Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour.
Speaker 1: See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot com
Speaker 1: slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. Here's Shadow Stevens. He was
Speaker 1: the announcer on my old late night show. But he's
Speaker 1: been the announcer on so many different shows, and he's
Speaker 1: done so many things, and to be honest, so many drugs.
Speaker 1: Listen to this and enjoy. All right, So America knows
Speaker 1: you as Shadow Stevens. I know you is Shadow Stevens.
Speaker 1: I also, by the way, let me just apologize if
Speaker 1: you're watching this as opposed to listening to it, it
Speaker 1: feels like we're in a dental of his waiting room
Speaker 1: a little bit pretty much. Yeah, I'm sorry, but that
Speaker 1: we have a plant here. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember magazines. Remember magazines, it was like a blog
Speaker 1: but papery. Sure, right, Well they used to have magazines
Speaker 1: and old magazines in the dental office. Life, Life, What
Speaker 1: was the other people magazine? People? People like us Weekly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the stars, they're just like us. Yeah. Look, American always
Speaker 1: used shadows Stevens, I know, used Shadow Stevens. That's not
Speaker 1: how you started out. No, like you were Terry instead
Speaker 1: Terry Proud Norwegian name, right, So your people are from Norway, yes,
Speaker 1: but you grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota.
Speaker 2: The cattle and the wheat and the folks that can't
Speaker 2: be beat and also the Gota North Dakota. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was a song when I was growing up. They had
Speaker 2: a contest for people to come up with the North
Speaker 2: Dakota song, and the one that won and was you
Speaker 2: ought to go Hotel North Dakota. See the cattle and
Speaker 2: the wheat, the folks that can't be beat. Even as
Speaker 2: a child, I thought that's.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting. I heard that song and I
Speaker 1: felt a little bit like I should become a serial
Speaker 1: killer just hearing that. It's because it is it's a
Speaker 1: dark place. Well it can be certainly in the winter.
Speaker 1: Well that's what I always think it's about, Like Scotland
Speaker 1: and like people forget. It just gets dark in the
Speaker 1: wintertime all the time, and it makes you crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no sun, no sun, and just and grace. Guys
Speaker 1: that go on for.
Speaker 2: Back there are tough. Yeah, they're tough, way tougher than me.
Speaker 2: I have two brothers that still live there, and you're
Speaker 2: tougher than me.
Speaker 1: Nope, they do it. You have people fat farmers. No. No.
Speaker 3: And I grew up in really Norman Rockwell.
Speaker 2: I had an amazing childhood, in fact, so amazing that
Speaker 2: I was embarrassed to talk about it for a long
Speaker 2: time because people talk about how tragic their childhood was
Speaker 2: and how they were beaten. And my parents didn't drink
Speaker 2: or smoke or use drugs or curse or fight in
Speaker 2: front of the kids.
Speaker 3: My parents own toy stores, clothing stores.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's say in the bar too high.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My dad was a basketball star called the Hooker.
Speaker 2: He could make hook shots from center court and he
Speaker 2: was a North Dakota legend. And then he went into
Speaker 2: business and he started Tiny Town, which was a little
Speaker 2: tiny store with children's clothes. Then he moved into clothing,
Speaker 2: and then he moved into toys. Then he moved into
Speaker 2: go kart tracks, and then he we had firework stands
Speaker 2: on the Fourth of July and of the five kids,
Speaker 2: each child would run a different fireworks stand. We had
Speaker 2: the fireworks displays on our street, with the leftover fireworks
Speaker 2: from the firework stands we would bring down to our house.
Speaker 1: So I always thought that your childhood was very rural.
Speaker 1: But doesn't sound that rural.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a fifteen thousand people, right.
Speaker 2: Okay, all my friends were pretty much farmers and you
Speaker 2: know or we worked on farms.
Speaker 1: Oh you walked on farms. I did.
Speaker 2: I did, and I came to the meaning of life.
Speaker 2: I should tell you about the when I worked for
Speaker 2: the aliens.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you should definitely tell me about that.
Speaker 2: My friends and I one summer worked for these aliens
Speaker 2: in spirit Wood, North Dakota. Now automatically you think, hmm,
Speaker 2: it sounds like a twilight zone.
Speaker 1: Is a spirit Wood?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, in an area there's Spiritwood Lake and then
Speaker 2: there is spirit with the town, which was, you know,
Speaker 2: a granary and.
Speaker 3: A couple of shops or something. Okay.
Speaker 2: And he had a big farm and they were a
Speaker 2: little family of little they looked like what people called grays.
Speaker 2: They had skulls that mushroomed and.
Speaker 1: All of them. So they were aliens.
Speaker 2: Well at the time, we just thought they were unusual, right,
Speaker 2: We didn't really think about that. And we went out
Speaker 2: and we would work on and hauling bales of day
Speaker 2: all day long, and you'd grab them with two hooks
Speaker 2: and lift them up into the truck from five in
Speaker 2: the morning until eight at night. And we would go
Speaker 2: back to the house and have Thanksgiving every day, and
Speaker 2: it was turkey and it was roast beef, and it
Speaker 2: was pies and everything, and all my friends every day
Speaker 2: and all my friends were there. Was really hard work,
Speaker 2: you know, out in the sun, and we would sit
Speaker 2: and we would joke, and the alien father would sit
Speaker 2: and he was very quiet man, and he would go
Speaker 2: and we would say, like, the punchline is so he said, Zenith,
Speaker 2: and everybody was like and he would go, and then
Speaker 2: every few minutes for the next five or ten minutes,
Speaker 2: he would go and see it.
Speaker 1: I've been doing that my whole life. So now where
Speaker 1: are they from? These is okay, I'm gonna tell you. Okay.
Speaker 2: For years, I remembered them as having a very rape
Speaker 2: Bradbury Twilight Zone name, and I couldn't remember, and no
Speaker 2: one that I talked to could remember people I talked
Speaker 2: to in the town. And five years ago, finally I
Speaker 2: realize I have to talk to my friend Ray Bookley,
Speaker 2: who worked on the farm with me, And I called
Speaker 2: him in Missouri and I said, Ray, you remember the
Speaker 2: aliens we worked for, the guys with the mushroom heads,
Speaker 2: And he goes, yeah, and he said, I've been trying
Speaker 2: to think of their name. And I put it in
Speaker 2: my book and my contact lists so that I would
Speaker 2: never forget. Because what he said was, oh, you mean
Speaker 2: Virgie Shock, Virgie.
