a long time, 0:43:45.360 --> 0:43:47.279 it looked like Vice was going to be the alternative. 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:51.600 How do you see it playing out? Well, you know, 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:54.520 all the guys on table, the three networks we all watch, 0:43:55.080 --> 0:43:56.879 I guess there's four or five now, I mean they've 0:43:56.880 --> 0:43:58.600 all kind of take they're all in the Trump slam. 0:43:59.000 --> 0:44:02.239 I mean they were really cooking, as was you know, 0:44:02.719 --> 0:44:05.399 the you know, Washington Post and the New York Times 0:44:05.480 --> 0:44:07.799 everything during the Trump period because everything was hot all 0:44:07.800 --> 0:44:11.960 the time. So they've got a they gotta figure out 0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:15.799 that they've created a model, which pretty much is economically 0:44:15.800 --> 0:44:19.600 it's just talking heads. No one's really out doing any stories. 0:44:20.080 --> 0:44:22.320 There's talking to people in the studio. That's where I 0:44:22.360 --> 0:44:24.640 thought Advice had a real angle of young people. They're 0:44:24.640 --> 0:44:26.440 really going to be interested, they can take a different 0:44:26.440 --> 0:44:28.880 take on the news, and to some extent that was 0:44:28.960 --> 0:44:32.759 largely true. Uh, but what happens now, I don't know. 0:44:32.840 --> 0:44:36.839 The real shame is, like on the local level, local stations, 0:44:38.360 --> 0:44:43.040 local uh newspapers. I mean, they're just consolidating, consolidating, sucking 0:44:43.080 --> 0:44:46.080 costs out there really isn't much there. I spent a 0:44:46.080 --> 0:44:51.920 good part of the of the pandemic up in Santa Barbara, 0:44:52.520 --> 0:44:54.399 and they have up there. It's so bad that three 0:44:54.520 --> 0:44:57.960 the three broadcast stations have joined together to have the 0:44:58.040 --> 0:45:02.759 same weather report, and they're they're sharing news stories, which 0:45:02.760 --> 0:45:05.399 are not many much of a news story to begin with. 0:45:05.560 --> 0:45:08.879 So and and the money sort of has been just 0:45:08.920 --> 0:45:12.920 sucked out of the that the linear television business and 0:45:13.520 --> 0:45:17.479 from every aspect. So it doesn't look too good for 0:45:17.920 --> 0:45:22.080 local news, and it doesn't look too good for uh 0:45:22.320 --> 0:45:25.560 local newspapers. The problem there, of course, is we're gonna 0:45:25.600 --> 0:45:32.359 have an even more ignorant siloed you know, populus, who 0:45:32.400 --> 0:45:34.839 knows even less about what's going on than they then 0:45:34.880 --> 0:45:37.239 they then then you. Now, I don't know what the 0:45:37.280 --> 0:45:39.200 answer is, Bob. I mean, it seems like if you're 0:45:39.200 --> 0:45:42.120 a big if you can hire reporters and really put 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:44.560 out good editorial product, like the Wall Street Journal or 0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:48.680 the Washington Post, you can set up a digital business 0:45:48.800 --> 0:45:51.440 that you know would sustain you. And those guys all 0:45:51.480 --> 0:45:54.319 have done that. I mean, they have paying subscribers. Now, 0:45:54.320 --> 0:45:58.880 they aren't that reliant on advertising, but they're like national 0:45:58.960 --> 0:46:01.840 papers in a sense, I don't know what happens down 0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:05.719 below them. To straighten that out, you know, trying to 0:46:05.760 --> 0:46:08.480 prop up the past just doesn't work, like trying to 0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:11.440 keep the physical bookstore alive, although they had a rebound 0:46:11.440 --> 0:46:14.280 prior to COVID. You have to look to the future. 0:46:14.640 --> 0:46:16.360 Just one other thing that may or may not be 0:46:16.440 --> 0:46:19.480 on your radar in terms of you know, music, we 0:46:19.520 --> 0:46:21.480 have it all figured out. Music was in the canary 0:46:21.560 --> 0:46:23.759 in the coal mine. It was the first disrupted for 0:46:23.840 --> 0:46:26.719 no other reason. The files were small, but there are 0:46:26.840 --> 0:46:30.000 multiple outlets. For essentially ten dollars a month, you can 0:46:30.000 --> 0:46:34.400 get all the history of recorded music. Whereas TV visual 0:46:34.480 --> 0:46:38.000 entertainment has been completely balkanized. How does that play out? 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:40.080 Because one thing we know, people are not going to 0:46:40.120 --> 0:46:42.839 subscribe to all these services like being pecked to death 0:46:42.880 --> 0:46:46.480 by ducks. Yeah, they wanted to break up the cable bundle, 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:48.839 and now you've got the streamer bundle. Basically it's costs 0:46:48.840 --> 0:46:51.359 you more than the cable bundle. Right, of course you're 0:46:51.360 --> 0:46:55.120 getting better product and uh, you know, it's on demand 0:46:55.200 --> 0:47:01.920 and there's no advertising, but I mean, the whole world 0:47:01.920 --> 0:47:05.400 of interrupted television that still exists, the linear TV model 0:47:05.520 --> 0:47:07.799 is just gonna collapse. I mean, there's not gonna be 0:47:07.880 --> 0:47:10.759 much to hold it up after a while. The next 0:47:10.760 --> 0:47:13.160 thing that's gonna happen is we're gonna see Netflix bid 0:47:13.160 --> 0:47:17.200 on the NFL, you know, and we're gonna start seeing sports, 0:47:17.200 --> 0:47:20.520 which is long with news. The mainstays of what's left 0:47:20.560 --> 0:47:25.600 of the you know, broadcast cable sort of ecosystem. Those 0:47:25.640 --> 0:47:28.440 two must have things are gonna be pecked away by 0:47:28.520 --> 0:47:32.680 the by the more, by the richer streaming services. So 0:47:33.000 --> 0:47:39.040 we're gonna be looking at what streaming service do you buy? 0:47:39.400 --> 0:47:41.320 How many do you need? And right now you've got 0:47:41.840 --> 0:47:44.320 Paramount has under Viacom has one with a lot of 0:47:44.360 --> 0:47:47.520 paramount product, Warner Brothers has, you know, like all of 0:47:47.560 --> 0:47:49.520 a sudden, it's all balk and that's what the hell 0:47:49.920 --> 0:47:51.720 I mean, I'm not gonna buy all of these things. 0:47:51.920 --> 0:47:56.239 It's gonna cost me a fortune. I would think that 0:47:56.280 --> 0:47:59.400 there's gonna be some consolidation that's gonna happen. We know 0:47:59.480 --> 0:48:03.359 that Disney Plus has it made, and Amazon and uh 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:07.280 and Hulu and uh Netflix all had sort of first 0:48:07.320 --> 0:48:10.680 mover advantages. But what happens with the other guys. On 0:48:10.680 --> 0:48:15.000 one hand, Discovery might have a shot because they have 0:48:15.040 --> 0:48:17.680 a low price and they're sort of out of the 0:48:17.760 --> 0:48:20.120 head to head competition the other guys with their own 0:48:20.120 --> 0:48:22.440 own product. It's sort of in the nonfiction space, it's 0:48:22.480 --> 0:48:26.160 sort of a niche business. AMC has all these independent movies, 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:28.240 a little niche business. I mean, if they can get 0:48:28.719 --> 0:48:31.799 eight ten million subs, maybe they'll be happy. But if 0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:35.640 you're a viewer, you know it's gonna be frustrating if 0:48:35.680 --> 0:48:37.200 you want to watch a movie one night and it's 0:48:37.239 --> 0:48:40.200 on another streaming service. You know, I don't see a 0:48:40.200 --> 0:48:42.399 lot of people. I think some people now have three, 0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:46.080 four and five, but I don't see that continuing as 0:48:46.080 --> 0:48:50.280 a head scratcher. Okay, since you worked in Hollywood, has 0:48:50.360 --> 0:48:52.600 there been a shifting of power? I mean when we 0:48:52.600 --> 0:48:54.839 were growing up, certainly living in l A, you knew 0:48:54.880 --> 0:48:57.160 the heads of every studio. Now the people in l 0:48:57.200 --> 0:48:59.200 A don't even know the heads of the studio, but 0:48:59.280 --> 0:49:02.200 they certainly know Read Hastings in Tim Cook. You know 0:49:02.280 --> 0:49:05.640 Tim Cook has in you know unlimited checkbook. What you know, 0:49:05.680 --> 0:49:09.280 Apple TV Plus at this point is basically given away free, 0:49:09.560 --> 0:49:11.960 and they can afford to give it away free. But 0:49:12.440 --> 0:49:15.040 are those that people who really have the power and 0:49:15.120 --> 0:49:19.279 the people in Hollywood who operate completely differently, have they 0:49:19.360 --> 0:49:22.840 fallen behind? Because in Silicon that's a data driven business, 0:49:23.160 --> 0:49:27.160 real business, where Hollywood's a schmooze business. Has it? Finally, 0:49:27.239 --> 0:49:31.799 if they is time, if times caught up with them, well, 0:49:31.840 --> 0:49:35.239 in a sense, you know, if you were if you 0:49:35.360 --> 0:49:38.800 didn't have a legacy studio business with all that overhead 0:49:38.840 --> 0:49:40.920 that goes with it, and you were a triple a 0:49:41.160 --> 0:49:46.840 independent producduction company like say Imagine Entertainment, Grazer and Ron Howard, 0:49:48.800 --> 0:49:52.520 where you can regularly create content of high quality, you 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:54.880 you can say this is great. I'm like an arms dealer. 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:57.719 Now instead of going around to these studios, I can 0:49:58.200 --> 0:50:00.480 I can on the basis of my repute Asian, I 0:50:00.520 --> 0:50:04.440 can get a big deal with Netflix or with Apple 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:07.480 or something. So they have a lot of places to 0:50:07.560 --> 0:50:10.920 sell stuff, and they have good stuff. For someone like them, 0:50:11.080 --> 0:50:14.759 they are, i could argue, more empowered, and they can 0:50:14.800 --> 0:50:16.759 be more and more of a talent magnet to get 0:50:16.840 --> 0:50:20.600 because they can get stuff on the air. It's it's 0:50:20.640 --> 0:50:25.160 but the whole schmoozing Hollywood agent thing is is sort 0:50:25.160 --> 0:50:27.640 of being deconstructed, Bob. I mean you really can see 0:50:27.680 --> 0:50:33.480 that happening. Uh. Um, it's not. Uh, it's not. Making 0:50:33.520 --> 0:50:37.759 movies is not the most profitable business right now. And uh, 0:50:37.920 --> 0:50:41.319 you know you saw what happened with the oscars. But 0:50:41.400 --> 0:50:44.040 I would say being a being a good independent production 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:46.800 company doesn't have a lot of legacy costs going along 0:50:46.840 --> 0:50:49.919 with you, is Okay. The problem there, though, is these 0:50:49.920 --> 0:50:52.960 streamers don't really leave you any back end. So if 0:50:53.000 --> 0:50:55.160 you have a big hit, you know, say you make 0:50:55.160 --> 0:50:57.920 a Seinfeld, You're not gonna have a Larry David pay 0:50:58.040 --> 0:50:59.440 day at the end of it. Because they keep a 0:50:59.480 --> 0:51:01.040 hund percent ut of the i P. You can get 0:51:01.080 --> 0:51:03.399 bigger fees, like maybe a three percent fee and maybe 0:51:03.520 --> 0:51:05.560 some more on top of that, more than in the past, 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:08.600 so you're sort of just an indentured guy. You know. 0:51:08.719 --> 0:51:10.719 That might change in the future, maybe if it gets 0:51:10.760 --> 0:51:12.960 more competitive of some of these streamers would be willing 0:51:13.040 --> 0:51:16.520 to grant certain producers some back end positions on the 0:51:16.520 --> 0:51:21.480 stuff that they make. Okay, when MTV was in its heyday, 0:51:21.640 --> 0:51:24.520 it was a mono culture what mtv A certainly said 0:51:24.560 --> 0:51:27.240 on records, never mind the culture at large. Literally around 0:51:27.280 --> 0:51:30.400 the world people knew. Now it's more bulk bulk and 0:51:30.480 --> 0:51:33.080 I it's so balk and I that my question would be, 0:51:33.800 --> 0:51:37.160 is something like the Oscars. Is it essentially done? Is 0:51:37.160 --> 0:51:40.920 there no way to revive? Have people have their eyeballs 0:51:41.080 --> 0:51:45.560 elsewhere nothing has critical mass? Is that where we're driving 0:51:45.760 --> 0:51:49.400 and where do we end up? I think, you know, 0:51:49.680 --> 0:51:51.800 I think it's not done. I mean one of the 0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:56.360 reasons it keeps going is because for the Grammys and 0:51:56.400 --> 0:51:59.400 for the Oscars, there's these huge licensing deals from ABC 0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:01.640 and c B. Yes, like twenty five million, mean insane 0:52:01.640 --> 0:52:03.799 amounts of money they pay, and you know they have 0:52:03.840 --> 0:52:06.359 to keep doing it to make the money. If same 0:52:06.440 --> 0:52:09.960 Netflix or Hulu or somebody were to take these and 0:52:10.000 --> 0:52:15.000 they can run the Oscars without commercials, and uh, you know, 0:52:15.160 --> 0:52:17.960 I think that there's always gonna be an audience for it, 0:52:18.239 --> 0:52:21.880 And uh, I don't think it's necessarily dead, but I 0:52:21.880 --> 0:52:24.319 mean people have sort of been award awards showed to 0:52:24.440 --> 0:52:27.160 death in a way. But I mean, this is the Oscars. 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:30.520 It's the top of the line feature film in a way. 0:52:30.600 --> 0:52:34.840 Is still king, although that's even arguable these days because 0:52:34.880 --> 0:52:37.480 one of the things you've noticed, and it's accelerated during 0:52:37.480 --> 0:52:40.920 the pandemic, is how people they aren't satisfied with the 0:52:41.040 --> 0:52:43.480 ninety or two hour, ninety minute, two hour movie. They 0:52:43.480 --> 0:52:46.239 want to dig into these characters and go on for seasons. 0:52:46.280 --> 0:52:49.120 I mean, it's crazy. Binge viewing is the other thing 0:52:49.160 --> 0:52:53.080 that's really made TV a lot more interesting than films. 0:52:53.120 --> 0:52:56.319 Films are basically you know these uh you know, big 0:52:56.360 --> 0:53:00.920 event films that can be franchised into sequels with comic 0:53:00.960 --> 0:53:04.640 book characters. So let me ask a little differently, though 0:53:05.040 --> 0:53:07.600 certainly when you were an MTV they were these international 0:53:07.640 --> 0:53:12.120 stars built you mentioned you too, are those days done? 0:53:12.239 --> 0:53:15.439 Let me put it this way, Uh, at this point 0:53:15.520 --> 0:53:18.240 in time, Taylor's We've put out two records. I would 0:53:18.320 --> 0:53:20.960 argue that the majority of Americans have never heard a 0:53:21.000 --> 0:53:23.840 single song, Whereas when we grew up in the sixties, 0:53:24.160 --> 0:53:26.880 I knew Louis Armstrong, Hello Dolly because I had to 0:53:26.920 --> 0:53:30.760 wait for the Beatles. So so now is things continue 0:53:30.800 --> 0:53:34.319 to separate irrelevant of the money involved. Is something like 0:53:34.360 --> 0:53:37.600 the oscars. Oscars are just representative, but whether it be 0:53:37.640 --> 0:53:41.000 a musician, whether it be anything a news outlet, is 0:53:41.120 --> 0:53:46.040 everybody's market share essentially going to go down. Yeah, there's 0:53:46.040 --> 0:53:49.400 more choices and people have more access, immediate access to 0:53:49.480 --> 0:53:51.640 all those choices, and all kinds of rabbit holes you 0:53:51.680 --> 0:53:54.400 can fall down when you get in digging in Spotify 0:53:54.520 --> 0:53:56.520 or I mean, how do you even find good new music? 0:53:56.560 --> 0:53:59.160 It's hard word of mouth or whatever. I mean, it's 0:53:59.160 --> 0:54:01.840 a challenge from now. I used to look forward to 0:54:01.880 --> 0:54:05.319 getting like Rolling Stone or something. You finally, what's a 0:54:05.320 --> 0:54:07.400 good new who's got some albums out? It's very difficult 0:54:07.400 --> 0:54:10.240 to you hear something on the radio, you know, terrestrial radio. 