Speaker 1: Shogi Shock got the name of the Shock he worked
Speaker 1: for the show.
Speaker 2: And Virgie like Virgie on the verge of Shock, and
Speaker 2: it sounds like a name an alien would make it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Virgie Virgie should probably show for Verga.
Speaker 2: No one knows whatever happened to them. Nobody knows about
Speaker 2: him in town. They're not around anymore. Nobody remembers them.
Speaker 1: I think they may have erased there. Oh you think
Speaker 1: it's like a man in black thing? Maybe, Okay, can't
Speaker 1: be sure. So so what why did they have Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: dinner every day? I'm kind of like, I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: be Larry King about this, but.
Speaker 2: Because it's very hard work, and this is all high
Speaker 2: school students who need to eat a lot, apparently, but
Speaker 2: it literally was. It was turkey, and it was roast beef,
Speaker 2: and it was pies and corn and potatoes and everything,
Speaker 2: and we would eat and eat and eat.
Speaker 1: Well. But I get that, But do you think that
Speaker 1: they came to our planet because they really liked Thanksgiving dinner?
Speaker 1: That was?
Speaker 3: We may be being groomed, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, Right, So you work in there and they obviously
Speaker 1: they want hay or something like that, and you're working
Speaker 1: for the aliens? How how do you get from this
Speaker 1: idyllic Norman Rockwell style childhood and you start, you know,
Speaker 1: you're you start looking towards California and Hollywood and the
Speaker 1: time of life as what's the ear, what's the day?
Speaker 1: What's going on with you?
Speaker 2: At the beginning, Well, the very first thing that happened
Speaker 2: when I was two years old, my mother taught me
Speaker 2: how to play records on a record player, and I
Speaker 2: was obsessed apparently from the very beginning. Put a record on,
Speaker 2: play it home, man, It's the greatest, started over again.
Speaker 1: And then she taught me to do you can get
Speaker 1: a residency in Las Vegas. Now, just doing that I unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that didn't work for me. I was that age,
Speaker 2: so I was obsessed with all this. And I discovered
Speaker 2: my dad's tape recorder when I was eight years old,
Speaker 2: and I started recording stories on the tape recorder and
Speaker 2: everybody was fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: And they were probably terrible, but I was.
Speaker 2: Hooked and I would edit them together by pausing the
Speaker 2: tape recorder and add another piece and be able to
Speaker 2: tell a story. And then my uncle, who owned radio stations,
Speaker 2: discovered that I loved this, and he sent me a
Speaker 2: kit that would allow me to broadcast into another room.
Speaker 2: And this was magic to me. What did you when
Speaker 2: this is radio show? I was ten years old and
Speaker 2: I soldered this thing together and I and then.
Speaker 1: I went to you had a ten years old?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a soldering iron and then I put
Speaker 2: it all together, and I went to the local TV
Speaker 2: shop and I said, how do I soup this up?
Speaker 3: They go, well, you can't answer, and you have to
Speaker 3: put up a big antenna.
Speaker 2: So I crawled to the top of our three story
Speaker 2: home with a wire in my teeth and a hammer
Speaker 2: in my pocket and crawling.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm beginning to think it is a normal
Speaker 1: rubble childhood, because you get a ten year old kid
Speaker 1: climbing up an antenna hanging upside down. Nobody's hammer. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Put the antenna to the top of the of a
Speaker 2: tree in the backyard so I could broadcast a mile
Speaker 2: in every direction. And as a result, and I did
Speaker 2: this every day, I played, you know, I had my
Speaker 2: radio station. And they interviewed me on the Man on
Speaker 2: the street and uh, a local radio station, and they said, well,
Speaker 2: what are you interested in? Well, art and right radio
Speaker 2: really yeah, And I tell them about my pirate radio station,
Speaker 2: and they got really interested. You said you should come
Speaker 2: down here, mabe, we'll put you on the air. So
Speaker 2: then at eleven they put me on the air and
Speaker 2: put it in the paper as the world's youngest dis
Speaker 2: Jackie to have my picture with my stack of forty
Speaker 2: five's and a big smile and a microphone just like this,
Speaker 2: you know, an inch away.
Speaker 1: And that was like the beginning of it beginning.
Speaker 2: And I did that for a couple of years and
Speaker 2: then work part time and then went to the University
Speaker 2: of North Dakota to study art.
Speaker 1: Art it was an art major for three years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I know, I know that you still pain and
Speaker 1: you still yeah, well, I do more multimedia.
Speaker 2: But I'm kind of captured by putting the ideas together
Speaker 2: that you know don't necessarily go together.
Speaker 1: Well. See, now, the thing is that I know about
Speaker 1: you that maybe some people don't know about you, is
Speaker 1: how diverse and wildly creative you're out who is because
Speaker 1: you would come to you go through being the world's
Speaker 1: youngest desk joky. Then you you end up in Hollywood
Speaker 1: to do what to do radio? Here?
Speaker 3: Well, well, I'll make it real quick.
Speaker 2: I went to the University of Arizona for two years
Speaker 2: and then I majored in drama and journalism. So I
Speaker 2: learned to perform and to write. And then I got
Speaker 2: a job, and.
Speaker 1: Then you could report on your act.
Speaker 3: Yeah both, I'm covering my bases, write your own reviews.
Speaker 2: And then I was hired in Boston and got real,
Speaker 2: real successful in Boston, and thirty three percent of all
Speaker 2: people listening to radio were listening and you're playing rock
Speaker 2: and roll ricks top forty station. And I started doing
Speaker 2: television there as well. Okay, and then a year later
Speaker 2: I was brought out to Los Angeles, and I've been
Speaker 2: here ever since. I came to the biggest radio station
Speaker 2: in the country.
Speaker 1: KHJ, So this is what like seventies, This is like
Speaker 1: sixty nine, okay.
Speaker 2: And then the guy who had put me on television
Speaker 2: in Boston was now the producer of the Steve Allen Show,
Speaker 2: and so he hired me to be Steve Allen's sidekick
Speaker 2: on camera announcer, talk things over, yeah.
Speaker 1: All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I was way out of my element. I sweated like
Speaker 2: like Albert Brooks. And what was that movie? Broadcast News?
Speaker 2: Broadcast News? It was me, said the makeup artist, who
Speaker 2: come over here, you really perspire. You have no idea,
Speaker 2: it's silked underneath.
Speaker 1: So what happens? But you've become very successful at this point.
Speaker 1: Now I also know about you that you have not
Speaker 1: only do you have a great deal of poisonive energy,
Speaker 1: you have a great deal of negative energy, right, so
Speaker 1: you you have you have a self destructive mechanism in
Speaker 1: there as well? Is that beginning to kick in at
Speaker 1: this point as well?
Speaker 2: It was starting. It was when I went to the
Speaker 2: University of Arizona. I discovered a wonderful drug called despute.
Speaker 2: I haven't even heard of that. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 2: brilliantly subtle combination of methamphetamine and barbiturate, so it would
Speaker 2: give you the energy and take off the edge. And
Speaker 2: you could get a bottle of two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: in a prescription.
Speaker 1: So I got a lot done. I felt good about it.
Speaker 2: While I felt good about it, it was good for
Speaker 2: a while, it was highly abused and then discontinued.
Speaker 1: I feel like I missed out a little bit. I
Speaker 1: never go at desput all. It sounds like a like
Speaker 1: a prescription speedball that would like right.
Speaker 2: And as you did more, of course, there is a
Speaker 2: learning curve and then things get dark. But then a
Speaker 2: guy says, you know, you got to try some weed.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like some plant. It doesn't lead to heroin.
Speaker 2: So I do it, and I smoke this hookah and
Speaker 2: I no, I'm in the ceiling, moving with the music,
Speaker 2: and I understand that this is like trying to explain
Speaker 2: the color blue to a blind.
Speaker 1: Man, experiential.
Speaker 2: And I bought announced that night, and within a month
Speaker 2: I bought a pound.
Speaker 3: And then I moved to.
Speaker 1: What kind of what kind of weed are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Like just like I don't know what it was, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like hashish or Anathan.
Speaker 2: No, it was just grass in a big four foot
Speaker 2: tall hookah with multiple tubes and black light posters.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting you talk about because people that do
Speaker 1: weed and and everybody does weed. Now everyone it's like
Speaker 1: America reeks of marijuana. Like you're going in the city,
Speaker 1: everything everywhere smells like marijuana. People who take marijuana always
Speaker 1: say it's organic, like, so it's not dangerous. I've seen
Speaker 1: so many I don't know if you've seen this, but
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of people ruin their lives with marijuana.
Speaker 1: But it's so subtle that they don't know that. Like
Speaker 1: I heard someone say it's like being nibbled to death
Speaker 1: by rabbits. It's like, because if you're an alcoholic or
Speaker 1: you take coker heroin, it's pretty obvious they're destroying yourself, right,
Speaker 1: But with my I want to you just destroy yourself
Speaker 1: with smug justification. It seems like over and over it
Speaker 1: telling people's justification. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: There is a certain aloof condescension about the higher state
Speaker 2: of awareness that you're suddenly in.
Speaker 1: I also I also get angry. People do a lot
Speaker 1: of bit, I'm like, do it proper. It's an adolescent drug.
Speaker 1: Do it grown up drug, like coke, coker, heroine, this
Speaker 1: adolescent crap. I can hear the music. Better shut up,
Speaker 1: shut up, get get fucked up properly for God's sake. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you get a weed and you're and you're like hearing.
Speaker 2: Well, you know it was, you know, colorful at the beginning,
Speaker 2: and then by the time I got to Boston, the
Speaker 2: guy says, you're going to try some acid.
Speaker 1: Well, what's acid?
Speaker 2: Was like grasps, more intense, last longer. So I did that,
Speaker 2: and then the first experience I always tell it the
Speaker 2: same way. I'm double parked on Beacon Hill and I'm
Speaker 2: the driver and my friends get out to get donuts,
Speaker 2: and it comes on and my hands are on the
Speaker 2: steering wheel. My friends are skipping down the street slow motion.
Speaker 2: You're going Hi, get in the car. What the what
Speaker 2: is the now? You would think that anybody that had
Speaker 2: any sense would never do that again? Yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: but no, by the time I got to l A
Speaker 2: a year later, we did it every weekend. Now I'm
Speaker 2: smoking dope every day. Then I get a prescription.
Speaker 1: But you're being very successful at the same.
Speaker 2: Time, very motivated. I show up and I get things
Speaker 2: done and mostly high.
Speaker 1: You're working eye all the time, Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're so you're playing. Are you doing America's Top
Speaker 1: forty or anything like that?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, that was a long time. There's a
Speaker 2: long way to get to that. But you're doing a
Speaker 2: lot of drugs. You're doing acid, you're doing you're doing
Speaker 2: the debut. All things gone right, Well that was gone,
Speaker 2: but now it was. It was replaced by a prescription doctor,
Speaker 2: a guy that worked for me. Now I went from
Speaker 2: KHJ and I was I quit because they didn't know
Speaker 2: because I was doing television and they didn't promote me.
Speaker 2: So I said, I'm familiar with that situation. It's like,
Speaker 2: we don't know whether you want to be in radio
Speaker 2: or television. They promote each other. You don't get that.
Speaker 2: And they wouldn't even put it in the contract that
Speaker 2: the next full time or the bigger position that became
Speaker 2: available I would get. So I quit and then I
Speaker 2: was hired by their competition, and within a couple of
Speaker 2: months they made me program director. Okay, and now I'm
Speaker 2: going to Art Center school part time and I'm happy
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, he gives me this because
Speaker 2: I said we should be playing better music, and he
Speaker 2: liked the research I did, followed the program director and
Speaker 2: made me program director.