0:54:10.320 --> 0:54:13.160 It's still out there. It's like the cock roads of 0:54:13.239 --> 0:54:16.759 the media business and it just can't die. Uh and 0:54:16.880 --> 0:54:19.920 serious is there. But you know, it's like your music, 0:54:20.920 --> 0:54:24.880 you're you're oversaturated with choices. So it's hard to be 0:54:24.920 --> 0:54:28.120 a megastar. And what we also saw the days of 0:54:28.160 --> 0:54:31.600 the Anglo American dire straits, these people who could be 0:54:31.680 --> 0:54:35.040 real worldwide stars that began to fall away as these 0:54:35.080 --> 0:54:38.600 countries began to develop their own musical scenes and ecosystems 0:54:38.640 --> 0:54:41.840 India and places like that, so they they're everything is 0:54:41.880 --> 0:54:44.320 sort of local in a way. You know, an uber 0:54:44.400 --> 0:54:47.239 star that's worth you know, that is huge all around 0:54:47.239 --> 0:54:49.360 the world, hard to find these days. It's certainly not 0:54:49.400 --> 0:54:55.080 Taylor Swift. Okay, Earlier you mentioned right up front, with 0:54:55.160 --> 0:54:58.840 no prompting, that you got fired with Viacom. This is 0:54:58.840 --> 0:55:01.400 a business where every but he lies. They lie about 0:55:01.400 --> 0:55:04.000 their age. You know, David Geffin lied to get a 0:55:04.080 --> 0:55:08.200 job at what was then William Morris, you have embraced it. 0:55:08.680 --> 0:55:11.880 You know, how do you feel about getting fired and 0:55:11.960 --> 0:55:14.120 what was it like at the time, and why are 0:55:14.120 --> 0:55:18.279 you so up front with it? Well, I kind of 0:55:18.280 --> 0:55:22.160 got fired under the best possible circumstances. I got fired 0:55:22.200 --> 0:55:25.160 by a guy who was known to fire pretty much 0:55:25.200 --> 0:55:28.040 everybody who would work for him before. So it wasn't 0:55:28.080 --> 0:55:30.640 like novel I mean had although I think I think 0:55:30.680 --> 0:55:33.120 he just drove mail karmas and out the door. People 0:55:33.160 --> 0:55:35.760 assume Meil got fired, but Mel just couldn't take it anymore. 0:55:35.760 --> 0:55:38.959 I fired Frank BEYONDI. These were bosses that I worked 0:55:38.960 --> 0:55:41.200 for that I really liked. So I was reticent to 0:55:41.239 --> 0:55:44.920 take this job from him because I kind of I 0:55:44.960 --> 0:55:46.880 would leave a job that was perfect for me. It 0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:48.759 was all the things I loved in one place, and 0:55:48.760 --> 0:55:52.040 we had created it so and we were doing all right. 0:55:52.080 --> 0:55:55.400 You know. He split the company into two, which was 0:55:55.440 --> 0:55:58.279 a bad move to make, just when all the all 0:55:58.280 --> 0:56:00.759 the digital guy these were like the last days of 0:56:00.840 --> 0:56:03.680 the legacy media companies, the last hey days. I mean, 0:56:03.719 --> 0:56:06.080 then the new guys were banging on the door. Google 0:56:06.120 --> 0:56:08.799 and Apple and Facebook. They all the changes were in 0:56:08.840 --> 0:56:11.920 the wind. But he called me over. He was piste 0:56:11.960 --> 0:56:15.319 off about I had. I had worked for him for 0:56:15.560 --> 0:56:17.719 I had figured it out, Bob. I think seventy one 0:56:17.800 --> 0:56:21.680 quarters and every quarter we had what they would say 0:56:21.680 --> 0:56:25.359 in the finance ray double digit earnings growth. You know. 0:56:25.480 --> 0:56:28.160 We went public and we had like one my first 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:30.880 quarter when we were black Viacommon I was the CEO, 0:56:31.040 --> 0:56:34.240 went down a bit. But he fired me because basically 0:56:34.280 --> 0:56:37.400 he was going to install Philippe Dumont and I wasn't. 0:56:38.800 --> 0:56:41.200 He really liked me and treated me well for a 0:56:41.239 --> 0:56:44.919 lot of years, but uh, he called me over after 0:56:45.000 --> 0:56:47.360 Labor Day and just said, you know, I got terrible 0:56:47.360 --> 0:56:49.640 news for you. The board of directors wants me to 0:56:49.719 --> 0:56:53.239 fire you immediately, which I really had to laugh, right 0:56:53.719 --> 0:56:57.120 because I mean he is the board of director and Uh. 0:56:57.160 --> 0:56:59.120 I found out afterwards that there have been a coup 0:56:59.200 --> 0:57:02.880 brewing all of on. Uh so I just got up 0:57:02.880 --> 0:57:07.120 and left. And a coup against you or a coup well, 0:57:07.160 --> 0:57:09.600 I mean I think no, it was a coup against 0:57:09.680 --> 0:57:14.080 me by Philippe, my my successor, who changed it all 0:57:14.160 --> 0:57:16.880 into a sort of a legal strategy to run instead 0:57:16.920 --> 0:57:20.480 of making it, you know, exalting the creative people and 0:57:20.480 --> 0:57:22.439 trying to start for good creative work. And we're gonna 0:57:22.480 --> 0:57:26.200 sue YouTube, We're gonna sue everybody. And that wasn't a 0:57:26.680 --> 0:57:29.680 that wasn't a proper strategy, as it turned out. But 0:57:30.240 --> 0:57:32.520 I I figured I had been there twenty six years, 0:57:33.440 --> 0:57:37.320 I had a great run. I would have stayed. I 0:57:37.360 --> 0:57:40.120 loved the people there. I I would have stayed. But 0:57:40.160 --> 0:57:42.880 I figured out I was I was sixty when it happened. 0:57:42.880 --> 0:57:47.000 I figured, you know, this is a new opportunity. Um, 0:57:47.120 --> 0:57:49.160 there's that old addas one door closes and a lot 0:57:49.200 --> 0:57:51.320 more open and all of a sudden, this stage of 0:57:51.360 --> 0:57:53.840 my life has been a whole new chapter than I 0:57:53.880 --> 0:57:57.120 had that chapter in in Asia. And so this chapter 0:57:57.200 --> 0:58:00.640 has been just terrific. You know, I haven't had to 0:58:00.720 --> 0:58:02.600 deal with that fucking guy I mean I would come 0:58:02.640 --> 0:58:04.560 in the morning and there'd be a stack of facts 0:58:04.640 --> 0:58:06.880 is on my chair about you know, he was holed 0:58:06.960 --> 0:58:09.680 up in his house in Beverly Park as stack what 0:58:09.720 --> 0:58:12.360 are you gonna do about the stock price? You know, 0:58:12.400 --> 0:58:14.080 they looked like bomb threats. I fingured he had the 0:58:14.160 --> 0:58:17.800 last fax machine on the planet. He was sending him over. 0:58:17.840 --> 0:58:20.960 So I got fired and everybody knew it, so uh, 0:58:22.160 --> 0:58:24.240 and he fired me. The reason was, well, I didn't 0:58:24.280 --> 0:58:26.760 buy my Space. And what really annoyed him he never 0:58:26.760 --> 0:58:29.400 even fucking heard him my Space. What annoyed him was 0:58:29.400 --> 0:58:32.480 that Rupert Murdoch bought it. We weren't even really we 0:58:32.600 --> 0:58:34.640 never even made an offer on it. I we had 0:58:34.640 --> 0:58:37.360 looked at Friendster and you know, that kind of came 0:58:37.400 --> 0:58:41.560 and went. And at the time Facebook was just really 0:58:41.600 --> 0:58:44.280 only college students, so it was still kind of an 0:58:44.320 --> 0:58:47.360 unproven thing. But anyway, Rupert Murdoch came in one weekend 0:58:47.960 --> 0:58:51.200 and just bought the thing for five seventy million dollars, 0:58:51.600 --> 0:58:54.440 No due diligence, no nothing, And he ends up as 0:58:54.520 --> 0:58:57.840 like the new the new media guru, and he's on 0:58:57.880 --> 0:59:00.280 the cover of all these magazines. He was some RS 0:59:00.760 --> 0:59:03.680 arch enemy Rupert didn't think that way, but some of 0:59:03.840 --> 0:59:07.440 who had a lot of envy for Rupert, uh anyway 0:59:07.800 --> 0:59:10.000 that you know, so you know, he would say he 0:59:10.080 --> 0:59:12.160 going on. Charlie Rosen said he had the prize and 0:59:12.200 --> 0:59:14.400 he lost it. I didn't have the prize. We weren't 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:18.440 even really, you know, really seriously looking at buying it. 0:59:18.720 --> 0:59:21.280 And then when Rupert sold it for thirty five million dollars, 0:59:21.280 --> 0:59:23.400 I had a good laugh. I keep thinking I wasna 0:59:23.400 --> 0:59:26.439 get a thank you note, but it never happened. Did 0:59:26.440 --> 0:59:30.800 you ever talk to Sumner subsequent to your exit? There 0:59:30.880 --> 0:59:32.800 was one time I was in a restaurant in l 0:59:32.840 --> 0:59:34.680 a And he was having dinner. I didn't even know 0:59:34.760 --> 0:59:37.320 he was there. He was having dinner with Bob Evans, 0:59:38.600 --> 0:59:41.680 who character who I happened to like. But at the 0:59:41.760 --> 0:59:43.680 end of the meal, I feel these hands on my 0:59:43.800 --> 0:59:46.720 shoulder and he says, aren't you gonna get up and 0:59:46.720 --> 0:59:49.080 say hello? You know? And I got up and said hello. 0:59:49.120 --> 0:59:51.000 But that was pretty much the last time I ever 0:59:51.040 --> 0:59:54.320 saw him, and both of them are gone now. Evan 0:59:54.440 --> 0:59:59.560 Zan Sumner, So your your business fails overseas you come 0:59:59.600 --> 1:00:02.560 back to America. What happens and how to end up 1:00:02.920 --> 1:00:07.480 at what becomes him. I figured, man, that was rough. 1:00:07.560 --> 1:00:09.280 I mean I loved what I was doing. I was 1:00:09.280 --> 1:00:12.080 passionate about it. I mean I got it. I traveled everywhere. 1:00:12.440 --> 1:00:14.520 India had fourteen states, then I went to every one 1:00:14.560 --> 1:00:16.080 of them. I I just loved it. And then I 1:00:16.120 --> 1:00:17.960 got wiped out. Now I'm in debt like a half 1:00:17.960 --> 1:00:20.560 a million dollars, and who the fund is gonna hire me? 1:00:20.640 --> 1:00:23.080 Everyone I knew had moved along in their careers or whatever. 1:00:23.480 --> 1:00:25.200 But I knew one thing. I was gonna do something 1:00:25.280 --> 1:00:27.880 I loved. And I had deduced that what I loved 1:00:27.960 --> 1:00:31.080 was music. And I had been a fan, you know, 1:00:31.440 --> 1:00:33.080 like you. I mean I was a real fan. I 1:00:33.120 --> 1:00:35.680 really knew my stuff. So at one point I used 1:00:35.720 --> 1:00:38.080 to come back and my brother worked for Columbia Records 1:00:38.080 --> 1:00:40.600 in the mid seventies, and he'd say, hey, you know, 1:00:40.680 --> 1:00:42.880 Bruce King scenes at the bottom line, why don't you 1:00:42.920 --> 1:00:45.360 come along? And I see how these guys were riding 1:00:45.480 --> 1:00:49.640 around in limousines, and I said this, I could do this, 1:00:49.640 --> 1:00:52.280 This is easy. This is this was like the height 1:00:52.320 --> 1:00:54.800 of the of the of the of the record company business. 1:00:55.280 --> 1:00:58.000 So when I came back, I read an article that 1:00:58.080 --> 1:01:00.680 I got I got a copy. I got copy the billboard, 1:01:00.680 --> 1:01:02.760 and I would say what new companies were starting, because 1:01:02.760 --> 1:01:04.560 I wanted to fear if I started a new company, 1:01:04.760 --> 1:01:07.640 there'd be room to grow and I could maybe sell myself. 1:01:08.560 --> 1:01:10.800 So my I saw this article an interview with this 1:01:10.800 --> 1:01:12.880 guy named John Lax, and they're gonna start a music 1:01:12.960 --> 1:01:15.480 video channel on TV. I thought this was the greatest 1:01:15.480 --> 1:01:17.600 idea I ever heard of. This was fantastic. So I 1:01:17.600 --> 1:01:20.360 asked my brother if he knew anybody at this one 1:01:20.440 --> 1:01:22.440 er amics company, and it turns out he did. He 1:01:22.520 --> 1:01:26.520 knew that this guy Bob mcgrorty, and he got me 1:01:26.520 --> 1:01:28.800 an interview with Bob mcgroorty, and I got old. You know. 1:01:28.840 --> 1:01:31.320 I went in and saw him and I said, hey, 1:01:31.360 --> 1:01:34.400 you need entrepreneurs. I'm a music fan. I had this business. 1:01:34.440 --> 1:01:36.920 I showed him all these things from Vogue magazine. I 1:01:36.920 --> 1:01:39.840 could I can do stuff. This is the greatest idea ever. 1:01:40.040 --> 1:01:41.760 He says, we gotta go and to meet John Lack. 1:01:42.680 --> 1:01:44.640 So I go next sort of John Lax office, which 1:01:44.680 --> 1:01:46.600 was dark. He had like a cocktail table and he 1:01:46.680 --> 1:01:49.240 was like wearing slippers, and I told him where I 1:01:49.240 --> 1:01:51.280 had been. He said, so you were a drug smuggler, right, 1:01:52.920 --> 1:01:55.439 And I go, I'm not really and he he thought 1:01:55.480 --> 1:01:58.040 that was an asset. But then he said the magic phrase. 1:01:58.080 --> 1:02:02.160 He said, you know, we're starting to thing. It's gonna 1:02:02.200 --> 1:02:05.040 be like we're gonna do the FM radio. We're gonna 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:07.120 do the AM radio. What FM did? He came out 1:02:07.120 --> 1:02:09.560 of the CBS Radio group, and this is a whole 1:02:09.560 --> 1:02:12.240 new video revolution. This is really the beginning of the 1:02:12.320 --> 1:02:14.760 modern cable era. He says. But I'm looking for people 1:02:14.800 --> 1:02:17.600 who have no experience in television. This was the magic 1:02:17.640 --> 1:02:20.200 words for me, somethinking who the fund is gonna hire me? 1:02:20.880 --> 1:02:23.200 I'm just like they think I was a drug smuggler, 1:02:23.520 --> 1:02:27.600 you know. So they hire me and I get on 1:02:27.720 --> 1:02:30.120 a team and he says, well, let's wait around. Uh, 1:02:30.160 --> 1:02:32.360 you know, come on in and we're and we're not 1:02:32.360 --> 1:02:34.320 gonna we have to still get the green light, but 1:02:34.320 --> 1:02:36.160 we're gonna do this, So come on and we'll give 1:02:36.160 --> 1:02:38.560 me a job in the meantime helping to sell Nickelodeon 1:02:38.560 --> 1:02:42.200 and the movie Channel. So then he hires Bob Pittman 1:02:43.240 --> 1:02:45.960 and uh, I go to see Bob, he says, go 1:02:46.040 --> 1:02:48.360 see Bob Pittman. He's putting together a development team for 1:02:48.640 --> 1:02:51.840 wasn't called MTV then for this music channel. So I 1:02:51.880 --> 1:02:53.919 go in to see Bob, who was like twenty six 1:02:53.960 --> 1:02:57.480 I'm now thirty four, and he's the hippie kind of 1:02:57.880 --> 1:03:00.960 youth's whisperer. Everyone thought that smooth is talking bill best 1:03:01.000 --> 1:03:04.520 bullshit and guy. Ever then he's a brilliant, brilliant guy. 1:03:04.640 --> 1:03:08.080 We're still friends. But he said to me, so Black says, 1:03:08.120 --> 1:03:10.520 I should see you. I said, yeah, I think this 1:03:10.680 --> 1:03:13.160 is the greatest idea. I think it's I think it's 1:03:13.160 --> 1:03:15.160 a winner, and you know, I think I could really add. 1:03:15.160 --> 1:03:16.800 He says, well, we do. Now you were you were 1:03:16.800 --> 1:03:20.960 a drug smuggler. He's the second guy who accuses me 1:03:21.000 --> 1:03:23.600 of this and thinks it's a benefit. So he hired me, 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:26.400 and I was part of a team of five that 1:03:26.400 --> 1:03:29.960 that you know, developed what became MTV. And then I 1:03:30.080 --> 1:03:33.439 stayed and uh stayed and stayed, and you know, Bob 1:03:33.520 --> 1:03:35.680 kept promoting me. And then when we tried to do 1:03:35.720 --> 1:03:40.360 an L B O uh and and and lost, Bob 1:03:40.440 --> 1:03:44.400 left the company. He left me president, and then Viacom 1:03:44.480 --> 1:03:48.200 bought us. But it wasn't the Viacom a Sumner Redstone. 1:03:48.280 --> 1:03:51.000 It was some other guys who's some of the redstone 1:03:51.080 --> 1:03:54.200 later displaced. But that's how I got the job. And 1:03:54.240 --> 1:03:57.800 I think God luck is so amazing and timing and 1:03:57.880 --> 1:03:59.640 so amazing. I mean I might have not had that 1:03:59.680 --> 1:04:02.400 copy of Billboard magazine, never seen that article, or maybe 1:04:02.480 --> 1:04:05.480 my brother didn't know you know this guy, Bob McGroarty, 1:04:05.600 --> 1:04:07.920 and you know, my whole life would have been different. 1:04:08.560 --> 1:04:13.200 What happened to the debt? Oh, I paid it off. 1:04:13.240 --> 1:04:15.440 You know when we were working there, I mean, no 1:04:15.440 --> 1:04:18.440 one we were all making that thirty grand. I mean 1:04:18.440 --> 1:04:20.920 we no one cared about money. It was like a startup. 