Speaker 1: So you're the boss of the radio station and you're
Speaker 1: getting twisted on all sorts of what you can.
Speaker 2: It's starting to amp up right now. One of the
Speaker 2: guys that worked for me, this isn't in la right.
Speaker 2: And one armed man who worked for me said, you
Speaker 2: know he've got all her responsibilities. You should see my doctor,
Speaker 2: Doctor Lax. Sounds like a marble marble villain, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's out by the airport. Doctor.
Speaker 2: Actually he was at He was at Wilshire and Losianega,
Speaker 2: and he was the prescription doctors to the stars, and
Speaker 2: he weighed three hundred and fifty pounds and wrote his
Speaker 2: prescriptions on his stomach. And he would go, well you
Speaker 2: at Dexter Dream last month, how about black beauties?
Speaker 3: Okay, you know, doctor las things are going really well.
Speaker 3: I'm being a lot done.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they have to stay in the studio through the
Speaker 2: night and I've got a lot of people I'm responsible for,
Speaker 2: and i have a little trouble sleeping, and be goes, well,
Speaker 2: you had queludes last month, how about two and on? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that would be good. And he would sell me poppers
Speaker 2: from behind the desk for cash. Oh, things are nitrate nitrate.
Speaker 2: You can't don't know about that anymore. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's out there anymore. It's very bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but who knew?
Speaker 3: I was doing what seemed like a reasonable thing to
Speaker 3: do at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of these types of drugs. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I'm no stranger drugs and alcohol, but well I'm not.
Speaker 1: But then, you know, but why I never go into
Speaker 1: those kind of like the quayludy type things. I've heard
Speaker 1: people talk about quailuds like kind of like buffers. They
Speaker 1: made you relax and feel really good. I thought they
Speaker 1: just like you if you had the cocaine or if
Speaker 1: you had the you know, speed, you know, you have
Speaker 1: the energy with the chill, it's not getting the way
Speaker 1: of your life at this point.
Speaker 2: Well, and then there's the acid every weekend, or a
Speaker 2: psilocybin or pot or you know, little mushrooms that came
Speaker 2: from the Amazon that looked like aliens and you'd eat
Speaker 2: them in your nervous system would turn into rainbows.
Speaker 1: Wow, good time. Yeah, so so at this point, I'm
Speaker 1: guessing the stable family life and relationship isn't something that's
Speaker 1: happening for you.
Speaker 2: It's starting to come on glued. I was married to
Speaker 2: my childhood sweetheart and we had a son, and I'm busy,
Speaker 2: you know. But this radio station is very, very successful,
Speaker 2: and it beat the station I came out to work for.
Speaker 2: And then I went to k I started k ROCK
Speaker 2: and I was hired. And that's a whole story. We
Speaker 2: could go on for an hour by k Rock. It's
Speaker 2: a stunning story.
Speaker 1: It's an institution in this time.
Speaker 2: It is, and at the time it was the brainchild
Speaker 2: of a guy that put together thirteen partners and I
Speaker 2: ran through money like crazy, and.
Speaker 1: This is always big idea craziness.
Speaker 2: Then all that stuff is going on, right Well he yeah, well,
Speaker 2: I mean pretty much everybody did. And he offered me
Speaker 2: a job from Krola, which which was at the Huntington
Speaker 2: Sheridan Hotel and state of the art studios with engineers,
Speaker 2: to this funky little place in Burbank that he had
Speaker 2: put together. But he said, you know, I'm getting this
Speaker 2: FM station and I want you to do something original
Speaker 2: like you did for kr OLA on FM.
Speaker 1: And what kind of car. Are you like porsia? Got it?
Speaker 1: What color? Wow? Sorr.
Speaker 2: He gives me this forture and I'm making money and
Speaker 2: going over there and waiting for the FM.
Speaker 1: Are you doing coke at this point? Then there's coke coming.
Speaker 2: Out, not very often, all right, it was mostly you know,
Speaker 2: speed and weed.
Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: the United States in twenty twenty four. For a full
Speaker 1: list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson
Speaker 1: show dot Com slash tour. See you out there. So
Speaker 1: you're you're just speeding weed, but I want to try
Speaker 1: and figure out how you get from that to stuff
Speaker 1: like the Tracks movie and the Bay kind of mainstream stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's fast forward, right, Okay, So there's you know, your
Speaker 1: America's Sweetheart in Hollywood Squares and you're doing America's Top four.
Speaker 1: You know that? Did How did you get from like
Speaker 1: drug fueled, crazy alien mushrooms to be in more mainstream?
Speaker 1: What's what's the what's the bridge?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I went through radio, had big success,
Speaker 2: quit in rages, and started my own production company. I
Speaker 2: ended up doing you know, commercials I did the Blues
Speaker 2: Brothers movies and Fast Time at Bridgemont High in forty
Speaker 2: eight hours.
Speaker 1: You're doing commercials for these movies, doing commercials.
Speaker 2: I did the whole advertising campaign, right, And then I
Speaker 2: did this Federated where I sold them this idea of
Speaker 2: a fast talking dan Ackroyd basmatic pitchman. We talked a
Speaker 2: mile a minute, and then at the end it was
Speaker 2: my original idea was we just say we smash prices.
Speaker 2: And I smashed the TV with a circus hammer, and
Speaker 2: he goes, well, that's fun. Well let's do that. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, if I do it and it's successful,
Speaker 2: will you give me creative control? Because I never don't
Speaker 2: want to do the same thing twice if people want.
Speaker 1: To kill me.
Speaker 2: And he rolled his eyes, went fine, and then business
Speaker 2: went up five hundred percent the first weekend, and I
Speaker 2: was off and running and I ended up doing eleven
Speaker 2: hundred commercials for them. We would do four to eight
Speaker 2: commercials a week for the next seven years.
Speaker 1: These commercials are from movies, right, These are for the
Speaker 1: Federated Group. They were like a best buy Oh okay,
Speaker 1: right right, right, right right.
Speaker 2: And they're they're they're all like done with me and
Speaker 2: five guys. And during this time, at the beginning of it,
Speaker 2: my drug use got worse and worse, a lot more cocaine.
Speaker 1: And so this is none of the eighties where everyone's
Speaker 1: in the eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I basically, you know, got I was
Speaker 2: living in Malibu Canyon and going home and going to
Speaker 2: the bathroom for a couple of hours and coming out
Speaker 2: and hearing whisper outside the window, and.
Speaker 1: I would say, anybody else the window? I don't know.
Speaker 2: So I put sheets over the windows and the doors,
Speaker 2: and then I put quilts over the sheets, and then
Speaker 2: I put nails at one inch intervals around the quilts.
Speaker 2: And then I took my twelve gage short barrel and
Speaker 2: I walked and I stalked outside to wait confront my destiny.
Speaker 1: What do you are? You armed at this point twelve
Speaker 1: gage short barrel, double lot buck.
Speaker 3: You don't have to aim, you just point and pull.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar.
Speaker 2: So I squatted down beneath the bedroom window, and I
Speaker 2: heard a rustle in the bush and I jumped up, screaming,
Speaker 2: now you die, motherfuck, and I chased him through the bush,
Speaker 2: but they got away. Yeah, So went back to the
Speaker 2: bathroom to celebrate and locked the door.
Speaker 1: Yeah you gotta celebrate by having more cocaine, because yeah, well.
Speaker 2: You lock the door, you put you know, a towel
Speaker 2: under the door, and then run the bath so they
Speaker 2: can't hear you. Now I can have another hit. And
Speaker 2: then I went into convulsions and my head would crack
Speaker 2: on the floor, crack, crack them So.
Speaker 1: You're a foot blown psychosis. At this point, I am
Speaker 1: way into psychosis. And yet you you're still working and
Speaker 1: making money.
Speaker 2: It's starting to fall apart. Oh, I have video proof
Speaker 2: of it. Some of those commercials got tragic. They were
Speaker 2: funny in a really dark and getting darker way, and
Speaker 2: I knew it was falling through my fingers and I
Speaker 2: couldn't And I gained fifty pounds because they didn't stop eating.
Speaker 2: I didn't stop eating. I didn't stop drinking. Now I'm
Speaker 2: drinking a court a Canadian club at day and covasier
Speaker 2: and tequila and anything anybody put in front of me
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: So I have to ask you a personal question at
Speaker 1: this point, why aren't you dead?
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, I think about that all
Speaker 2: the time because it got really scary. Most of the
Speaker 2: time I was terrified. I thought people were trying to
Speaker 2: kill me. I was looking, you know, behind me. I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, trying to lose people in the car,
Speaker 2: or somebody threw a cigarette out in the car in
Speaker 2: front of me.
Speaker 1: I thought it might be a bomb.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was real, and I was literally
Speaker 2: did not know what was real. I didn't know if
Speaker 2: they were really were people that I could hear. It's
Speaker 2: like outside the window and I'm peeking out there, and
Speaker 2: it was terrifying. So my doctor said, if you're lucky,
Speaker 2: you're going to die. You're probably going to have a
Speaker 2: stroke or heart attack. You're really out of control. And
Speaker 2: I said, I know, and he said, you got to
Speaker 2: you got to stop.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: But I was so embarrassed that I grew up in
Speaker 2: this beautiful childhood. Parents didn't drink or smoke or do anything.
Speaker 2: Did not it take asper.
Speaker 1: So your family are still back at home in Northagola,
Speaker 1: and they.
Speaker 2: They have a feeling that things are odd, but they
Speaker 2: don't really know. And finally, I had an overdose in
Speaker 2: my studio and my friends found me at four in
Speaker 2: the morning, and they got afraid and they talked to
Speaker 2: my family and they ganged up on me and talked
Speaker 2: me into going into rehab.
Speaker 1: So you got it was an intervention.
Speaker 2: Then they did, and my mother said, you know you've
Speaker 2: got to get help, you know, you maybe Betty Ford
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: So I went to Betty Ford and they said.
Speaker 1: Was still around and would come to your house well
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: But they found me a room in scripts in La Jolla,
Speaker 2: and I went there and I thought I'd give it
Speaker 2: a day. And then my roommate that they gave me
Speaker 2: made me laugh, and that's what it took. It took
Speaker 2: laughing my way forward. And so I'll give it a day. Well,
Speaker 2: I'll give it another day. And we would write poetry
Speaker 2: and we would draw and cover the walls, and we
Speaker 2: sit and smoke cigarettes by the window and laugh till
Speaker 2: three in the morning, and then get up at seven
Speaker 2: and start again.
Speaker 1: And you're still in touch with this person.
Speaker 2: I am, And unfortunately he is diminished in his He
Speaker 2: went out a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: So they didn't stay cleans over then.
Speaker 3: He didn't, and entirely he has been for years.
Speaker 2: But then he started having a bunch of seizures and
Speaker 2: so he lives a really quiet, slow life now and
Speaker 2: is not the guy that was going one hundred miles
Speaker 2: an hour and making me laugh all the time. But
Speaker 2: he was really the reason that I got sober. And
Speaker 2: then the counselor came in about two weeks in and
Speaker 2: he said, you know, you've got a lot of anger issues.
Speaker 2: Maybe you should get a sense of humor. You don't
Speaker 2: have a sense of humor about who you are and
Speaker 2: where you've been, what you've done, and where you're going.
Speaker 2: You're in for a rough ride. Life gets tricky. And
Speaker 2: a bell went off in my head and I woke
Speaker 2: up the next morning and started meditating.
Speaker 1: I'd learned to meditate back with the Beatles. And you
Speaker 1: meditated with the Beatles.
Speaker 2: Well, I learned because of them, all right, okay, and
Speaker 2: they it you medicated near the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I started meditating and then I haven't stopped for
Speaker 2: thirty eight years. Meditate every day every day. I learned
Speaker 2: deeper kinds of meditation. I meditated last night from three
Speaker 2: thirty until five fifteen in the morning.
Speaker 1: What does that look like like? The you chant? Do
Speaker 1: you have? No?