1:04:20.920 --> 1:04:23.480 We're just eating pizzas. And you know, we had we 1:04:23.520 --> 1:04:26.720 had We had my my office I shared with John Psyche. 1:04:26.760 --> 1:04:29.480 We had coal waiting, we had one phone with call waiting. 1:04:29.960 --> 1:04:33.920 But I found out that I could got in this account. 1:04:33.920 --> 1:04:35.080 He says, you know, you could write some of that 1:04:35.200 --> 1:04:37.360 off as bad debt. And now you ever started making money, 1:04:37.400 --> 1:04:39.120 it's only really in it cost you like two fifty 1:04:39.240 --> 1:04:49.280 or three. So I gradually paid it off. Okay, So 1:04:49.440 --> 1:04:53.480 what year do you go to work for MTV? Okay? 1:04:53.680 --> 1:04:58.520 What year do you get married? Eighty? Okay, So if 1:04:58.520 --> 1:05:01.120 you're making thirty grand a year. What's going on there? 1:05:01.720 --> 1:05:04.640 My my then wife, she was working on Wall Street 1:05:04.720 --> 1:05:07.320 and she was making like three times what I was making. 1:05:07.320 --> 1:05:10.480 And you know, you know, you're just a rent paying 1:05:10.640 --> 1:05:15.040 person in Manhattan, and it was you know, money wasn't 1:05:15.080 --> 1:05:18.000 money didn't become a big thing to quite a while later, 1:05:18.720 --> 1:05:20.360 you know, I mean, no one was making a ton 1:05:20.360 --> 1:05:22.280 of money. But we made enough to live and survive 1:05:22.360 --> 1:05:27.640 and ultimately bought an apartment down downtown and rebeca Okay, 1:05:27.640 --> 1:05:33.000 so Tauga's first one, MTV launches. What's the experience on 1:05:33.040 --> 1:05:35.760 the other side of the screen and what exactly is 1:05:35.800 --> 1:05:39.240 your job? At the beginning in the years to go by, 1:05:39.280 --> 1:05:42.720 I was ahead of marketing, so I was responsible for 1:05:42.840 --> 1:05:46.560 getting people to watch this thing. When we launched, it 1:05:46.600 --> 1:05:48.920 was unavailable in New York, it was unavailable in l A. 1:05:49.040 --> 1:05:51.200 I mean it really started. MTV was really born in 1:05:51.240 --> 1:05:53.800 the Midwest, and we we had a launch party and 1:05:54.080 --> 1:05:56.280 at like a one bar we could find who had 1:05:56.640 --> 1:05:58.720 some guy had like twenty cable customers, and it was 1:05:58.720 --> 1:06:00.680 in New Jersey, so we had a lawn party there. 1:06:01.640 --> 1:06:04.840 But what happened would be I these cities like Tulsa, 1:06:05.000 --> 1:06:09.080 de Moine, uh Wichita. They had big cable systems, they 1:06:09.080 --> 1:06:12.560 had room for MTV, the no One. So I would 1:06:12.560 --> 1:06:14.040 go out there and spend times that I want to 1:06:14.120 --> 1:06:17.240 immerse myself with the people who actually have this in 1:06:17.360 --> 1:06:19.320 real time and see what effect it had. It was. 1:06:19.400 --> 1:06:21.040 I was the first guy to know this was a 1:06:21.080 --> 1:06:25.800 slam Cold's solid hit because when I show up there, 1:06:26.040 --> 1:06:28.400 I have on a jacket with an MTV button at 1:06:28.400 --> 1:06:30.880 the rent a car place, and the girl says, where 1:06:30.880 --> 1:06:33.320 did you get that? How do I get that? I 1:06:33.360 --> 1:06:35.880 got a pocket full of buttons, I realized. And then 1:06:35.920 --> 1:06:38.280 I go to the radio stations to see what kind 1:06:38.320 --> 1:06:41.480 of impact it had had on request and airplay, went 1:06:41.520 --> 1:06:43.480 to record store and find out we were selling records. 1:06:43.480 --> 1:06:45.840 But then I would go to nightclubs and bars and 1:06:45.880 --> 1:06:48.439 just talk to people, and uh, it was the first 1:06:48.440 --> 1:06:50.240 time I ever really spent any time in the Midwest. 1:06:50.280 --> 1:06:52.920 But people were thrilled with this. They thought it was 1:06:52.960 --> 1:06:55.080 a great sign of the future, and it was. It 1:06:55.160 --> 1:06:58.120 was the beginning of the of the video revolution, which 1:06:58.160 --> 1:07:01.320 you know still continues, but was a whole new visual 1:07:01.440 --> 1:07:04.240 vocabulary for people. And at the beginning, as you know, 1:07:04.280 --> 1:07:06.000 we had all these acts, no one ever heard of 1:07:06.240 --> 1:07:09.760 you know, Duran, Duran and Culture Club and Cyndey Lauper 1:07:09.920 --> 1:07:12.520 and the you know. So the record guys and the 1:07:12.560 --> 1:07:15.120 record stores were saying, we're selling these records. People are 1:07:15.120 --> 1:07:19.440 coming in asking for the buggles. Uh. The radio stations 1:07:19.440 --> 1:07:21.520 would say, people are calling up requesting these songs. So 1:07:21.560 --> 1:07:23.960 the radio stations A O R stations more mainly they 1:07:23.960 --> 1:07:26.360 were in CHR stations, they would they would start playing 1:07:26.400 --> 1:07:28.520 these singles. So we were able to show the record companies, 1:07:28.520 --> 1:07:31.280 who didn't want to even make videos, that these things 1:07:31.280 --> 1:07:33.960 actually work to sell records. They were like three many commercials. 1:07:34.240 --> 1:07:36.080 So I did that, and then I worked on the 1:07:36.360 --> 1:07:38.920 I Want My MTV campaign because we were then running 1:07:38.920 --> 1:07:41.840 out of money and the cable operators were refusing to 1:07:41.880 --> 1:07:45.320 pay the ten cents a month for us. So what 1:07:45.520 --> 1:07:47.760 was their logic not paying the ten cent? We're gonna 1:07:47.800 --> 1:07:49.600 pay you ten cents for this? I mean, who then 1:07:49.760 --> 1:07:53.360 is gonna watch? No one's watching music on television? Who paid? 1:07:53.360 --> 1:07:57.000 You know, at that point in time, they were paying ESPN. 1:07:57.280 --> 1:08:00.560 ESPN was paying them to get carried. Now he has 1:08:00.640 --> 1:08:04.200 been charges like five bucks aside even more maybe, But 1:08:04.360 --> 1:08:06.760 then they had they the cable operators didn't want to 1:08:06.800 --> 1:08:09.400 pay for anything. And if there was eleven cable operators 1:08:09.400 --> 1:08:11.560 in the market, all these each of monopolists in his 1:08:11.640 --> 1:08:14.960 own territory, they kind of had a little thing together. 1:08:15.040 --> 1:08:18.080 So we decided based on the experience that people who 1:08:18.240 --> 1:08:21.559 like who get this love it, that people who get 1:08:21.560 --> 1:08:24.479 this are in our target audience, are really animated about it, 1:08:24.520 --> 1:08:25.920 have a lot of time on their hands. We came 1:08:26.000 --> 1:08:28.519 up with I Want my MTV. It was a Hail 1:08:28.600 --> 1:08:30.920 Mary passed. We had like thirty million dollars we were 1:08:30.920 --> 1:08:33.120 gonna go under, and we said, let's see if we 1:08:33.160 --> 1:08:36.120 could pull this thing. If we could get some rock star, 1:08:37.040 --> 1:08:39.559 some rock stars to say our name and validate us, 1:08:39.560 --> 1:08:43.240 maybe hold our logo and you know, say call your 1:08:43.280 --> 1:08:46.360 cable company and say I want my MTV. Maybe that 1:08:46.400 --> 1:08:48.400 would work to get these guys over the line. We'll 1:08:48.439 --> 1:08:51.519 sure enough. We started running these spots that like at 1:08:51.560 --> 1:08:54.280 the levels of which they you you would introduce a 1:08:54.280 --> 1:08:57.040 big movie, you know, a lot of rating points, and 1:08:57.400 --> 1:09:00.000 within a week, every cable operator in market would be 1:09:00.120 --> 1:09:02.479 calling us up and and and and taking it. So 1:09:02.960 --> 1:09:05.000 for a couple of years we just rolled out market 1:09:05.040 --> 1:09:07.000 by market until we got you know, we went from 1:09:07.040 --> 1:09:09.559 like eight million homes, so like you know, fifty sixty 1:09:09.600 --> 1:09:12.640 million to the get up to a hundred million. That 1:09:12.760 --> 1:09:15.960 was that was how we saved ourselves. That's what I did. Okay. 1:09:15.960 --> 1:09:18.800 So the marketing on some level, you could say you 1:09:18.840 --> 1:09:22.519 were cable related market you were dealing with the different 1:09:22.520 --> 1:09:27.519 cable systems, dealt with the cable systems. Uh yeah, okay. 1:09:27.560 --> 1:09:33.480 But one thing that MTV was famous for was their creativity. Ultimately, 1:09:33.520 --> 1:09:37.599 you know when John Melli Camp's Pink Cows and then 1:09:37.640 --> 1:09:40.639 they were who was coming up with those ideas? Well. 1:09:40.720 --> 1:09:42.800 We we had a small team, so we sort of 1:09:42.800 --> 1:09:46.080 worked together. Now John Sykes, who I split an office with, 1:09:46.360 --> 1:09:48.880 one of the world's great promotion man. He's you know 1:09:49.080 --> 1:09:51.519 his ideas. Look, we gotta give away stuff that radio 1:09:51.560 --> 1:09:54.599 stations aren't doing. Let's and John is the ultimate fan. 1:09:54.760 --> 1:09:57.240 So what I want to one night stand with the 1:09:57.240 --> 1:09:59.160 Fleetwood Mac, I mean, I want to be taken out 1:09:59.160 --> 1:10:01.080 of private jet and meet the band and come back 1:10:01.080 --> 1:10:03.559 home the same night or so. We would run those things. 1:10:03.600 --> 1:10:06.040 So we get millions of entries. In those days they 1:10:06.040 --> 1:10:09.000 come in postcards. We'd have whole offices full of fucking 1:10:09.840 --> 1:10:12.719 Duffel bags and stuff. What I liked about my job 1:10:12.880 --> 1:10:14.960 was that was it an nexus between the on air 1:10:15.000 --> 1:10:18.680 promotion people, the regular promotion people, the people who did 1:10:18.720 --> 1:10:21.120 the advertise in the ad sales guys, and the programmers 1:10:21.160 --> 1:10:23.880 who dealt the music. So almost everything came through me. 1:10:24.280 --> 1:10:27.240 So I got to you know, I got a lot 1:10:27.280 --> 1:10:29.559 of exposure, which really helped me as I moved up 1:10:29.640 --> 1:10:32.320 ultimately to like general manager of MTV and then v 1:10:32.560 --> 1:10:34.439 H one and so forth, so I would get involved, 1:10:35.200 --> 1:10:36.600 you know what I really wanted to do along with 1:10:36.680 --> 1:10:39.320 somehow be involved with the programming and be closer to 1:10:40.080 --> 1:10:44.000 the creative people. And I felt that we had an opportunity, 1:10:44.439 --> 1:10:46.560 since we couldn't really pay a lot of money, we 1:10:46.600 --> 1:10:48.800 have an opportunity to kind of turn that place into 1:10:48.840 --> 1:10:53.080 a creative hothouse by giving people certain latitude and freedom. 1:10:53.160 --> 1:10:55.200 We we were a reverend, We're a little you know, 1:10:55.320 --> 1:10:58.080 let people take chances on things and get like a 1:10:58.080 --> 1:11:00.200 long line of young people to come and work there. 1:11:00.200 --> 1:11:02.040 And we you know, at some pople we have like 1:11:02.240 --> 1:11:06.400 Judd Apatow as an intern, or Adam Sandler, John Stewart, 1:11:06.439 --> 1:11:09.120 we had we were able to really have a great 1:11:10.040 --> 1:11:14.559 creative resource, and I thought having a creative culture was 1:11:14.600 --> 1:11:17.559 a big competitive advantage over other people. We didn't rent 1:11:17.600 --> 1:11:21.400 shows from like uh uh you know, like from producers 1:11:21.439 --> 1:11:23.200 because we really couldn't afford it. We had to make 1:11:23.240 --> 1:11:25.920 our own stuff so we could make these channels kind 1:11:25.920 --> 1:11:28.719 of look you know, singularly, you know, like that everything 1:11:28.800 --> 1:11:32.320 kind of fit together, and uh, you know, that was 1:11:32.680 --> 1:11:34.160 that's what we did. I mean, we just wanted to 1:11:34.200 --> 1:11:35.760 be a little niche thing over on the side of 1:11:35.800 --> 1:11:39.240 the road. Obviously we became very powerful force in the 1:11:39.320 --> 1:11:43.160 music business. Yeah, so what happens is you launching eighty one, 1:11:43.360 --> 1:11:46.960 you have the I Want my MTV campaign, although ultimately 1:11:47.000 --> 1:11:49.960 you then have Culture Club. The real break is Duran Duran, 1:11:50.479 --> 1:11:54.800 Duran Duran makes an very expensive video. It becomes very successful. 1:11:55.280 --> 1:11:59.639 So at first the labels don't want to make videos, okay, 1:11:59.680 --> 1:12:01.880 then they're saying how much you're gonna pay for us. 1:12:02.000 --> 1:12:04.439 All of a sudden, everything flips where you have all 1:12:04.479 --> 1:12:07.720 the power okay, and you made all the hits. What 1:12:07.840 --> 1:12:10.800 was the experience on your side of the screen, so 1:12:10.880 --> 1:12:15.280 to speak? It was something I mean, you know, you 1:12:15.320 --> 1:12:17.320 went from being a nobody and everybody wants to take 1:12:17.320 --> 1:12:19.519 you to lunch. And those days, the promotion people from 1:12:19.560 --> 1:12:22.880 the labels, they were they were something you know what 1:12:23.000 --> 1:12:27.640 I had to do, you know, attendance, the tendency of 1:12:27.640 --> 1:12:30.160 the people as to develop hubris and get arrogant. I 1:12:30.200 --> 1:12:32.400 always used to tell people were not as big as 1:12:32.400 --> 1:12:34.240 we think, We're not as good as we think. When 1:12:34.240 --> 1:12:36.880 we deal with the labels, you gotta look at it 1:12:36.920 --> 1:12:40.120 sort of as a partnership. They all want to break 1:12:40.240 --> 1:12:42.519 artists and do things, and we want things from them. 1:12:42.560 --> 1:12:45.160 So you know, we're gonna play stuff, but we're gonna 1:12:45.160 --> 1:12:47.920 be doing favors here or there, and it's gonna come 1:12:47.960 --> 1:12:50.080 back and get us. We don't want them. They're gonna 1:12:50.080 --> 1:12:52.280 be predisposed to want to hate us as we get 1:12:52.320 --> 1:12:54.200 more and more powerful, and we got to try and 1:12:54.280 --> 1:12:57.080 play against that and be nice. And we would rotate 1:12:57.120 --> 1:12:59.200 all these guys through the head of you know, the 1:12:59.240 --> 1:13:02.479 head of the music departments, because sooner or later they 1:13:02.600 --> 1:13:05.519 go off the deep end, and uh, you know, I 1:13:05.520 --> 1:13:07.680 think they were geniuses or something, but it would be 1:13:07.800 --> 1:13:09.760 you know, you go from like, God, is there more 1:13:09.800 --> 1:13:11.800 than three videos coming in this week to like, you're 1:13:11.800 --> 1:13:14.880 getting sixty five videos? And people are sending strippers to 1:13:14.960 --> 1:13:18.720 the office and there's all kinds of shenanigans going on. 1:13:18.920 --> 1:13:20.479 But it was it was a heavy thing. I mean, 1:13:20.479 --> 1:13:23.840 they're making videos. Then Lionel Richie's dance walking on the 1:13:23.840 --> 1:13:26.479 ceiling from a million dollar video, and they were big 1:13:26.520 --> 1:13:30.120 events and uh, we were able to deploy them worldwide 1:13:30.120 --> 1:13:32.400 and they kind of paid off. But that whole rocket 1:13:32.400 --> 1:13:34.920 ship of a ride was you know, you really sort 1:13:34.920 --> 1:13:37.559 of needed a seatbelt to keep a sense of yourself. 1:13:37.560 --> 1:13:40.800 But it was, it was. It was a great wide 1:13:40.880 --> 1:13:42.920 I gotta say, it's fun to be on the inside. 1:13:43.360 --> 1:13:47.040 A couple of very significant events happened a Live AID 1:13:47.400 --> 1:13:50.880 and then the vim AS Video Music Awards become a 1:13:50.920 --> 1:13:55.519 big thing. What's the history there, Well, you're absolutely right. 1:13:56.200 --> 1:13:59.320 It was a game changer for us Live AID. Uh, 1:13:59.479 --> 1:14:02.439 you know, they came around, Uh was geled off. They 1:14:02.439 --> 1:14:04.800 came around and said, you know we're gonna be doing 1:14:04.840 --> 1:14:06.840 this thing. It's gonna be in Wembley, We're gonna do 1:14:06.920 --> 1:14:10.519 it in JFK Stadium. We said, well, we'll run it 1:14:10.880 --> 1:14:13.519 the whole thing because well were we We have a 1:14:13.560 --> 1:14:16.960 deal with the ABC. ABC wants to do a three 1:14:17.000 --> 1:14:19.920 hour you know, sort of best stuff thing for later 1:14:19.960 --> 1:14:22.920 that night. I don't know do that. But the thing 1:14:23.000 --> 1:14:25.240 is we're in X million homes right now, the real 1:14:25.280 --> 1:14:28.240 experiences all of this. This is this phenomenal thing you're doing. 