Speaker 2: It's it is a focused kind of meditation. And I
Speaker 2: have an ultra that I had built twenty years ago
Speaker 2: by a Chinese artist post Sun, and it's made from
Speaker 2: wood from all over the world, from the Amazon and
Speaker 2: from Africa and the Himalayas, and it's really beautiful. And
Speaker 2: it's like a jigsaw puzzle with a secret ways to
Speaker 2: open the doors and secret compartments and things, and nobody
Speaker 2: sees the inside, but me has things that I find empowering.
Speaker 2: And I do a focused meditation.
Speaker 1: I ended up.
Speaker 2: It's a kind of a combination between vedanta that I
Speaker 2: learned in the seventies and then self realization crea yoga,
Speaker 2: and it's a highly focused kind of meditation that takes
Speaker 2: you into a breathless state. So you get to a
Speaker 2: place where your body gets so quiet that your fingers
Speaker 2: are numb, and your body feels like it's the skin
Speaker 2: of a soap bubble, you know, maybe a foot away.
Speaker 1: Sounds like that thing you were getting in Arizona that
Speaker 1: was desputal. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's everything I ever wanted in drugs, but with
Speaker 2: no downside.
Speaker 1: So this is then, so when your life, when you
Speaker 1: get clean and over, this is when the mid deities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now that's when everything changed, right and it literally did.
Speaker 2: I when I got when I came back to La
Speaker 2: I got into martial arts, I started doing yoga, I
Speaker 2: meditated every day, I went to meetings. I was being
Speaker 2: of service. I was happy being alone and not in
Speaker 2: a marriage where I was fighting all the time. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to ever have another relationship. And nine months
Speaker 2: into my sobriety, a guy that worked for me met
Speaker 2: a beautiful model at the bank and brought her over
Speaker 2: to the studio.
Speaker 1: They're doing. Now I have to say, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very fond of you, Shadow, but the best part
Speaker 1: of you is Beverly. There's no question. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: get it. My wife is just a work of hers
Speaker 1: a spectacular human being. She really tacular human being. Now,
Speaker 1: for people that don't know Beverly, let's talk because she
Speaker 1: I think a law of the joy of your life
Speaker 1: is your is your I mean, when I observe you,
Speaker 1: the joy of your life is your wife and kid.
Speaker 1: You know that it seems to be you. You give
Speaker 1: the most wholesome Christmas cards every year, you and the
Speaker 1: kids all wearing outfits, and I mean it's spectacular. And
Speaker 1: now the grand kids as well, and everyone is very beautiful.
Speaker 1: They are so talk to me about because Beverly is
Speaker 1: not just beautiful. He's a very unusual person. Beverly. I
Speaker 1: kind of halfway think maybe she should be a guest
Speaker 1: here because she could easily be. Yeah, because she has
Speaker 1: this JOI de vive this joy of life. So what
Speaker 1: happens when you when you meet what's it like?
Speaker 2: You know what it's I walk in the room and
Speaker 2: I'm happy being alone, remember, and I say, hey, so hi, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to be cool because the most beautiful
Speaker 2: person I've ever seen in my life, and she's African American,
Speaker 2: never occurred to me to date. I just didn't. I
Speaker 2: grew up in North Dakota. There weren't any black people
Speaker 2: in North Dakota. I have no frame of reference at all.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking at this out of the side of
Speaker 2: my eye. So why do you play her?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should play the assumptions. And she leaves and
Speaker 2: I say who was that? And he says, that's this
Speaker 2: international model. I met her at the bank. Does she sing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Get her back? So she came back.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I had sold a project that
Speaker 2: I wrote called Shadow Vision, which is crazy. It's sort
Speaker 2: of like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on speed and
Speaker 2: we were doing this jingle in it. The first thing
Speaker 2: we ever did together was to sing oh you perspire, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you perspire, oh and she go, I.
Speaker 1: Go okay, So we did that about it was so funny.
Speaker 1: We've been together ever since, so that I mean, you
Speaker 1: just get together and magic just now. Is this when
Speaker 1: your career starts to go in a little more of
Speaker 1: a mainstream to action then, because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well like right away, because I Federator was
Speaker 2: so popular all over the West Coast. It was the
Speaker 2: most the big the most successful advertising campaign regional advertising
Speaker 2: campaign in US history. And because you couldn't watch television
Speaker 2: without seeing these commercials, and they changed every ten days,
Speaker 2: so there was something new, something new, and they were
Speaker 2: all funny. And as a result of that, I got
Speaker 2: a three picture deal with Dino de la Rentis famous.
Speaker 1: So he gives you, he gives you a three picture
Speaker 1: deal as an actor.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, And I'm going off to do this movie Tracks,
Speaker 2: which was really exciting.
Speaker 1: And the tracks is are real. I mean that that's
Speaker 1: a it's a real find for people. Tracks is very insane.
Speaker 1: The tracks is t R A x X. Can you
Speaker 1: give us a brief rundown of the synopsis?
Speaker 3: That okay.
Speaker 2: Tracks is was a mercenary who is tired of the
Speaker 2: mercenary business and he just wants to be the next
Speaker 2: famous Amos. He wants to bake cookies, so he takes
Speaker 2: his savings and goes off to a cabin in Texas
Speaker 2: somewhere and starts baking sushi cookies and puppy swirls. And
Speaker 2: he just thinks these are really creative. They're terrible, and
Speaker 2: he runs out of money and he's brought into town.
Speaker 2: He goes into town as a town tamer, a town
Speaker 2: overrun by crime in the mafia, and he goes in
Speaker 2: to whip things together.
Speaker 1: Ah right, what's his name? Mike Tracks? No, just Tracks.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of things are really wrong with
Speaker 1: this movie. He didn't even give like a name like
Speaker 1: Bomb Tracks or something like this track Okay, and he
Speaker 1: bakes cookies, but he's a meericinary and he's coming to
Speaker 1: clean up the time. Yeah, so far, I think this
Speaker 1: is a great movie.
Speaker 2: It's pretty funny, and I met a lot of people
Speaker 2: who say it's one of their favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 2: Quentin Tarantino at your show, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I said,
Speaker 2: I want to introduce myself. The only guy ever introduced
Speaker 2: myself at your show, And I said, I'm just really here.