1:14:28.280 --> 1:14:30.320 So we were right up on the stage. We were 1:14:30.400 --> 1:14:33.519 just off you couldn't see us, but you know, I 1:14:33.600 --> 1:14:37.040 was right there, and I remember going, Uh. I drove 1:14:37.080 --> 1:14:40.519 down that day with Sykes and Uh in a rent 1:14:40.560 --> 1:14:43.520 a car and we didn't have any of our credentials 1:14:43.600 --> 1:14:45.840 or anything. We couldn't get in, so we ended up 1:14:45.920 --> 1:14:48.840 jumping the fence and you can believe it into what 1:14:48.920 --> 1:14:51.320 was the artist area. You see Bob Dylan, all these 1:14:51.360 --> 1:14:53.400 signs and every artists in the world. I'm thinking that 1:14:53.600 --> 1:14:56.200 they really got to step up their security. But we 1:14:56.200 --> 1:15:00.760 we got our credentials and that really was Uh. That 1:15:00.880 --> 1:15:03.360 was a big moment. A thriller was a big moment. 1:15:03.960 --> 1:15:06.120 And the Video Music Awards, where we could you know, 1:15:06.320 --> 1:15:08.879 have like some of these punctuation marks on our schedule 1:15:09.000 --> 1:15:11.880 where a lot of people who would not ordinarily watch 1:15:11.960 --> 1:15:14.080 us would come and then they would begin to come 1:15:14.120 --> 1:15:17.760 back and our over our average audience size would would grow. 1:15:18.080 --> 1:15:20.960 As with are just our residents in the culture. Okay, 1:15:20.960 --> 1:15:23.080 there are a couple of significant changes in the mid 1:15:23.120 --> 1:15:29.320 to late eighties. One was uh, not really scripted program 1:15:29.320 --> 1:15:31.360 but you have remote control, you had the game show. 1:15:31.880 --> 1:15:34.920 Now we both know the issue is keeping the people 1:15:35.520 --> 1:15:39.759 on attached to the channel so that you can get 1:15:39.800 --> 1:15:43.479 advertising at a higher rate. But the public couldn't understand this. 1:15:43.560 --> 1:15:46.719 So what was the decision. How did you make that decision? Well, 1:15:47.720 --> 1:15:49.200 we spent a lot of time on this because what 1:15:49.320 --> 1:15:51.759 we began to see, like around eight six, eighties seven, 1:15:51.960 --> 1:15:56.479 was that the vibrancy of just running video music hours 1:15:56.560 --> 1:15:59.880 ten videos an hour, the ratings were continuing to the 1:16:00.040 --> 1:16:02.280 clients or of the novelty had worn off. There was 1:16:02.320 --> 1:16:04.880 a hardcore audience, yes, but they could do other things 1:16:04.880 --> 1:16:07.960 because they knew they could always come back. So two 1:16:08.040 --> 1:16:09.680 things happened. We we we kind of said, well, you 1:16:09.680 --> 1:16:12.360 know and and and then music could periodically being a 1:16:12.400 --> 1:16:14.599 little you don't have Michael Jackson with a hot album 1:16:14.680 --> 1:16:19.000 everybody wants to see. Well, maybe we could also be 1:16:19.240 --> 1:16:21.479 we could be something bigger. We could be something that's 1:16:21.520 --> 1:16:23.960 not just about the music that will be our core thing, 1:16:24.080 --> 1:16:26.320 but we'll also be about a lot of the things 1:16:26.320 --> 1:16:30.879 that the music is about news fashion. That's how it started. 1:16:30.880 --> 1:16:33.160 So well, we hired Kurt Loder, We really stepped up 1:16:33.160 --> 1:16:36.879 our what was our news coverage. We hired Cindy Crawford 1:16:36.880 --> 1:16:39.639 in that house of style. These things got big numbers. 1:16:39.680 --> 1:16:42.400 We did the Weekend Rock. I mean, they would get 1:16:42.400 --> 1:16:44.840 bigger numbers in the video hours, and people would tell 1:16:44.920 --> 1:16:47.320 us that they liked that. Our overall ratings would go up. 1:16:47.360 --> 1:16:51.120 And then uh and then you know, there's sort of 1:16:51.120 --> 1:16:55.639 there was there was this uh ampetus from the creative 1:16:55.640 --> 1:16:57.680 group we had assembled to kind of stretch out and 1:16:57.720 --> 1:17:00.320 do more. We could do promos really well. L but 1:17:00.479 --> 1:17:02.320 you know, somebody came in one day so that I 1:17:02.360 --> 1:17:05.800 made this. I made this thing in my basement, you know, 1:17:06.000 --> 1:17:08.840 on a cheap cam. It's a game show called Remote Control. 1:17:08.840 --> 1:17:11.599 It's sort of an Irreverend's. It kind of fits MTV. 1:17:11.760 --> 1:17:13.920 It's gonna you know, it's Irreverend. It's a little wacky. 1:17:13.960 --> 1:17:17.080 It's not like any game show on television. And said, well, yeah, 1:17:17.080 --> 1:17:19.240 well let's let's make a few episodes and see what happened. 1:17:19.240 --> 1:17:21.640 So we hired Ken Ober and Colin Quinn and that 1:17:21.920 --> 1:17:26.680 became a hit. But that that began a process where uh, 1:17:26.800 --> 1:17:29.320 it's sort of like taking a heroin. You know, you 1:17:29.320 --> 1:17:34.920 would find that you were getting better numbers for stuff 1:17:34.960 --> 1:17:37.639 there wasn't music videos, but we didn't want to lose 1:17:37.640 --> 1:17:41.840 the music video franchise. We would then start a lot 1:17:41.880 --> 1:17:45.719 of genre shows like Headbanger's Ball A hundred twenty minutes 1:17:45.720 --> 1:17:48.599 got stepped up, where we would try and package music 1:17:48.640 --> 1:17:53.400 by genre. That helped a bit. Uh, but then you know, 1:17:53.479 --> 1:17:55.880 it kind of kept going and uh there would be 1:17:55.960 --> 1:18:00.080 successes and we were feeling pretty good about things. So 1:18:00.160 --> 1:18:02.360 we weren't getting a lot of pushback other than from 1:18:02.439 --> 1:18:05.800 the older original fans. The new audience. You know, the 1:18:05.840 --> 1:18:09.280 audience would cycle through MTV like in five years. You know, 1:18:09.360 --> 1:18:11.200 five years basically you had an audience that kind of 1:18:11.240 --> 1:18:12.760 came and left, and then you have a whole new 1:18:12.760 --> 1:18:15.559 group of people. So you had to continue to reinvent 1:18:15.640 --> 1:18:18.880 yourself for you're just gonna be you know, it's kind 1:18:18.920 --> 1:18:23.160 of going stale. So uh. At one point, Doug, we 1:18:23.200 --> 1:18:27.439 had a meeting in Doug Herz said, you know, uh, 1:18:27.560 --> 1:18:29.719 we should do a soap opera. You know, young people 1:18:29.760 --> 1:18:31.599 love to see other young people. They get a lot 1:18:31.600 --> 1:18:33.320 of cues from them. Would be interesting. We could do 1:18:33.360 --> 1:18:35.040 a soap proper. So I gave them some money to 1:18:35.080 --> 1:18:37.200 develop a soap proper and they came back and said, 1:18:38.840 --> 1:18:40.720 you know, we're gonna have to hire writers. It's more 1:18:40.760 --> 1:18:45.040 expensive than than uh we can we can handle. We're 1:18:45.040 --> 1:18:47.240 gonna have to pay writers. That's something we never really did. 1:18:47.280 --> 1:18:50.799 I have real writers do things for an ongoing soap opera. 1:18:50.880 --> 1:18:53.960 So and someone said, well, you know, we can't afford it. 1:18:54.040 --> 1:18:56.080 They came back, well, we're really good at post production. 1:18:56.120 --> 1:18:58.160 We can put stuff together. Why don't we get aloft 1:18:58.200 --> 1:19:00.559 and soho, stick some cameras in there of some people 1:19:00.600 --> 1:19:03.200 in and that's created the Real World, which was like 1:19:03.240 --> 1:19:06.479 the biggest thing we've done almost ever. And I think 1:19:06.479 --> 1:19:10.160 they're still running the damn thing. Uh So that sort 1:19:10.160 --> 1:19:13.280 of was the start of reality TV, which unfortunately brought 1:19:13.360 --> 1:19:18.400 us to The Apprentice and other bad things. But that's 1:19:18.479 --> 1:19:21.520 sort of how it started. We didn't out a cheapness 1:19:22.040 --> 1:19:25.120 and a desire to experiment. We fell into something. It 1:19:25.200 --> 1:19:27.559 was very successful. So once we started, it was sort 1:19:27.600 --> 1:19:30.040 of hard to take it off. And we tried to 1:19:30.160 --> 1:19:34.400 keep the music, identity and image, you know, as well 1:19:34.439 --> 1:19:37.639 as we could while we tried to, you know, run 1:19:37.680 --> 1:19:40.200 this other stuff through the schedule, put music beds under 1:19:40.479 --> 1:19:42.280 you know, some of these shows, so there was always 1:19:42.400 --> 1:19:45.120 music there, but uh, you know, it did ruffle some 1:19:45.200 --> 1:19:47.040 of our older fans the wrong way. So then we 1:19:47.080 --> 1:19:50.080 started MTV two and we said, you know, if you 1:19:50.120 --> 1:19:52.280 really like music videos all the time, here's the channel 1:19:52.280 --> 1:19:54.160 that's just gonna do that. And we had Andy Shoen 1:19:54.280 --> 1:19:56.439 was there. Then we we started that. It was sort 1:19:56.439 --> 1:19:59.920 of sort of a freeform format. Okay, a couple of 1:20:00.200 --> 1:20:03.639 so when you went to long form programming, was there 1:20:03.640 --> 1:20:06.519 any pressure from above or was it organic or you 1:20:06.600 --> 1:20:10.240 knew there would be pressure from above reratings and advertising. 1:20:12.200 --> 1:20:16.000 One of the problems, uh, when you're embedded in a 1:20:16.040 --> 1:20:18.960 public company and we went from me in the smallest 1:20:18.960 --> 1:20:22.719 division to the biggest division, was you had to continue 1:20:22.720 --> 1:20:25.600 to show growth. So no one was telling us what 1:20:25.680 --> 1:20:27.599 the program or what to do. They were just saying, 1:20:28.200 --> 1:20:30.000 I want you to make this amount of money by 1:20:30.080 --> 1:20:32.719 the end of the year. So you figure it out. 1:20:32.760 --> 1:20:36.240 You're so fucking smart. So we try and we try 1:20:36.240 --> 1:20:38.080 and figure it out, and we go, well, you know 1:20:38.880 --> 1:20:41.000 a lot of this is they it's gonna be hard 1:20:41.040 --> 1:20:43.519 really to raise our race to the cable operators becauseis 1:20:43.520 --> 1:20:45.439 are like long term deals. You just can't go in 1:20:45.479 --> 1:20:50.040 and change them. So it's the advertising marketplace. And uh, 1:20:50.320 --> 1:20:52.880 people seem to like some of this longer format that 1:20:53.000 --> 1:20:56.080 this longer format show. So we would try and do it, 1:20:56.120 --> 1:20:59.160 but you know, and just charge more. And then we 1:20:59.160 --> 1:21:01.840 would add in the the MTV Video Music Awards would 1:21:01.840 --> 1:21:04.120 make us seventy five million dollars a night. I mean, 1:21:04.160 --> 1:21:06.559 it was huge. So then we said, well, why don't 1:21:06.600 --> 1:21:09.160 we do a movie awards? You know, So then you 1:21:09.240 --> 1:21:12.639 start going in the the the uh, the rabbit hole 1:21:12.680 --> 1:21:15.719 of award shows and try and do them in your way, 1:21:15.840 --> 1:21:18.560 and uh, you know, I got tired of going to 1:21:18.600 --> 1:21:20.960 award shows, Bob. I'll tell you I've seen my share 1:21:20.960 --> 1:21:24.759 of them. Okay, you talked about the five years cycle 1:21:25.000 --> 1:21:27.920 in retrospect, you can certainly see it that way. But 1:21:28.040 --> 1:21:31.120 from the other side of the screen, it was shocking 1:21:31.160 --> 1:21:35.599 when the original VJs were canned. Whose decision was that? 1:21:36.000 --> 1:21:38.360 And was that conscious We're gonna stay with the demo 1:21:38.800 --> 1:21:41.640 as opposed to grow with our audience. How did that 1:21:41.680 --> 1:21:45.840 come about? That was my decision, and I had to 1:21:45.920 --> 1:21:49.000 overrule people who had built up relationships with Martha Quinn 1:21:49.040 --> 1:21:53.280 and uh, you know, and and uh others. But I 1:21:53.320 --> 1:21:55.599 decided that, you know, we just needed a new phase. 1:21:55.640 --> 1:21:58.040 These people are old, and there's the people want to see. 1:21:58.080 --> 1:22:01.040 If we really think we're an work for young people 1:22:01.080 --> 1:22:03.360 eighteen to twenty four, they're gonna want to see people 1:22:03.360 --> 1:22:05.640 who look to be approximately their age. That's gonna make 1:22:05.680 --> 1:22:07.639 them feel better about it. It It isn't like my big 1:22:07.680 --> 1:22:12.920 brothers MTV. So that's what we did. There was no pressure. Again, 1:22:13.120 --> 1:22:16.320 I would say one of the great things about running 1:22:16.320 --> 1:22:19.280 that company all those years was I didn't really get 1:22:19.280 --> 1:22:22.960 any pressure about programmers. Just deliver the numbers, and we 1:22:23.080 --> 1:22:27.400 always did and they left us alone. Okay, was it 1:22:27.560 --> 1:22:29.840 like you were lying in bed one night and you said, God, 1:22:29.880 --> 1:22:31.720 I got a can the VJs. I had come up 1:22:31.720 --> 1:22:34.880 with the idea. Well, I don't know if I was 1:22:34.960 --> 1:22:37.120 lying in bed, but it hadn't crossed my mind. I mean, 1:22:37.200 --> 1:22:38.840 one or two of them might have been annoying, and 1:22:38.840 --> 1:22:40.760 you say, you know, we're we we we gotta like 1:22:40.880 --> 1:22:44.120 look at this thing holistically. We should be changing the 1:22:44.280 --> 1:22:46.600 on air. Look, we should be changing the VJs. We 1:22:46.640 --> 1:22:50.360 should be changing the shows. We we we gotta reinvent 1:22:50.439 --> 1:22:53.840 this thing continually. And uh, I don't know when that 1:22:53.880 --> 1:22:56.679 epiphany came, but and we didn't do them all at once, 1:22:56.800 --> 1:22:59.040 but they kind of filtered away within a six month 1:22:59.040 --> 1:23:04.439 period and we hired other people. But I uh, and 1:23:04.520 --> 1:23:06.160 I know I see them all because they're all on 1:23:06.680 --> 1:23:09.960 they're all on serious radio. Now I went CHATL or another. 1:23:10.000 --> 1:23:15.400 So it's great here in their voices. Okay, under your management, 1:23:16.160 --> 1:23:19.559 MTV spread all over the world. I always figured that 1:23:19.640 --> 1:23:22.679 was because of your experience all over the world. Whose 1:23:22.720 --> 1:23:27.640 decision and what degree were you involved? Well, that was 1:23:29.520 --> 1:23:33.200 we did a joint venture in the UK for empty 1:23:33.240 --> 1:23:37.800 a thing called MTV Europe, and I uh, I had 1:23:38.200 --> 1:23:41.920 great confidence that I could go anywhere, that we could 1:23:41.920 --> 1:23:44.840 go anywhere, that we could go do business anywhere. At 1:23:44.840 --> 1:23:48.400 the same time, something important was happening, which is all 1:23:48.439 --> 1:23:51.400 of these European countries and then subsequently in Asia and 1:23:51.479 --> 1:23:56.479 Latin America, they were deregulating their television structure. Most of 1:23:56.479 --> 1:23:59.599 these countries had stayed owned television maybe one independent channel, 1:23:59.600 --> 1:24:02.760 and they were all terrestrial. Basically, they weren't there. They 1:24:02.800 --> 1:24:07.000 were very little cable or satellite. But they began to 1:24:07.320 --> 1:24:09.800 sort of open the doors and let private companies come 1:24:09.840 --> 1:24:11.920 in and run TV networks. Now, of course you've got 1:24:11.960 --> 1:24:15.160 Start TV and Asia or be sky b R Sky TV, 1:24:15.280 --> 1:24:17.400 you know. But in the early days we were a 1:24:17.439 --> 1:24:21.640 first mover, and um we were able to kind of 1:24:22.360 --> 1:24:25.439 chase that around from content to kinda. I really wanted 1:24:25.439 --> 1:24:27.400 to go back to Asia after we got set up 1:24:27.400 --> 1:24:29.320 in Europe. And when we went to Europe, by the way, 1:24:29.360 --> 1:24:32.760 the record companies are go, fuck you. We we don't 1:24:32.800 --> 1:24:35.200 need any Americans coming over here telling us what to do. 1:24:35.280 --> 1:24:37.519 And I say, this isn't gonna be the American MTV. 1:24:37.600 --> 1:24:40.120 It's gonna be run by Europeans. Wenna have Dutch people 1:24:40.200 --> 1:24:42.800 on and it's it's gonna be different. You're gonna like it, 1:24:42.840 --> 1:24:45.280 and no, no, no, no, no, no no. And it 1:24:45.320 --> 1:24:47.040 was harder to deal with the labels there because they 1:24:47.040 --> 1:24:49.519 all could legally get together against you. But we had 1:24:49.560 --> 1:24:51.080 on the air and we did all right, and finally 1:24:51.439 --> 1:24:54.120 they realized this was a good tool in their toolbox 1:24:54.160 --> 1:24:57.600 for promotion. But I wanted to go to Asia and 1:24:57.600 --> 1:25:01.559 and this amazing thing just got Richard Lee in Hong 1:25:01.640 --> 1:25:05.479 Kong launched this thing called Star TV, and he wanted. 