Speaker 1: I know you shadows Stevens tracks. Well, yeah, that's funny. No,
Speaker 1: it's a great movie.
Speaker 2: It's hilarious, and went, well, you just made my whole life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it is a thing people should know about
Speaker 1: that movie, because I haven't seen all of tracks, because
Speaker 1: I can't fight all of tracks. Yeah, I did it.
Speaker 2: I cut it down because it had the worst soundtrack
Speaker 2: in the history of movies, and I couldn't deal with it.
Speaker 2: It was really badly put together, and it was a
Speaker 2: really funny script, and it was made to be funny.
Speaker 2: Oh really yeah, absolutely funny and scathingly funny, and it
Speaker 2: would never get made today ever, right, So I cut
Speaker 2: out all the parts that didn't work and just made
Speaker 2: a more contemporary soundtrack and put it up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Well you're the director of the no. No.
Speaker 2: In fact, I went out the first day of shooting
Speaker 2: I had I was all excited. I went out in
Speaker 2: this beautiful set of this town and went, wow, this
Speaker 2: is great. And then I see that they have three
Speaker 2: electric chairs in the town square and the villains were
Speaker 2: in three different like those childhood pajamas with the footsies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and red, white and blue. And I'm horrified, and I.
Speaker 2: Go to the to the producer and I say, I've
Speaker 2: got a really good sense of humor.
Speaker 1: What is this? Yeah, people can love this, just that's
Speaker 1: so funny. And I wrote in my journal that night,
Speaker 1: We're doomed. This is never going to work. Out there
Speaker 1: going out and drinking every night and rewriting the script
Speaker 1: and putting in stupid stuff that you can't make this fun,
Speaker 1: so help you, No, it's not.
Speaker 2: And know in fact what happened is that Delorettas the
Speaker 2: company went bankrupt as it was being finalized, and Jay
Speaker 2: Leno had done a movie at the same time, and
Speaker 2: they were all like thrown together.
Speaker 3: And I think I remember that what was that bought them?
Speaker 1: What was Leno's movie? Do you remember? I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I think I then know you're talking about the way
Speaker 1: he was like he was also a kind of detectivey, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was the thing. Then, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: it got bought.
Speaker 2: By HBO and they showed it a few times and
Speaker 2: it was deeply disappointed. But at the same time, Hollywood
Speaker 2: squares coming along. Now the guy that put me on
Speaker 2: the Steve Allen Show comes back with Hollywood Squares and
Speaker 2: he's going to produce a new Hollywood Squares. And he goes,
Speaker 2: I've got John Davidson and I got Joan Rivers, and
Speaker 2: I want you to do the voice of the show.
Speaker 2: And I did and it was the biggest hit of
Speaker 2: the year. It's so I was like number one. And
Speaker 2: he said, we want you to do the show and
Speaker 2: I went, no, I have a shot at acting and
Speaker 2: I really want to try, you know, And if I
Speaker 2: just do another announcing thing, and he goes, well, and
Speaker 2: so I turned it down and then comes back again.
Speaker 2: I turned it down again, and then he came back
Speaker 2: a third time. He said, how about with this, I'll
Speaker 2: put you in the square and we'll make it part
Speaker 2: of the show. And if you have to leave to
Speaker 2: go do like the movie and you come back, would
Speaker 2: you just be, you know, out for a while and
Speaker 2: then come back and tell us what And I went okay.
Speaker 2: And then Hollywood Squares turned into the biggest show in
Speaker 2: the world. It was like the number one show in America,
Speaker 2: and none of us saw that coming. So the combination
Speaker 2: of tracks, the disappointment, but then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's Hollywood Squares and then on the top of Hollywood
Speaker 2: Squares comes American Top forty And because you're.
Speaker 1: The voice of American rock and roll at this point,
Speaker 1: then the announcer of American rock and roll.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, Well, and it was and it grew into
Speaker 2: one hundred and ten countries and for the next seven
Speaker 2: years they flew me around the world to promote the show.
Speaker 2: So I was in Oslo, Norway, and Bali and Tokyo
Speaker 2: and everywhere, and it were and South Africa, and it
Speaker 2: was a really big deal, very exciting and a lot
Speaker 2: of fun.
Speaker 1: Did you have a lot of influence on music at
Speaker 1: that point then? Did you? Were you able to you know,
Speaker 1: pay can choose? You know.
Speaker 2: The thing about doing American Top forty two is because
Speaker 2: my entire career has been tongue in cheek, funny, satire,
Speaker 2: parody everything, every radio station, everything I'd ever written, all
Speaker 2: my commercials, everything had always been funny. Now I'm stepping
Speaker 2: into the shoes of the most earnest man in the
Speaker 2: history of mankind. Keep your feet on the ground and
Speaker 2: keep reaching for the stars.
Speaker 1: It's Casey case yeah, right, and the nicest guy in
Speaker 1: the world, and we were friends, had been friends for
Speaker 1: probably a decade.
Speaker 2: But here I am doing it and everybody's paranoid. And
Speaker 2: then they go like, well, I can't do that. So
Speaker 2: the first show that we recorded, the four hour show,
Speaker 2: took eighteen hours to record. We had the rewrite every
Speaker 2: sentence that I did because I couldn't do is that.
Speaker 2: I just it sounded awful talking like that, not like
Speaker 2: I was trying to mimic his voice, but just trying
Speaker 2: to find my own and humor. Okay, So where he
Speaker 2: would say keep your feet on the ground to keep reaching,
Speaker 2: so I would say, and remember, if the world is
Speaker 2: your oyster and you can't find your parole, you can
Speaker 2: always have lunch.
Speaker 1: Bye bye out there.
Speaker 2: But I also I used to say, your friend and
Speaker 2: the void the shadow when they said void.