1:25:05.520 --> 1:25:07.840 He was gonna put five channels up on a satellite, 1:25:08.200 --> 1:25:10.400 you know, to a small dish satellite that you could 1:25:10.400 --> 1:25:13.360 pick up, you know what they call at this time 1:25:13.360 --> 1:25:15.559 a high band satellite. It would the footprint cover all 1:25:15.560 --> 1:25:18.280 the way from Taiwan to like, you know, Saudi Arabia. 1:25:18.600 --> 1:25:21.320 The same signal would come down. So he got the BBC, 1:25:21.840 --> 1:25:26.760 a couple of Chinese channels and uh MTV and we 1:25:26.760 --> 1:25:28.840 we were able to get a licensing deal. So we 1:25:28.840 --> 1:25:31.080 were on there. And then the weirdest thing happened. Star 1:25:31.200 --> 1:25:34.559 TV number one was just a smash. People have been 1:25:35.080 --> 1:25:38.040 strangled with no television choices all their lives, you know, 1:25:38.080 --> 1:25:40.160 watching one or two channels if they even had that. 1:25:40.479 --> 1:25:42.720 And now if someone had a satellite dish, there was 1:25:42.760 --> 1:25:44.559 a whole new world open and up to them, even 1:25:44.600 --> 1:25:46.519 if it was only five channels and they didn't speak 1:25:46.600 --> 1:25:49.799 Kanthonese or Mandarin. But we would get all of a sudden, 1:25:49.800 --> 1:25:52.840 we a New York Times reporter would be in a 1:25:53.880 --> 1:25:56.680 in a cab of the Karin guerrillas on the Burmese 1:25:56.840 --> 1:26:00.240 Thai border and he would go to the Burmese camp 1:26:00.240 --> 1:26:02.000 and they have a satellite dish and all these guys 1:26:02.000 --> 1:26:06.559 are sitting around watching like hip hop videos and he said, 1:26:06.600 --> 1:26:10.840 this is like bizarre, and MTV became like a verb 1:26:10.920 --> 1:26:13.719 in their world, and you know, so we we gotta 1:26:13.800 --> 1:26:17.479 Then Murdoch bought Star TV, and I decided, we don't 1:26:17.479 --> 1:26:20.280 want to be doing a licensing deal. Let's start our 1:26:20.320 --> 1:26:23.040 own operated things. So we got a divorce from Murdoch 1:26:23.080 --> 1:26:25.920 and started from scratch and built up an appreciable business 1:26:25.960 --> 1:26:28.520 in Indian all the major territories, which was a blasphemy 1:26:28.520 --> 1:26:30.960 about to be back. And you know, we'd always go 1:26:31.000 --> 1:26:32.919 out on trips, and you know, we moved our headquarters 1:26:32.960 --> 1:26:35.720 to Singapore. I'd always tack on an adventure. After we 1:26:35.600 --> 1:26:38.360 were doing some business and met the guys in the 1:26:38.439 --> 1:26:42.120 music business in Asia. They were wild. I mean they 1:26:42.640 --> 1:26:47.679 those guys, they were something. But uh so we set 1:26:47.720 --> 1:26:50.920 up we were the first worldwide network. MTV was. I mean, 1:26:51.000 --> 1:26:53.040 I think and I don't know how much we used 1:26:53.040 --> 1:26:55.760 out a hundred networks at one point. And then we 1:26:55.800 --> 1:26:57.720 did the same thing in Latin America and then what 1:26:57.960 --> 1:27:00.240 what the greatest thing was we would have tried through 1:27:00.320 --> 1:27:02.519 these creative people from all these countries and then we 1:27:02.560 --> 1:27:06.680 could Ingram intermingle them and move them around. And I 1:27:06.720 --> 1:27:09.240 missed all I miss all that, but that's still that. 1:27:09.320 --> 1:27:12.799 The last one was Africa, and I go to Africa 1:27:12.840 --> 1:27:15.800 a lot now and MTV bas it plays all music. 1:27:15.840 --> 1:27:20.240 It's all hip hop, and it's the most powerful music 1:27:20.280 --> 1:27:24.519 force on the continent of Africa. Is MTV to this day? Wow? 1:27:24.560 --> 1:27:28.479 And we're all these outlets profitable? They are now. They 1:27:28.520 --> 1:27:32.760 weren't in the beginning, but they became profitable pretty quickly. Okay, 1:27:32.800 --> 1:27:39.639 so certainly from six on, maybe the Internet starts creeping in. 1:27:40.520 --> 1:27:42.800 Now you and me have a conversation at the time 1:27:42.840 --> 1:27:46.000 when everybody is saying they've gotta play more videos, you say, 1:27:46.160 --> 1:27:49.120 we're never gonna play videos because it's becoming on demand item. 1:27:49.320 --> 1:27:53.720 You were way ahead of the marketplace personally. However, in retrospect, 1:27:53.800 --> 1:27:58.679 one can say that MTV missed the Internet. So give 1:27:58.760 --> 1:28:01.840 us those two takes. Well, you're exactly right. I mean 1:28:01.960 --> 1:28:03.840 they came along and you can get all this music 1:28:03.880 --> 1:28:05.800 on demand. I mean, who needs to sit around and 1:28:05.800 --> 1:28:07.680 wait for Nirvan? I just you know, hit it and 1:28:07.680 --> 1:28:09.200 it comes up. I can watch it ten times in 1:28:09.240 --> 1:28:13.800 a row. The problem was the labels, and I had 1:28:13.800 --> 1:28:16.360 this conversation with Bob Morgado took me up to his office. 1:28:16.360 --> 1:28:17.800 I went to his office. I thought he was going 1:28:17.840 --> 1:28:20.040 to congratulate me for the quarter of a million dollars 1:28:20.040 --> 1:28:23.479 of retail sales of billion dollars of unplugged records. But no, 1:28:23.600 --> 1:28:26.000 he was to tell me fuck you. He'd already fired 1:28:26.040 --> 1:28:31.200 Moawston and all these people who we loved. Uh, you're 1:28:31.200 --> 1:28:34.040 not gonna get online. We're not giving you the rights. 1:28:34.800 --> 1:28:38.080 So MTV we were all set up with to just 1:28:38.160 --> 1:28:41.200 move our entire music video library online on demand on 1:28:41.200 --> 1:28:44.280 our websites, and the record companies wouldn't give it to us. 1:28:44.280 --> 1:28:46.640 They give it to launch, they give it to some 1:28:46.680 --> 1:28:48.840 new people. We we we don't want to be under 1:28:48.880 --> 1:28:52.120 the thumb of MTV and create like another monster who's 1:28:52.120 --> 1:28:55.200 building a business on our backs. Let's go to other people. 1:28:55.320 --> 1:28:59.280 So MTV was sort of locked out in a way, 1:28:59.800 --> 1:29:02.880 and that really allowed other people to come in and 1:29:02.880 --> 1:29:06.960 do it, and uh, you know it, really it really 1:29:07.120 --> 1:29:10.639 was a monkey wrench in our ability to increase our 1:29:10.720 --> 1:29:13.000 digital footprint and move into the digital age. Because our 1:29:13.000 --> 1:29:14.679 audience that like the canary in the colon, and they're 1:29:14.680 --> 1:29:18.360 the first people to migrate the digital um. Yeah, that 1:29:18.439 --> 1:29:21.040 was tough news, and we could not get that to happen. 1:29:22.200 --> 1:29:24.120 We we wanted to, Laura knows, I mean it would 1:29:24.120 --> 1:29:26.559 be an idiot that wouldn't want to do that, but 1:29:26.800 --> 1:29:29.639 they wouldn't give us the rights. Now, but you did 1:29:29.680 --> 1:29:32.040 have a presence online and certainly about turn of the 1:29:32.080 --> 1:29:36.679 century it was not an insignificant audience. Was basically without 1:29:36.760 --> 1:29:39.880 videos you couldn't make it or was there another way 1:29:39.880 --> 1:29:41.639 to spin it so that you could have had a business. 1:29:41.760 --> 1:29:45.040 Well you could have used some short like needle drop 1:29:45.160 --> 1:29:47.800 lengths of music beds on things, but you know, we 1:29:47.800 --> 1:29:51.799 could we had we would have news and information about music. 1:29:52.000 --> 1:29:55.559 We had tour dates, we had everything about music, but 1:29:55.720 --> 1:29:58.040 the music. You know, it's like a head shop in 1:29:58.080 --> 1:30:00.680 the in the set in the sixties, they sold the 1:30:00.680 --> 1:30:04.519 papers and the pipes, but they didn't sell you the pot. 1:30:05.880 --> 1:30:09.760 We had everything but the music. Basically we tried to 1:30:09.840 --> 1:30:12.280 skirt it in circum benefit we'd always be busted, you know, 1:30:12.400 --> 1:30:16.040 and they were. They were nasty. I mean, uh, you know, 1:30:16.080 --> 1:30:18.519 I was like a profit center for them busting down 1:30:18.800 --> 1:30:22.280 you know, people trying to take their music online. So 1:30:22.880 --> 1:30:26.240 you started thirty k you know, the old Viacom is 1:30:26.280 --> 1:30:29.599 sold to Sumner. At what point does everybody start making 1:30:29.600 --> 1:30:33.160 more money and are you negotiating for money or is 1:30:33.200 --> 1:30:40.000 it take it or leave it? Well, Sumner bought the 1:30:40.000 --> 1:30:43.960 company seven he bought it from these guys of the 1:30:44.000 --> 1:30:48.760 prior Viacom. He installed Frank Beyondi, who made me the 1:30:48.800 --> 1:30:55.000 CEO right away, and uh, he offered me a pile 1:30:55.040 --> 1:30:56.720 of money that was more than I had every I 1:30:56.720 --> 1:30:58.639 didn't I just I didn't even ask for it. He said, 1:30:58.640 --> 1:31:00.320 they're gonna give you this, and it was and like 1:31:01.040 --> 1:31:04.040 box car numbers like we see today. But from then on, 1:31:04.160 --> 1:31:10.640 as these companies in cable became these money machines, and 1:31:10.680 --> 1:31:14.600 you're embedded in these public companies, Uh, there was a 1:31:14.680 --> 1:31:17.000 game going on, like the Alan Grubin's of the world 1:31:17.000 --> 1:31:20.600 would be negotiating UH employees contracts at various companies, and 1:31:20.640 --> 1:31:22.920 they'd always say, well, we're gonna what are they paying 1:31:22.960 --> 1:31:26.160 at Disney, what are they paying at uh A Universal? 1:31:26.439 --> 1:31:30.360 And you would find out that the pay levels, like 1:31:30.439 --> 1:31:32.840 even in the record companies, were really high, So all 1:31:32.840 --> 1:31:35.280 of a sudden people could have their We would say, well, 1:31:36.000 --> 1:31:38.160 we're making more money than these guys in the record 1:31:38.160 --> 1:31:39.960 companies we're making, you know, we want to be paid 1:31:39.960 --> 1:31:44.040 on an equivalent basis. And then it was like someone 1:31:44.080 --> 1:31:48.240 would move up the uh, you know, move up the ladder. 1:31:48.479 --> 1:31:51.519 And then stock options became a big thing. Uh and 1:31:51.560 --> 1:31:53.320 people were being granted a lot of those, and it 1:31:53.360 --> 1:31:57.360 was always you were getting compared to players in similar 1:31:57.400 --> 1:32:01.080 type of companies. And uh, all of a sudden, money 1:32:01.120 --> 1:32:08.320 became everybody was rolling in potential salaries and bonuses and 1:32:08.400 --> 1:32:10.519 stock options, and it really changed the game. I mean, 1:32:10.560 --> 1:32:13.559 I gotta say, no one really came to work where 1:32:13.600 --> 1:32:16.120 we work for the money. You can get paid a 1:32:16.200 --> 1:32:18.400 lot more somewhere else for a lot fewer hours. It mean, 1:32:18.400 --> 1:32:21.360 it's almost like a lifestyle decision. But then money kind 1:32:21.360 --> 1:32:24.280 of came in, and uh, you know, you could argue 1:32:24.360 --> 1:32:27.439 kind of spoiled things a bit. I mean, it was 1:32:27.520 --> 1:32:31.360 nice to get it, Okay, all the I don't have 1:32:32.160 --> 1:32:34.120 I don't have a history of working for the corporation. 1:32:34.240 --> 1:32:36.960 But from my seat, my observer, you're the best corporate 1:32:37.000 --> 1:32:41.280 manager I've ever encountered in that you saw yourself as 1:32:41.320 --> 1:32:43.960 relatively equal to the people under you. You would not 1:32:44.080 --> 1:32:46.559 make a decision, you would never say to Judy, you 1:32:46.600 --> 1:32:49.000 have to put this. You have to do that because 1:32:49.000 --> 1:32:52.040 someone gave you a call. How and where did you 1:32:52.080 --> 1:32:56.360 develop your management style? Well, you're nice of you to 1:32:56.439 --> 1:33:02.679 say that it was I figured I was a team player. 1:33:03.160 --> 1:33:05.240 I had a team of people I trusted. People don't 1:33:05.280 --> 1:33:07.280 like to be if you have good people, they don't 1:33:07.280 --> 1:33:11.400 want to be overmanaged. And you know, there were times 1:33:11.400 --> 1:33:15.000 when I would call up and say, by the way, 1:33:15.040 --> 1:33:17.640 why aren't we playing guns and roases? I mean, what 1:33:17.720 --> 1:33:19.680 kind of idiots are you people? And this thing is 1:33:19.760 --> 1:33:22.080 you know, welcome to the jungle. You guys passed on that. 1:33:22.560 --> 1:33:25.400 I mean I would, I would, but it would be 1:33:25.479 --> 1:33:28.000 rare that I would really interfere too much with with 1:33:28.040 --> 1:33:31.120 specific programming choices. I would green light shows they wanted 1:33:31.160 --> 1:33:35.360 to do, and I would give advice, but I I uh, 1:33:36.840 --> 1:33:39.200 I would defer to people who I thought maybe knew 1:33:39.200 --> 1:33:40.719 more about it than me. I didn't want to step 1:33:40.720 --> 1:33:43.120 on their toes. I wanted more of a collegial atmosphere 1:33:43.600 --> 1:33:45.760 and as long as they were winning and doing okay, 1:33:45.800 --> 1:33:47.800 I mean I had to balance. You know, the people 1:33:47.800 --> 1:33:50.400 from Nickelodeon were very different from the people at MTV. 1:33:50.560 --> 1:33:53.040 There was all these different, like little mini silos of 1:33:53.120 --> 1:33:56.360 this place. The people at Comedy Central were different. I 1:33:56.400 --> 1:33:58.200 tried not you know, you can't when you get to 1:33:58.240 --> 1:34:01.960 a certain size, you can't micromana everything. So I would 1:34:01.960 --> 1:34:04.080 defer to people who worked for me and try to 1:34:04.160 --> 1:34:08.599 keep I tried to keep it egilitarian, and I most 1:34:08.600 --> 1:34:11.760 of all wanted to keep it fun. Okay, but from 1:34:11.760 --> 1:34:14.679 an outside perspective, and I've observed this, if someone said 1:34:14.720 --> 1:34:17.400 I'm gonna call Tom Freston to get it on or 1:34:17.439 --> 1:34:21.680 to do me a favor, that's not a game you played. No, 1:34:22.080 --> 1:34:25.960 with rare exceptions, very rare exceptions. Yeah, Because sometimes you 1:34:25.960 --> 1:34:30.880 call up and say, David Geffen just called me and 1:34:31.720 --> 1:34:35.599 he asked the reasonable question, you know, what's the rationalelle 1:34:35.640 --> 1:34:38.000 behind this? And they might say, well, I don't know 1:34:38.040 --> 1:34:41.200 if there was much, Yeah, maybe you want to take 1:34:41.200 --> 1:34:45.040 another look at something. And they might say yeah, or 1:34:45.120 --> 1:34:47.040 tell David Giffen the ghost of it, We're not gonna 1:34:47.080 --> 1:34:49.439 do it. But you know sometimes I mean I would 1:34:49.479 --> 1:34:51.479 get those calls, Bob. They would come in night, day, 1:34:51.520 --> 1:34:53.880 they would they have a whole bank of people calling 1:34:53.880 --> 1:34:56.360 people at MTV trying to move it around because we 1:34:56.360 --> 1:35:00.000 were in that you know, like sort of singular position. Uh. 1:35:00.040 --> 1:35:02.840 And I was always of the I said, you know, 1:35:02.960 --> 1:35:05.240 these people are our partners in a way, and we 1:35:05.360 --> 1:35:08.240 gotta there's gotta be a little give and take. There's 1:35:08.240 --> 1:35:10.280 gonna be a bit of give and take in our relationship. 1:35:10.360 --> 1:35:13.920 We can't just we can't just say, you know, take 1:35:13.960 --> 1:35:16.599 it or leave it all the time with everything. Uh, 1:35:16.640 --> 1:35:20.240 they're predisposed not to like us, So let's try and 1:35:20.280 --> 1:35:22.960 take a little bit of edge off that. By nature, 1:35:23.240 --> 1:35:26.519 I try and be a collegial person and not a 1:35:26.640 --> 1:35:29.280 dictatorial thing. I like to thinking of business like that. 1:35:29.680 --> 1:35:33.439 Decisions kind of come up from the bottom rather than 1:35:33.800 --> 1:35:37.000 you know, being like some authoritarian on top, which you 1:35:37.040 --> 1:35:40.439 know at certain scale is unmanageable anyway, unless you have 1:35:40.479 --> 1:35:44.360 a really small country company. Okay, So tell us about 1:35:44.400 --> 1:35:47.440 the switch to running all of Viacom and your experience 1:35:47.520 --> 1:35:51.800 doing that. Well. I was sitting in my office one day, 1:35:51.840 --> 1:35:54.840 perfectly happy. My phone rings. It's some to Redstone, he says, 1:35:56.760 --> 1:35:58.519 come up and see me in the Carlisle Hotel. It's 1:35:58.520 --> 1:36:01.280 a spring afternoon. So I getting a taxi. I go 1:36:01.360 --> 1:36:04.400 up to the Carlisle Hotel. I'm thinking, you know, Marilyn 1:36:04.400 --> 1:36:06.639 Monroe and Jack Kennedy. You know, he had an apartment there. 1:36:06.680 --> 1:36:08.360 It really wasn't a great apartment. It would looks like 1:36:08.400 --> 1:36:11.559 a corporate apartment. So you never know what redstone you're 1:36:11.560 --> 1:36:13.160 gonna get. He could be the screamer or the really 1:36:13.240 --> 1:36:14.880 nice guy and and the really he says. You know, 1:36:14.960 --> 1:36:20.360 I'm males not doing good. I'm thinking to myself, males 1:36:20.400 --> 1:36:23.439 doing great. We're like in an all time high. Gotta 1:36:23.479 --> 1:36:25.680 get rid of mail and uh and I would like 1:36:25.760 --> 1:36:28.519 you to be the new CEO of IM. And I'm like, 1:36:28.560 --> 1:36:31.679 oh fuck. I had just been joking with Jeff Bukas 1:36:31.680 --> 1:36:34.479 about this day before. One day we're gonna we have 1:36:34.520 --> 1:36:36.280 the best job running HBO and MT be the best 1:36:36.320 --> 1:36:37.720 job in New York City. On day it's gonna be over. 1:36:37.720 --> 1:36:40.000 They're gonna ask us to run these fucking companies. So 1:36:40.120 --> 1:36:43.479 now the ask comes in and and I go, oh god, 1:36:43.920 --> 1:36:46.200 how can I? Uh well, I don't really want to 1:36:46.200 --> 1:36:47.760 work for this man. That's gonna be gonna take me 1:36:47.800 --> 1:36:51.120 away from everything I love. You know, why can't I 1:36:51.120 --> 1:36:53.160 be like Lauren Michael's and just keep the same job 1:36:53.200 --> 1:36:55.920 forever and and and and and But you can't, So 1:36:56.040 --> 1:36:58.960 I told him. I asked him some questions. I said, 1:36:59.000 --> 1:37:00.920 let me think about it, give me twenty four hours. 1:37:00.920 --> 1:37:03.280 I'm so flattered that you thought of me somewhere. Let 1:37:03.320 --> 1:37:04.400 me think about it. So I went home. I said, 1:37:04.400 --> 1:37:06.720 I gotta talk about it with my wife. Who could 1:37:06.800 --> 1:37:09.280 you know, couldn't have cared. So I thought about it, 1:37:09.320 --> 1:37:10.719 and I said, oh God, I gotta take it, because 1:37:10.720 --> 1:37:12.200 if I don't take it, he's gonna give it to Less, 1:37:12.200 --> 1:37:14.080 and Less will fire me. And that's it, man, at 1:37:14.080 --> 1:37:16.720 the end of my career. And maybe maybe you know what, 1:37:16.960 --> 1:37:18.920 it'll be great. It'll be kind of good. I can 1:37:19.000 --> 1:37:22.000 learn some new tricks. I'm gonna be a public company CEO. 1:37:22.200 --> 1:37:24.720 It's like the gold ring. I got the gold ring. 1:37:24.800 --> 1:37:28.000 So I the next day I go to meet him. 1:37:28.040 --> 1:37:30.559 He's in radio set. He's in the Cargie hall. Uh. 1:37:32.400 --> 1:37:36.479 The CBS is having their upfront presentation. So he's got 1:37:36.479 --> 1:37:38.160 a seat next to him. It's on the aisle. I 1:37:38.200 --> 1:37:41.160 sit down next to him and he's watching the upfront 1:37:41.200 --> 1:37:42.880 and I said, Summer, I thought about it all night. 1:37:42.920 --> 1:37:45.800 I would love this job. I'd love to take the job. 1:37:46.560 --> 1:37:48.720 And he goes, it's too late. I go, what do 1:37:48.800 --> 1:37:51.360 you mean it's too LATEA I gave it to him, 1:37:51.439 --> 1:37:54.400 I go Less, He gave it to Less. You told him? 1:37:54.479 --> 1:37:56.200 I said, wait twenty four hours, it's only been like 1:37:56.240 --> 1:37:59.400 seventeen hours. You can't do that. It's as well he's had. 1:37:59.439 --> 1:38:01.519 I said, well, you into that to me? You know, 1:38:01.680 --> 1:38:03.600 fuck you. That's bad. That's bad. I got up and 1:38:03.600 --> 1:38:05.240 I sort of left. I said, you made a you know, 1:38:05.280 --> 1:38:06.920 we had a deal. Do you want me? You're not. 1:38:08.160 --> 1:38:10.680 So then like the next day he calls me and 1:38:10.680 --> 1:38:13.439 he goes time. I gave it to Less, I told Less. 1:38:13.479 --> 1:38:16.519 You know it's hard to take out. Can't be an 1:38:16.520 --> 1:38:18.920 Indian giver. So how about this, how about we split 1:38:18.960 --> 1:38:24.160 it and you unless become cos. I'll stay at CEO 1:38:24.280 --> 1:38:27.599 and you unless run it as co chief operating officers 1:38:27.680 --> 1:38:30.559 or whatever. So I said okay, And we did that 1:38:30.600 --> 1:38:35.360 for two years. Okay, but at that time responsibilities were divided. 1:38:36.200 --> 1:38:38.599 He was CBS, you were paramount, so he had an 1:38:38.600 --> 1:38:41.200 equal title, but you had different purviews. Yeah, but there 1:38:41.280 --> 1:38:43.599 was some things that that we had to fight over, 1:38:43.640 --> 1:38:45.680 like if I wanted to buy something out of the 1:38:45.760 --> 1:38:47.479 and use money from the corporate tail, he had to 1:38:47.479 --> 1:38:50.160 agree to it. So there was a lot of built 1:38:50.160 --> 1:38:51.920 in conflicts. I say, you know, we could be like 1:38:52.560 --> 1:38:55.000 Bob Daily and Terry Simmel Less We could have a 1:38:55.000 --> 1:38:57.640 perfect partnership. You got your thing, I got minors, and 1:38:57.640 --> 1:39:00.800 we'll try and be reasonable. But uh uh so there 1:39:00.840 --> 1:39:03.559 was areas where it did come together. But largely we 1:39:03.560 --> 1:39:06.240 were both running the same things we did before, and 1:39:06.320 --> 1:39:10.240 we took on all the corporate things, legal, human resources, 1:39:10.680 --> 1:39:14.400 all the sort of all those organizations and investor relations. 1:39:14.400 --> 1:39:17.559 So I got a lot of exposure to the investor community. 1:39:17.600 --> 1:39:19.599 It was a different job. I had to really less 1:39:19.600 --> 1:39:21.240 and I were the face of the company. But then, 1:39:21.439 --> 1:39:25.400 uh there was pressure from the people on both sides, 1:39:26.280 --> 1:39:28.720 you know, and the and these bankers would come around say, 1:39:28.720 --> 1:39:30.280 you know, one of the reasons your stock's not going 1:39:30.360 --> 1:39:32.080 up is because your your company is too big, it's 1:39:32.120 --> 1:39:34.800 too complicated. What you really need to do is split 1:39:34.880 --> 1:39:38.559 it up into two different companies. And uh, you know 1:39:38.720 --> 1:39:42.479 that logic was faulty, but we did it, and uh 1:39:42.520 --> 1:39:45.400 it was painful. I mean, so we had CBS Inc. 1:39:45.520 --> 1:39:48.320 And less So I now became the CEO of my 1:39:48.479 --> 1:39:51.000 separate public company, and so did less Moon Invest. Now, 1:39:51.000 --> 1:39:54.960 of course, through all it followed, they reunited and they're 1:39:54.960 --> 1:39:57.160 back together under Bob backage. But that's sort of the 1:39:57.200 --> 1:39:59.280 story of how it happened. But when I was I 1:39:59.320 --> 1:40:01.760 was only there for eight months until he fired me. 1:40:02.040 --> 1:40:05.880 I mean, basically I was still rearranging the furniture in 1:40:05.920 --> 1:40:11.840 my office. However, you suddenly had purview over Paramount, which 1:40:11.920 --> 1:40:14.240 had been in a bad spell, and you made some 1:40:14.360 --> 1:40:16.800 changes there. What were your experiences, what you learn in 1:40:16.840 --> 1:40:20.320 the movie business. Well, I didn't know a lot. You know, 1:40:20.520 --> 1:40:23.080 we had been making movies with Paramount for years, you know, 1:40:23.240 --> 1:40:25.679 MTV and Nickelodeon. But being a producer of a movie 1:40:25.800 --> 1:40:27.760 was not like running a movie studio. And I had 1:40:27.880 --> 1:40:31.320 I had been able to sit at the table with 1:40:31.439 --> 1:40:34.599 red Stone and and see John Dolton, who ran Paramount. 1:40:34.640 --> 1:40:37.320 I I would I was like being in some business 1:40:37.320 --> 1:40:39.320 school for running a media conglomorate. I learned a lot 1:40:39.320 --> 1:40:41.560 through observation, But when I got out there and I 1:40:41.600 --> 1:40:43.320 had to do it, I didn't know that Paramount was 1:40:43.360 --> 1:40:45.960 in trouble. They were on a cold streak. The culture 1:40:46.000 --> 1:40:52.280 wasn't particularly helpful, and the idea was well uh Sherry. 1:40:52.600 --> 1:40:55.200 Sherry Lansing became the head of it, but then she 1:40:55.360 --> 1:40:58.439 told me instead of John Dolton who left. But then 1:40:58.479 --> 1:41:01.320 Sherry said, you know, I want to retire. I'm sixty. 1:41:01.479 --> 1:41:03.639 I want out. So I had to find the new head. 1:41:03.680 --> 1:41:05.880 And I said, well, this is an opportunity to sort 1:41:05.920 --> 1:41:09.479 of maybe haven't turned the page and uh, you know, 1:41:09.479 --> 1:41:11.760 start a new era. And then I also realized that 1:41:11.800 --> 1:41:14.320 I'm like a cable weasel. I'm just a cable weasel. 1:41:14.360 --> 1:41:16.280 We're at the bottom of the Hollywood food chain and 1:41:16.320 --> 1:41:19.160 here I am running the studio. So I got Bob Daily, 1:41:20.120 --> 1:41:23.280 who I knew. Bob Daily and Terry. They had once 1:41:23.360 --> 1:41:25.240 offered me the job to run the Warner Music Group, 1:41:25.280 --> 1:41:27.400 which I turned down. But I developed a good relationship 1:41:27.479 --> 1:41:30.360 with both of them, and I asked Bob Daily if 1:41:30.360 --> 1:41:32.080 he would be a mentor for me and teach me 1:41:32.120 --> 1:41:35.120 the movie business. So for one summer, I would go 1:41:35.240 --> 1:41:37.800 from my office in Santa Monica to his house and 1:41:37.840 --> 1:41:40.559 we'd have classes. Basically, he'd give me homework. I learned 1:41:40.560 --> 1:41:43.240 about film p and l's, what kind of deals exist, 1:41:43.360 --> 1:41:45.960 how the movie business works. And I said, you know, 1:41:46.280 --> 1:41:48.599 we we we got to get someone to replace Sherry 1:41:48.600 --> 1:41:51.120 because she's gonna be out of here soon. So I 1:41:51.160 --> 1:41:54.320 tried hiring some of the people who were running movies 1:41:54.360 --> 1:41:57.160 to that that's the top job in Hollywood, as you know. 1:41:58.280 --> 1:42:01.559 And what happened was when someone get fired, generally a 1:42:01.600 --> 1:42:04.080 person for another movie studio who'd been running literacy. It's 1:42:04.080 --> 1:42:07.719 like musical chairs. So I tried to hire Stacy Snyder, 1:42:08.040 --> 1:42:10.360 who at the time was like the hottest I thought, 1:42:10.680 --> 1:42:13.880 and she was a woman, and she was lovely and 1:42:14.000 --> 1:42:17.200 smart and accomplished, and she couldn't get out of her contract. 1:42:17.320 --> 1:42:19.320 And then I would ask around other places, and people 1:42:19.360 --> 1:42:21.719 couldn't get out of their contracts. So then I would 1:42:21.880 --> 1:42:24.080 go around and talk to people who used to be 1:42:24.520 --> 1:42:26.840 near the top of a movie studio or had been, 1:42:27.120 --> 1:42:28.840 and I would interview them. But then I would have 1:42:28.880 --> 1:42:31.080 him come up to Bob Daily's house and have Bob 1:42:31.120 --> 1:42:34.759 talked to them. And we were sort of getting nowhere. 1:42:35.240 --> 1:42:39.800 I wasn't really turned on by anybody. And one day 1:42:40.360 --> 1:42:43.640 I was in Beiruts actually on an MTV business and 1:42:43.760 --> 1:42:45.599 David Geffin calls me. He says, I got the right 1:42:45.600 --> 1:42:49.519 person for you to run the Paramount. Perfect guy. Who's 1:42:49.560 --> 1:42:54.639 that Brad Gray? Really? Brad Gray? I knew Brad Gray. 1:42:54.479 --> 1:42:56.320 But Brad was then at the top of his game. 1:42:56.360 --> 1:42:59.280 He was, you know, a Millstein Gray. He was producer 1:42:59.280 --> 1:43:02.639 of soprano those and blah blah blah. He had good taste. 1:43:02.680 --> 1:43:04.720 He was this and that and intrigued me. And I 1:43:04.760 --> 1:43:08.240 spent a lot of time with Brad. I already knew him. 1:43:08.360 --> 1:43:12.320 Bob spent time with Brad, and then, uh, I thought 1:43:12.360 --> 1:43:19.719 that Brad would have risen to the occasion of realizing 1:43:19.840 --> 1:43:22.240 this is a really big company and it needs leadership, 1:43:22.479 --> 1:43:24.439 and you can't be locked up in your office just 1:43:24.520 --> 1:43:27.360 doing deals with the directors. You shouldn't be out there, 1:43:28.080 --> 1:43:30.880 you know, with the rank and file and make this 1:43:30.960 --> 1:43:33.519 culture of the place a little healthier. But you know, 1:43:35.360 --> 1:43:38.840 one good thing we did was by dream Works. We 1:43:38.960 --> 1:43:43.479 bought dream Works. But then I got fired, and uh, 1:43:43.720 --> 1:43:47.160 you know, life went on the DreamWorks partnership, which I 1:43:47.240 --> 1:43:49.720 really thought was gonna be a game changer for us 1:43:49.760 --> 1:43:51.960 because it brought us a lot of movies that gave 1:43:52.040 --> 1:43:54.800 us Spielberg and Geffen and Cassenberg sort of in our 1:43:54.880 --> 1:43:58.360 tent that they were real players, could up our game. 1:43:58.439 --> 1:44:02.760 But that relationship sort of fell apart under Brad, you know, 1:44:02.960 --> 1:44:05.040 for for reasons that were no good and they ended 1:44:05.120 --> 1:44:07.640 up buying out and going away, which was sort of 1:44:07.680 --> 1:44:12.200 a big disappointment. I was gone by then, and anyway, 1:44:12.320 --> 1:44:16.840 what I learned was it's its own little world. As 1:44:16.920 --> 1:44:20.640 we all know, it's a very peculiar world. And I 1:44:21.920 --> 1:44:24.320 Brad was very able in many ways and did have 1:44:24.400 --> 1:44:27.439 good taste, and he did produce and some good movies 1:44:27.479 --> 1:44:30.920 and hire some good people, But it didn't accomplish the 1:44:31.040 --> 1:44:35.719 change of the full change I have been hoping for 1:44:36.280 --> 1:44:39.000 at the end of the day. Okay, there was obviously 1:44:39.040 --> 1:44:44.000 the MySpace public thing, but less uh, under promise and 1:44:44.080 --> 1:44:46.479 over delivered. It's a Wall Street game. Well, you know, 1:44:46.520 --> 1:44:49.560 we'll give you low projections where you gave accurate projections. 1:44:50.360 --> 1:44:52.200 If you had to do it again, would you do 1:44:52.240 --> 1:44:59.960 it differently? Well, we sort of overdid, under promise and overdelivered. 1:45:00.000 --> 1:45:02.240 We delivered a lot. You know, we would we would, 1:45:02.280 --> 1:45:06.000 we would, uh if we had. We always took a 1:45:06.000 --> 1:45:09.599 little haircat over what we thought we could do, And 1:45:10.040 --> 1:45:16.320 it wasn't really an issue that, um, we hadn't been 1:45:16.320 --> 1:45:18.400 making our numbers. We'd, like I said, we've been making 1:45:18.400 --> 1:45:21.880 our numbers all those years. The one thing that fell 1:45:21.920 --> 1:45:24.680 out of whack. The first quarter was at MTV International, 1:45:24.920 --> 1:45:28.320 which had been growing like a weed kind of like, 1:45:28.960 --> 1:45:31.000 took a couple of big hits and sank, you know, 1:45:31.120 --> 1:45:34.519 sank our earnings down and sank the revenues down. And 1:45:34.560 --> 1:45:39.200 everyone was looking at our first earnings quarter under a microscope. 1:45:39.240 --> 1:45:42.439 So there must be something wrong. You know. The next quarter, 1:45:42.520 --> 1:45:46.240 by the way they were, we were up like so 1:45:46.600 --> 1:45:48.320 I I thought we were going to see a lot 1:45:48.400 --> 1:45:52.160 of growth going forward. But it didn't really turn out 1:45:52.200 --> 1:45:56.120 that why they were getting rid of me was because 1:45:56.120 --> 1:45:59.280 our numbers weren't good. There was just that I wasn't 1:46:00.080 --> 1:46:02.760 the right guy for that job. You know, I was 1:46:02.800 --> 1:46:05.800 not the mainstream businessman. In many ways, I wasn't, you know, 1:46:05.880 --> 1:46:09.280 I was. I was enjoying it and looking to sort 1:46:09.280 --> 1:46:11.920 of move up and try it. But you know, my 1:46:11.920 --> 1:46:14.759 my world and basically dealing with creative people had changed. 1:46:14.760 --> 1:46:18.040 Now I was dealing with Wall Street a good part 1:46:18.080 --> 1:46:22.639 of the time and dealing with other issues, which I thought, 1:46:22.720 --> 1:46:27.679 you know, I was gonna give it a go. I 1:46:27.680 --> 1:46:29.800 I didn't think that just really came out of left 1:46:29.800 --> 1:46:34.479 field for me getting fired. Okay, so you do get fired, 1:46:34.560 --> 1:46:36.680 you say, you get a call from Bano where you 1:46:36.800 --> 1:46:39.200 offered other jobs because you said earlier you got a 1:46:39.200 --> 1:46:42.200 call from Morgado about running the Warner Music Group. We're 1:46:42.240 --> 1:46:46.479 people looking for you, Morgado from from Daily and Semmel Daily. 1:46:46.520 --> 1:46:49.439 And because Morgado and I were like sort of, you know, 1:46:50.320 --> 1:46:52.240 at at odds with each other, He's like, well, I 1:46:52.240 --> 1:46:54.160 could never hear I could never get along with that guy. 1:46:54.920 --> 1:46:57.559 A lot of other people couldn't either. My mistake. But 1:46:58.040 --> 1:47:00.920 after you leave via calm Are, there are other offers 1:47:00.960 --> 1:47:05.360 that you end up turning down. Yeah, a couple came in, 1:47:06.000 --> 1:47:08.000 A couple came in. But I what I figured out 1:47:08.120 --> 1:47:10.360 was I didn't want to be grafted on top of 1:47:10.360 --> 1:47:14.360 a company that I really didn't have that big emotional 1:47:14.360 --> 1:47:17.600 connection to. I was really unlikely to fall into the 1:47:17.640 --> 1:47:22.000 same type of beautiful place for me that the MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, 1:47:22.000 --> 1:47:24.920 Comedy Central was. That was everything I loved, all about 1:47:24.960 --> 1:47:28.040 all the things I loved, and I figured, you know, 1:47:28.400 --> 1:47:30.800 I'd given it a good run, why not try something else? 1:47:31.080 --> 1:47:35.880 So I thought I would do this portfolio approach to things, 1:47:35.920 --> 1:47:38.920 which is maybe do something not for profit work, maybe 1:47:39.160 --> 1:47:41.640 work with a private equity company. I went on the 1:47:41.720 --> 1:47:44.840 DreamWorks board. I worked for Oprah for a couple of years. 1:47:45.200 --> 1:47:46.680 I mean I did a lot of interesting things, Like 1:47:46.920 --> 1:47:49.000 I went back The first thing I did was really 1:47:49.240 --> 1:47:52.120 go back to Afghanistan. I went back there and started 1:47:52.160 --> 1:47:54.800 training people. It was like the early days of MTV, 1:47:54.880 --> 1:47:58.160 training people how to run a television network. That was fantastic. 1:47:59.400 --> 1:48:02.599 You know, when Oprah started her cable channel, everyone thought 1:48:02.600 --> 1:48:05.680 it would be a smashing success ratings wise. Why was 1:48:05.720 --> 1:48:09.519 it ultimately not that level of success. Well, once she 1:48:09.640 --> 1:48:16.439 wasn't on it, she was still in syndication, and uh, 1:48:16.760 --> 1:48:19.720 they had a series of growing pains. I was a 1:48:19.720 --> 1:48:22.880 consultant there, but she got the distribution and there was 1:48:22.920 --> 1:48:25.320 a series of grower pains. I think there was an 1:48:25.320 --> 1:48:27.800 element of overconfidence about things and they were on a 1:48:27.920 --> 1:48:31.599 learning curve. They've now stabilized it into a decent profitable business. 1:48:31.640 --> 1:48:33.840 But out of the box, the big thing was I'm 1:48:33.880 --> 1:48:36.240 turning on the Oprah Winfrey network. I'm looking around for Oprah, 1:48:36.240 --> 1:48:40.719 but Oprah couldn't really be on it legally. So small 1:48:40.720 --> 1:48:45.320 things like having a music channel with no music right. Okay, Now, 1:48:45.560 --> 1:48:49.200 you're a guy from Roewaiton who goes to school in Vermont. 1:48:49.840 --> 1:48:52.880 All of a sudden, you're an MTV You're meeting a 1:48:52.880 --> 1:48:57.639 lot of rock stars. Hey, were you ever intimidated? What 1:48:57.720 --> 1:49:00.680 was the process? Is there anybody who still makes you 1:49:00.760 --> 1:49:04.280 somewhat anxious, not only rock stars but other notable people 1:49:04.320 --> 1:49:10.280 in the world. You know, I got confident in myself 1:49:10.320 --> 1:49:15.599 early on. Yeah, and I never really had a problem 1:49:15.640 --> 1:49:20.880 meeting with any movie star or uh rock star where 1:49:20.880 --> 1:49:22.800 you'd be trembling and you couldn't open your mouth and 1:49:22.800 --> 1:49:25.200 say anything. They're clearly people when you're in the presence 1:49:25.200 --> 1:49:28.719 of someone you've idolized your whole life, you know that 1:49:28.800 --> 1:49:31.960 you know and you can see that that that special sauce, 1:49:32.000 --> 1:49:34.240 that charisma that lives in within that body you see 1:49:34.280 --> 1:49:37.879 Mick Jagger or something. But I I never was afraid 1:49:38.000 --> 1:49:41.639 to go in a meeting and meeting and talk to anybody. 1:49:41.680 --> 1:49:43.960 I try it to be. I just always try to 1:49:43.960 --> 1:49:48.479 be myself. Okay, who are the two most charismatic rock 1:49:48.560 --> 1:49:53.360 stars you met in your tenure? David Bowie, who I 1:49:53.400 --> 1:49:56.000 have a good story about, then lay it on us. 1:49:56.520 --> 1:49:58.880 This is one of my favorite stories of all my time. There. 1:49:58.960 --> 1:50:00.720 When I was doing the I Want a MTV camp 1:50:00.720 --> 1:50:02.920 and I was always after David to his person, Let's 1:50:02.960 --> 1:50:05.479 get David Bowie to do one that's like really huge. Now, 1:50:05.520 --> 1:50:08.040 I mean, he's he's he's in the Pantheon for Christ's sake, 1:50:08.680 --> 1:50:11.360 and he's making these great videos. So finally he says, 1:50:11.400 --> 1:50:13.960 I'll do it, but you gotta come and see me. 1:50:14.040 --> 1:50:18.880 Him and Stodd Switzerland skiing. I go. So I got 1:50:19.080 --> 1:50:23.719 this guy Dale Pond, who was you know, our ad agency, uh, 1:50:23.760 --> 1:50:26.240 and we all went over there and we got like 1:50:26.280 --> 1:50:28.519 and it basically it moved into like a youth hostel. 1:50:28.560 --> 1:50:31.200 You're in fancy old stad and David staying at the 1:50:31.240 --> 1:50:34.479 Palace hotel. So we see him. We we agree to 1:50:34.479 --> 1:50:36.120 go out one day and we set up in the 1:50:36.160 --> 1:50:38.400 snow and he comes skiing down and we did about 1:50:38.400 --> 1:50:41.360 five or ten rons. He skis down and you know 1:50:41.520 --> 1:50:44.560 this turns and stopped, says, I want my MTV. He 1:50:44.720 --> 1:50:47.400 was really enthusiastic about it. I had had some dealings 1:50:47.439 --> 1:50:51.160 with him before and really liked the guy. He was 1:50:51.280 --> 1:50:54.120 just just a pleasure to be with, and it would 1:50:54.160 --> 1:50:57.240 be he would always ask you about yourself, and you know, 1:50:57.360 --> 1:50:59.800 he was really an engaging character. And you know, after 1:50:59.800 --> 1:51:01.800 were we of course we would have a hold your 1:51:01.800 --> 1:51:04.519 hands like this because we sticked an animated logo in there. 1:51:04.520 --> 1:51:07.559 So when we're finished, he goes, hey, uh, what you 1:51:07.560 --> 1:51:12.120 want to go skiing? Sure? So I spent you know, 1:51:12.280 --> 1:51:14.560 spent the day, uh, the rest of the day or 1:51:14.880 --> 1:51:17.120 part of it, you know, skiing with David Bowie, which 1:51:17.160 --> 1:51:20.960 was fine. And then he says, listen, I'm gonna be 1:51:21.000 --> 1:51:22.960 at the Palace that I am taking a sauna if 1:51:22.960 --> 1:51:24.280 you want to come, you know, meet me at the 1:51:24.320 --> 1:51:26.920 Palace Hotel. So I go, sure, you know, I go 1:51:27.000 --> 1:51:30.320 back to my youth hostel and uh. And I go 1:51:30.400 --> 1:51:32.360 to the Palace Hotel and I go into the spa 1:51:32.520 --> 1:51:35.519 where the the the he's in there. And I walk 1:51:35.560 --> 1:51:38.679 into the steam room and uh or the sauna room 1:51:38.680 --> 1:51:41.000 and who and and it's it's just him and me 1:51:41.479 --> 1:51:47.160 and Paul McCartney and I go, wow, you got that 1:51:47.200 --> 1:51:49.720 maybe then and they we're all just wearing towels. That 1:51:49.880 --> 1:51:54.160 was That was a keeper. Okay, you must have a 1:51:54.160 --> 1:51:58.280 couple of others. I'll take a pass. But I had 1:51:58.280 --> 1:52:01.599 some wonderful times and a lot of the musical artists 1:52:01.600 --> 1:52:03.360 that we love and enjoy. It was. It was a 1:52:03.400 --> 1:52:08.000 privilege anybody you never met you wanted to. Well, you 1:52:08.000 --> 1:52:13.479 know I had in the rock pop business in our era. 1:52:13.560 --> 1:52:16.800 I think pretty much everybody came around. Uh. You know 1:52:16.880 --> 1:52:19.120 there was people that I idolized, and you know that 1:52:19.160 --> 1:52:22.679 I was fans of another musical genres that I would 1:52:22.680 --> 1:52:27.280 have loved to have met, and I didn't. Okay, So 1:52:27.320 --> 1:52:32.280 who were the exacts who impressed you, John Sykes? But 1:52:32.360 --> 1:52:37.280 I'm also talking record company exects, record companies. Uh. I 1:52:37.320 --> 1:52:43.040 love Gil Freezing because I thought Gil Freesing. I related 1:52:43.080 --> 1:52:45.600 to Gil guilfrees and ran an operation sort of like 1:52:45.720 --> 1:52:49.519 what I wanted to run. Those guys Chris Blackwell, uh, 1:52:50.240 --> 1:52:53.680 Chris Wright, these guys that ran these small companies and 1:52:53.760 --> 1:52:56.679 unfortunately all got disappeared in their logos, got folded into 1:52:56.680 --> 1:52:59.920 something or other, something nondescript. They ran creative companies like 1:53:00.040 --> 1:53:01.320 kind of place I wanted to be. You know, they 1:53:01.880 --> 1:53:03.800 were in it for the music and they want they 1:53:03.840 --> 1:53:06.160 believed in the artist and it wasn't like we got 1:53:06.160 --> 1:53:09.160 to crank a single out. And they were artists friendly 1:53:09.960 --> 1:53:12.400 and they were willing to take creative chances. So I 1:53:12.479 --> 1:53:15.719 love Gil Freezing. He was terrific. I love Mo Austin 1:53:15.800 --> 1:53:18.559 I thought Moe was wonderful. As crazy as he was. 1:53:18.640 --> 1:53:22.040 I loved crass now, I mean he would be a guy. 1:53:22.520 --> 1:53:24.559 I mean, that's one story about him. I always loved. 1:53:24.600 --> 1:53:26.800 As he goes to Spain, they take him out in 1:53:26.960 --> 1:53:30.599 some club one night. They they all get they're all 1:53:30.680 --> 1:53:33.599 drunk and the Gypsy Kings come on and he's like, 1:53:33.760 --> 1:53:35.920 goes nuts and he goes backstage. So I'll give you 1:53:35.920 --> 1:53:40.280 guys a million dollars and they took it. That was 1:53:40.320 --> 1:53:42.680 like how they would sign people. You know, it was 1:53:42.720 --> 1:53:44.760 that nuts. And of course he made him into a hit. 1:53:44.840 --> 1:53:48.559 They they produced. Jeff ear Off was a guy who 1:53:48.600 --> 1:53:51.280 was unusual in the uh you know, on the lower 1:53:51.280 --> 1:53:53.360 down below the label head because he was sort of 1:53:53.400 --> 1:53:57.000 a visually trained guy who really had wonderful taste. And 1:53:57.080 --> 1:54:01.080 he was responsible for you know, oh shepherding through you know, 1:54:01.200 --> 1:54:04.519 Madonna's Easy Top. A lot of these people, police and 1:54:04.560 --> 1:54:10.040 so forth who had really good videos. Uh he he uh. 1:54:10.240 --> 1:54:12.080 He was great. I'm trying to think there were so many. 1:54:12.160 --> 1:54:19.559 I love Doug Morris. Doug was soulful and I I 1:54:19.640 --> 1:54:24.759 didn't have Irving for his short tenure at uh. Remember 1:54:24.760 --> 1:54:27.000 he ran m c A for a while and after 1:54:27.040 --> 1:54:29.680 I'll tell her left, No, I'll tell her replaced him. 1:54:29.680 --> 1:54:32.800 He brought in all the replacement that was okay. You know, 1:54:33.120 --> 1:54:35.360 after a while, the memory gets a little weak. Oh listen, 1:54:35.400 --> 1:54:38.440 it's amazing how long it was ago. So obviously things 1:54:38.480 --> 1:54:40.920 have changed in the fifteen odd years since you've been gone. 1:54:41.480 --> 1:54:44.560 But is there any way to save MTV that you 1:54:44.640 --> 1:54:48.160 no longer called music television? They certainly are on the 1:54:48.200 --> 1:54:51.760 cable system. Is this just a fade out or can 1:54:51.800 --> 1:54:59.080 there be a renaissance? Well, some people at the top 1:54:59.120 --> 1:55:02.480 of these legacy companies would tell you, you know, all 1:55:02.520 --> 1:55:05.640 of these linear networks are gonna go away. They're gonna 1:55:05.640 --> 1:55:07.760 implode this the money is getting sucked out and they're 1:55:07.800 --> 1:55:09.560 not gonna be able to hold his Everything is going 1:55:09.600 --> 1:55:12.720 to the you know, streaming model. That's not to say 1:55:12.840 --> 1:55:15.840 MTV couldn't resurrect itself or be something else in the 1:55:15.880 --> 1:55:18.680 streaming world. All of these guys are gonna have to 1:55:18.760 --> 1:55:22.880 figure out our way to uh uh kind of transition. 1:55:23.680 --> 1:55:27.280 I'll say this, Um Bob Backish, who's now the CEO 1:55:27.440 --> 1:55:30.320 of Viacom CBS and who I hired him? I love 1:55:30.400 --> 1:55:33.080 he's a soulful guy. He's as smart as a smart 1:55:33.120 --> 1:55:35.840 guy and he has been dealt a week hand, but 1:55:35.840 --> 1:55:39.120 he's played it pretty well so far. They're never gonna 1:55:39.160 --> 1:55:42.840 make I don't think MTV into what it was, which 1:55:42.880 --> 1:55:47.640 was his music based phenomena, But they seem to have 1:55:48.240 --> 1:55:50.280 I don't pay a lot of attention to, but they 1:55:50.320 --> 1:55:54.840 seem to have reverted to this. We just have a 1:55:54.880 --> 1:55:57.240 bunch of shows on there, and if they have a 1:55:57.280 --> 1:55:59.840 hit show or another, you know, they can't they got 1:55:59.840 --> 1:56:02.520 some kind of incarnation and reincarnation of the Jersey Shore 1:56:02.600 --> 1:56:08.160 or maybe they can you know, make uh, some connection 1:56:08.240 --> 1:56:11.400 to the younger audiences out there today. I mean, it's America. 1:56:11.480 --> 1:56:13.680 Everybody comes back. It's never going to come back as 1:56:13.760 --> 1:56:17.720 what it was, but I would say it's you know, 1:56:18.400 --> 1:56:20.560 things have a hard time just totally dying off in 1:56:20.600 --> 1:56:24.760 the media business. I mean, look, terrestrial radio still around. Uh. 1:56:25.640 --> 1:56:28.040 I wouldn't I wouldn't know what to do, and I 1:56:28.040 --> 1:56:30.200 haven't really thought about it. I haven't watched it much. 1:56:30.320 --> 1:56:34.080 But they had some quick creative people there, and they 1:56:34.120 --> 1:56:36.919 had some money to do things with. It's entirely possible 1:56:36.960 --> 1:56:40.400 they could resurrect themselves. You know. Our biggest business was 1:56:40.440 --> 1:56:45.760 always Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon's taken a huge hit. Well, you know, 1:56:45.840 --> 1:56:48.440 in the beginning they started Philip they licensed all their 1:56:48.480 --> 1:56:50.320 product to Netflix. So you have all these little five 1:56:50.360 --> 1:56:52.560 six year old kids, they're watching SpongeBob. They just push 1:56:52.600 --> 1:56:55.720 a button and one SpongeBob or one rug Rust after another. 1:56:55.760 --> 1:56:57.120 You know, it's hard to get him to go back 1:56:57.160 --> 1:57:01.400 and watch commercials. You know. Oh, it's that that's gonna 1:57:01.440 --> 1:57:04.280 be the streaming generation. And so that took a big 1:57:04.400 --> 1:57:07.120 hunk out of their out of what they were. They 1:57:07.160 --> 1:57:09.840 had a great machine going on and uh, you know, 1:57:09.960 --> 1:57:16.160 consumer behavior really uh has been a big factor for them. 1:57:16.200 --> 1:57:19.200 So in your career, what was the personal peak when 1:57:19.240 --> 1:57:25.640 you felt the best some specific moment. I love being 1:57:25.680 --> 1:57:27.920 on the stage at Live aid Bob. That was something, 1:57:28.880 --> 1:57:34.800 you know that was really pretty special. Uh. When we 1:57:34.880 --> 1:57:37.440 launched MTV Europe initially we launched, we had a big 1:57:37.520 --> 1:57:40.120 party in Amsterdam and I remember being in a speedboat 1:57:40.120 --> 1:57:42.480 and going through the canals of Amsterdam with Elton John 1:57:42.520 --> 1:57:44.480 and all these people, and it was a beautiful night 1:57:44.520 --> 1:57:49.800 and I'm thinking, man, this fantastic. Uh. There was a 1:57:49.880 --> 1:57:53.960 lot of moments I I told you in the beginning. 1:57:54.000 --> 1:57:56.600 When I left the advertising business, it was because they 1:57:56.640 --> 1:57:59.520 threatened to put me on the Sharman account with Don't 1:57:59.520 --> 1:58:03.360 Squeeze Charman. Mr Whipple. Well, when we launched, when we 1:58:03.440 --> 1:58:07.000 launched TV Land in the mid nineties, we went out 1:58:07.000 --> 1:58:08.960 of our way to find a lot of these old commercials, 1:58:09.000 --> 1:58:10.440 and I said, we'd be cool. Let's get a lot 1:58:10.440 --> 1:58:12.280 of old commercial let's clear the rights and we can 1:58:12.320 --> 1:58:15.320 run some old commercials with the old shows. So I'm 1:58:15.360 --> 1:58:19.200 at a party and I met Mr Whipple. Did you 1:58:19.240 --> 1:58:22.560 tell him your story? Yes, it just killed me. You 1:58:22.640 --> 1:58:25.280 don't Squeeze the Charman. This guy made a whole living 1:58:25.360 --> 1:58:27.520 on all these residuals on you know, being a guy 1:58:27.600 --> 1:58:31.000 squeeze and toilet paper. I almost got into his ecosystem. 1:58:31.080 --> 1:58:34.400 But I just thought that was an amazing piece of 1:58:34.400 --> 1:58:37.720 synchronicity that we finally run into each other. He let 1:58:37.760 --> 1:58:40.640 me because of Charman and Mr Whipple, I quit and 1:58:40.720 --> 1:58:44.040 left in this whole other world appeared exactly amazing. You say, 1:58:44.160 --> 1:58:49.560 another door opens, Thomas has been fantastic. You know, you 1:58:49.680 --> 1:58:52.520 really radiate your intelligence and your ability to speak. A 1:58:52.600 --> 1:58:55.240 lot of executives can't deliver. It's like I'm just wold, 1:58:55.240 --> 1:58:57.720 I'm sitting here and go can this stay this great? 1:58:58.400 --> 1:59:01.080 You were really ten of a ten skaler, as they 1:59:01.080 --> 1:59:03.920 would say in spinal Top and eleven. So thanks so 1:59:04.040 --> 1:59:06.640 much for doing this well. You asked me about things 1:59:06.640 --> 1:59:09.120 for a really great period. So pleasure and always good 1:59:09.120 --> 1:59:10.880 to see you, Bob. I don't know how you do it. 1:59:11.160 --> 1:59:12.560 I don't know how you do it. I'll say one 1:59:12.640 --> 1:59:14.880 last thing. I watched that Frank Zappa movie last night 1:59:14.920 --> 1:59:19.840 on your recommendation, so verdict. Yeah, the verdict was I 1:59:19.880 --> 1:59:22.000 loved it, you know, and I became I got to 1:59:22.040 --> 1:59:23.920 hang out with Frank brow because you know, I hired 1:59:24.040 --> 1:59:26.520 Weasel and Moon at one point, so I used to 1:59:26.520 --> 1:59:28.520 go up to their house for happy hours. I thought 1:59:29.440 --> 1:59:32.280 that the director, you know, who was not an ordinary 1:59:32.360 --> 1:59:35.680 documentary director, did a great job. It was almost and 1:59:35.720 --> 1:59:38.000 I read your thing you said it was almost impressionistic, 1:59:38.520 --> 1:59:40.640 which I think was a was a good judgment on it. 1:59:40.720 --> 1:59:43.080 And he was a guy who did it his way. 1:59:43.160 --> 1:59:45.960 He was an impressive man. You know, what was your 1:59:46.000 --> 1:59:49.160 experience with him since you were hanging out. Was he 1:59:49.200 --> 1:59:52.560 engaged or distant? He was good. I would go there 1:59:52.560 --> 1:59:54.320 and he was I didn't know he was sick at 1:59:54.320 --> 1:59:56.640 the time, and it might have been I don't think 1:59:56.680 --> 1:59:59.640 anybody knew. But my my main door to him was 1:59:59.640 --> 2:00:02.560 through Ale who I would call up Gail and I'd say, Gail, 2:00:02.560 --> 2:00:04.040 I want to come and see you. I'd love to 2:00:04.080 --> 2:00:08.040 hire Dweasel to be a fej and then uh and 2:00:08.160 --> 2:00:11.440 moon so and Gails such a flat out character. And 2:00:11.480 --> 2:00:14.920 through Gail we developed a bit of a bond and 2:00:14.960 --> 2:00:17.440 she said, you know, you gotta come up for happy hours. 2:00:17.480 --> 2:00:20.000 We had happy hours up on Woodrow Wilson Drive there 2:00:20.040 --> 2:00:21.720 and Laurel, can you go? You gotta be kidding me. 2:00:21.760 --> 2:00:23.480 I'm saying to myself. I used to go see them 2:00:23.480 --> 2:00:25.040 when I was living in New York that they were 2:00:25.080 --> 2:00:28.560 playing at that theater. Uh, And I said, well, Frank 2:00:28.720 --> 2:00:30.960 was like a legend and we've been through the PMRC 2:00:31.120 --> 2:00:34.440 and all that stuff, and uh, he was good, you know, 2:00:34.480 --> 2:00:37.080 but uh, he he had a he had a good 2:00:37.080 --> 2:00:39.760 sense of humor. He had a chip on his shoulder 2:00:40.680 --> 2:00:44.000 because he didn't feel he was successful like he deserved 2:00:44.000 --> 2:00:46.920 to be. I think, so, you know, he he played 2:00:46.960 --> 2:00:50.000 at that at a whole other level. And uh, not 2:00:50.080 --> 2:00:52.760 a lot of people got that. He was always a 2:00:52.760 --> 2:00:54.960 cult kind of artist. He was never going to be mainstream. 2:00:55.000 --> 2:00:57.080 I mean, what was his big hit was Valley Girl, 2:00:57.440 --> 2:00:59.920 right with Moon. That's the only tell me faith the 2:01:00.000 --> 2:01:04.520 singles charts. But I I wasn't. I was a thrill 2:01:04.600 --> 2:01:08.240 to meet him because I thought he was a real icon. 2:01:08.800 --> 2:01:11.440 And uh, I thought, I don't know much about because 2:01:11.480 --> 2:01:13.320 I never went into with anybody. But you know, to 2:01:13.440 --> 2:01:17.600 die at prostate cancer, you know, twenty years later that 2:01:17.600 --> 2:01:21.240 wouldn't have happened, but all of advances in prostate cancer 2:01:21.320 --> 2:01:24.080 treatments and so forth, you know, he's a tough one. 2:01:24.200 --> 2:01:27.800 Well it's weird because he died at fifty two. Now 2:01:27.880 --> 2:01:30.960 from our perch, that seems so young. It seemed young then, 2:01:31.480 --> 2:01:35.200 but now it's like in the prime of your life. Yeah, 2:01:35.240 --> 2:01:39.840 exactly so. And then going going back to the movie, 2:01:40.440 --> 2:01:43.000 you know, uh, there are a lot of people trying 2:01:43.040 --> 2:01:47.280 to rewrite the sixties. Okay, but I thought that movie 2:01:47.320 --> 2:01:50.480 got the vibe of the sixties, the vibe of New York. 2:01:50.720 --> 2:01:53.520 When they actually showed the theater he played in New York, 2:01:53.640 --> 2:01:56.480 I didn't go to those gigs. I was just stunned 2:01:56.520 --> 2:01:59.640 how small it was. Now a little narrow theater but 2:01:59.800 --> 2:02:02.240 it is like it was like there Hamburg in a way. 2:02:02.560 --> 2:02:04.720 You know, they were playing for three months, they had 2:02:04.760 --> 2:02:07.520 a residency, and they kind of got their ship together, 2:02:07.640 --> 2:02:09.800 and they got this cult word of mouth thing, and 2:02:09.840 --> 2:02:12.760 you know, they god knows, they looked so sixties. And 2:02:12.800 --> 2:02:15.480 that first record album which he didn't like, the cover 2:02:15.560 --> 2:02:17.480 of which I thought was fantastic. I we all had 2:02:17.480 --> 2:02:20.440 it in college, freak out. People were rolling, you know, 2:02:20.560 --> 2:02:23.680 marijuana joints on it all over the country. It's like 2:02:23.720 --> 2:02:25.720 a discovery. I mean, he had that song you didn't 2:02:25.720 --> 2:02:28.080 try to call me, and then he did a slow 2:02:28.200 --> 2:02:30.240 version of Ruben just you know, I was primer in 2:02:30.280 --> 2:02:32.800 the right front fender and you didn't call me. It 2:02:32.840 --> 2:02:37.080 was both hilarious and poignant at the same time. Weasels 2:02:37.120 --> 2:02:40.080 ripped my flesh. Oh yeah, all right, Okay, I think 2:02:40.120 --> 2:02:43.360 we've covered it, So Tom until next time. Hopefully I 2:02:43.400 --> 2:02:47.840 see you soon. When this COVID insanity ends. It's ending 2:02:48.080 --> 2:02:50.600 at least here, I really think. So it's exciting to 2:02:50.720 --> 2:02:52.520 come back to New York and see the city filling 2:02:52.600 --> 2:02:54.800 up and coming alive, and all these people have vaccinated. 2:02:54.960 --> 2:02:57.720 So that's how let's hope. So well, you know, the 2:02:57.760 --> 2:03:00.920 story of the people moving a way turned out to 2:03:00.920 --> 2:03:03.720 be untrue. Yes, there were wealthy people who went to 2:03:03.720 --> 2:03:07.120 their country houses, but as far as people moving permanently 2:03:07.240 --> 2:03:11.880 didn't happen. Do you believe the issue of offices is 2:03:11.960 --> 2:03:14.320 a real thing or not a thing? Are people gonna 2:03:14.360 --> 2:03:16.000 end up coming to the office or are they gonna 2:03:16.040 --> 2:03:19.520 work remotely? Yeah? I think uh, I think they are. 2:03:19.600 --> 2:03:22.000 I think there's probably a combination of both. Maybe people 2:03:22.000 --> 2:03:24.920 don't need as much office space as they want. I mean, 2:03:25.920 --> 2:03:28.240 you know, the sixth Avenue was like a morgue now, 2:03:28.280 --> 2:03:31.200 but I think you're the people going in. People that 2:03:31.240 --> 2:03:33.480 I talked to say we're going back in September, or 2:03:33.480 --> 2:03:35.520 we're gonna try it in June. You know, you see 2:03:35.520 --> 2:03:37.720 people like Netflix and Amazon saying we want everyone in 2:03:37.760 --> 2:03:40.520 the office. If you're in a creative business, I don't 2:03:40.560 --> 2:03:42.360 see how you can do it. It's amazing to me 2:03:42.440 --> 2:03:44.000 that people have been able to do what they've done 2:03:44.000 --> 2:03:47.520 with Zoom and Blue Jeans through this whole pandemic. God 2:03:47.560 --> 2:03:50.000 help us that we didn't have the internet. But I 2:03:50.040 --> 2:03:53.360 think I don't know. You know, New York City, the 2:03:53.400 --> 2:03:55.840 whole concept of the idea of New York City was 2:03:55.880 --> 2:04:00.680 based on the idea congestion is good, you know, be together, 2:04:00.880 --> 2:04:02.760 be all jammed up, and good things will come out 2:04:02.760 --> 2:04:05.680 of that. And you'll run into people, you know. I 2:04:06.120 --> 2:04:07.920 don't think New York is gonna die, but it's it's 2:04:07.920 --> 2:04:11.840 in for some tough times. But some people must want 2:04:11.880 --> 2:04:13.480 to be back to work. If if you if you're 2:04:13.760 --> 2:04:17.920 vaccinated and everything is safe, and this thing's disappeared, you know, 2:04:18.320 --> 2:04:19.760 you just might want to get back and be with 2:04:19.800 --> 2:04:23.520 other people. What about Manhattan itself? When you were living 2:04:23.520 --> 2:04:26.400 in graduate school, you could be of lower income and 2:04:26.440 --> 2:04:30.120 live in Manhattan. That doesn't happen anymore. Well, what's happening now? 2:04:30.320 --> 2:04:33.800 At least I hope I'm seeing I you see all 2:04:33.840 --> 2:04:36.320 these storefronts they're out of you know, there there's no 2:04:36.360 --> 2:04:40.320 one in them anymore. And all these uh, all these 2:04:40.360 --> 2:04:43.280 rental buildings that they've over built, rents are going down. 2:04:43.960 --> 2:04:46.920 Maybe that maybe Manhattan is gonna be the new Williamsburg. 2:04:47.280 --> 2:04:51.680 I don't know. You could be a young artist and 2:04:52.200 --> 2:04:54.040 moved to New York again because things will be cheaper 2:04:54.040 --> 2:04:57.680 asked for those stores and those restaurants. Young people are 2:04:57.680 --> 2:05:00.560 gonna come in with new concepts. They got lower rents 2:05:00.840 --> 2:05:03.040 and they're gonna figure something cool out. There's gonna be 2:05:03.080 --> 2:05:05.920 a whole new thing. That's what I'm cat. That's sort 2:05:05.920 --> 2:05:08.760 of my dream that there's gonna be a great reincarnation 2:05:09.160 --> 2:05:11.560 that there are in twenty twenties. You know, maybe it's 2:05:11.560 --> 2:05:14.560 maybe it's maybe it's that's what's in store for us. Well, 2:05:14.600 --> 2:05:17.240 I think economically we're definitely coming back, you know, in 2:05:17.360 --> 2:05:19.680 terms of the buildings to the buildings have to be 2:05:20.760 --> 2:05:22.800 the companies who on the buildings have to go bankrupt 2:05:23.040 --> 2:05:25.000 and the bank's take them back and resell them so 2:05:25.040 --> 2:05:27.160 they can rent at a lower level. Because some people 2:05:27.160 --> 2:05:30.320 bought these buildings at such inflated prices that you know, 2:05:30.360 --> 2:05:33.640 the storefronts, they can only lower the price so far. Yeah, 2:05:33.720 --> 2:05:36.560 I think that's what's gonna happen. Everything's gonna, you know, 2:05:37.120 --> 2:05:40.400 prices to jimmy down. And because a lot of people, 2:05:40.400 --> 2:05:42.200 no matter what happens, they're not gonna need as many 2:05:42.200 --> 2:05:45.040 floors as they've had before probably, So there's gonna be 2:05:45.080 --> 2:05:47.800 a surplus of rents and the people who are coming 2:05:47.800 --> 2:05:51.200 in are gonna want to renegotiate their deals lower. I 2:05:51.280 --> 2:05:53.720 just hope that when you look, go through midtown. You 2:05:53.800 --> 2:05:56.040 see all that retail that exists on the ground floor 2:05:56.080 --> 2:05:59.200 of the restaurants, the shoe stores and everything else. I 2:05:59.280 --> 2:06:01.480 just really worry are all those people because they through 2:06:01.520 --> 2:06:04.960 this whole COVID thing, They've had absolutely nobody there. It 2:06:05.080 --> 2:06:08.440 was like a ghost town. It's amazing how many companies 2:06:08.480 --> 2:06:10.080 going out of business. Like you go to a web site, 2:06:10.080 --> 2:06:12.360 well I want to. I remember it's like the hiking 2:06:12.400 --> 2:06:14.240 store and whist l A been there. My whole life 2:06:14.560 --> 2:06:18.040 just went. And it's like the last of that type. Okay, 2:06:18.040 --> 2:06:19.640 what's your take on l A, Because you do have 2:06:19.680 --> 2:06:22.280 a house in l A. I saw that. I got 2:06:22.400 --> 2:06:25.840 up in Santa herber Now, so you're in Montecito, Okay, 2:06:26.200 --> 2:06:28.920 how often are you in Monito? Well, usually two months 2:06:28.960 --> 2:06:30.880 a year. But I did eight of the eight of 2:06:30.920 --> 2:06:34.800 the uh I called him now the pandemic months. I 2:06:34.840 --> 2:06:36.920 did eight of them there, and I gotta say, I 2:06:36.920 --> 2:06:40.400 fell in love with California all over again. And you know, 2:06:40.560 --> 2:06:42.160 I just got out of that big place I'm up 2:06:42.160 --> 2:06:45.360 on up on a mountain in a wildfire zone. But 2:06:45.480 --> 2:06:49.280 it was it was nice. It was you know, se 2:06:49.400 --> 2:06:52.000 the season change, not traveling, it was it was like 2:06:52.360 --> 2:06:54.280 there was a silver lining to it all. But I 2:06:54.560 --> 2:06:58.080 I I fell back in love with California. You know, 2:06:58.240 --> 2:07:00.440 I love one thing I love about California and is 2:07:00.480 --> 2:07:02.760 all the East Coast bullshit doesn't exist. No one ever 2:07:02.800 --> 2:07:04.640 asked you what you got on your S A T S. 2:07:04.680 --> 2:07:08.240 Where you went to college. Everybody's so full of ship 2:07:08.360 --> 2:07:10.280 that if you come from the East Coast it's great, 2:07:11.120 --> 2:07:14.080 everybody's gonna make it and all this other stuff. I mean, 2:07:14.080 --> 2:07:17.720 when you're playing an elite level, it's certainly something different. Okay, Tom, 2:07:17.760 --> 2:07:20.240 I'll let you go. This has been great. That's terrific. 2:07:20.280 --> 2:07:22.840 Bob Okay, really enjoyed myself. I got to see you. 2:07:23.120 --> 2:07:26.280 You're back until next time. This is Bob left sles