Speaker 1: What the hell? Yeah, No, I like that your friend
Speaker 1: of avoid the shadow. Can you tell me why Shadow
Speaker 1: Stevens by the way, because if you're Terry, Terry Engside
Speaker 1: seems like a perfectly serviceable name to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not exactly a catchy radio name. No, that
Speaker 2: didn't work for me. And and at the beginning I
Speaker 2: named myself Jefferson Ka. I always thought, no, that would
Speaker 2: be like, you know, kind of soulful. And the first,
Speaker 2: the first big radio show I did in Fargo, they
Speaker 2: put me on and I did all R and B,
Speaker 2: which was all My favorite music was always black music,
Speaker 2: so I was like the black DJ Jefferson K on
Speaker 2: KQ W B and Fargo, and then I kept it
Speaker 2: when I went to Arizona. I went to the University
Speaker 2: of Arizona and I was working. I'm still Jefferson K.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I get the job in Boston. I'm heading across the
Speaker 2: desert in my white Corvette and I stop in Alama,
Speaker 2: go to New Mexico and I get out and I
Speaker 2: go to a phone booth and it says Atomic Testing Range,
Speaker 2: do not enter right across the street. It's like Pivotal
Speaker 2: And I call, I say I'm on my way, and
Speaker 2: they go, yeah, look, we're not gonna You're not gonna
Speaker 2: be able to use that name. There's a Jess Cain
Speaker 2: and the JJ Jeffries, and believe it or not, there
Speaker 2: was a Jefferson K here some years ago. So we
Speaker 2: gonna change your name. We're thinking of calling you shadow Man,
Speaker 2: shadow Lane or something, and went, that's the worst name
Speaker 2: I ever heard in my life. I was humiliated. Drive
Speaker 2: across country at one hundred miles an hour going Randy Road,
Speaker 2: Johnny Lane. I mean, I'm looking for names and billboards
Speaker 2: and signs and trying to think of now the time
Speaker 2: I get into Boston, I've got I've got a list
Speaker 2: of names that I could live with. And I hear
Speaker 2: on the radio and starting Monday Shadows Stevens sixty eight
Speaker 2: wrko No, I mean hell, oh no. And I was
Speaker 2: humiliated and was like, oh God, this is a dumb name.
Speaker 2: And then they would say that's not your real name,
Speaker 2: is it. So what I did is I came up
Speaker 2: with a backstory that I could live with. And the
Speaker 2: backstory was, well, you know, it's Native American. Really, yeah,
Speaker 2: do you know what tribe? I go, Well, I'm from
Speaker 2: North Dakota, So I suspect it's Mandan, could be Sue,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Oh really, So do you know what
Speaker 2: it means? Yes, it means he who walks with the light.
Speaker 2: No kidding, This is all a pack of lies, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I made it up, but it's true.
Speaker 3: And then it made me. It gave me my sense
Speaker 3: of humor.
Speaker 2: It gave me a whole way of looking at life,
Speaker 2: and I became it.
Speaker 1: So it was given to me by God. So you
Speaker 1: identify as you think of yourself as Shadow, stevensent You're
Speaker 1: not Terry.
Speaker 3: Oh for since probably nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for a while, I kept both names, and then
Speaker 2: I was Fred raided, and then it was Terry and
Speaker 2: Fred and I go to the bank and they go,
Speaker 2: who are you? And I went, I just can't go on.
Speaker 2: And I felt like who I decided to become. So
Speaker 2: I just changed it, you know, legally about nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're clean and sob. You're in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: you and Beverly together, You've had your children, and the
Speaker 1: greatest moment of your life rives you get the call
Speaker 1: from me to be the announcer. So true, so true.
Speaker 2: It was pivotal, And actually it came after a number
Speaker 2: of spectacular failures.
Speaker 1: I had, you know, done.
Speaker 2: Here, I am doing the biggest radio show in the world,
Speaker 2: and they decide to cancel it, to just go into
Speaker 2: distribution and made it so that I couldn't do another one.
Speaker 1: And the I'm in.
Speaker 2: Top ten sitcom Dave's World on CBS, and that went
Speaker 2: on for four years, and it was great fun.
Speaker 1: And that ended, and that's all right, pull camera sitcom.
Speaker 1: It's the best. Oh wow, it's like a couple of
Speaker 1: days a week, roll in we're a little bit, get
Speaker 1: paid a ton of money there and make people laugh.
Speaker 3: Oh it's great, greatest. So they all ended.
Speaker 2: And then my agent, who is Howard Stearn's agent, Don Buckwold.
Speaker 1: He you know what I interviewed with him when I
Speaker 1: first came to Hollywood. Well, yeah, he said I could.
Speaker 1: I was like, great, was the same agent as hows that?
Speaker 1: And then then I never heard from him again. There
Speaker 1: was a guy who worked in his office. Maybe I thought, now.
Speaker 2: I might have it worse than that, because I went
Speaker 2: with them and they never did anything. And then they
Speaker 2: asked me after everything fell apart, they asked me to
Speaker 2: find another agent. And then, of course by that time,
Speaker 2: everything's fallen apart, and I don't like what I'm doing,
Speaker 2: So I started a thing called Rhythm Radio based on
Speaker 2: my travels around the world finding all this music and
Speaker 2: other cultures.
Speaker 1: That was really fabulous.
Speaker 2: So for the next number of years I created Rhythm
Speaker 2: Radio and we built it up into being on the
Speaker 2: air in thirty countries and on the internet. In seven languages,
Speaker 2: and we sold it a year title sponsorship to ne
Speaker 2: SCFA and then the dot com crash happened and they said,
Speaker 2: you know, the internet's a fluke.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought it was going to be like CB
Speaker 1: Radio the internet, like people would kind of come and got.
Speaker 1: I think it might be here now for a little while.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to probably do well.
Speaker 1: So you when you and I are working together, then
Speaker 1: I quit and then leave you high and try again.
Speaker 1: And that is this when you start what you're doing now,
Speaker 1: which is Mantle Radio, which I did a couple of things.
Speaker 2: One of the things I did is I started a
Speaker 2: radio station for Sammy Hagar called Cabo Wabbo Radio and
Speaker 2: I designed studios for Cabo Cantina and they had studio
Speaker 2: radio that it was. It was actually really fabulous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't give good support from Sammy. We went to
Speaker 2: there was a service called Live Live three sixty five
Speaker 2: that broadcast radio shows and they had our stations and
Speaker 2: they had ten thousand, and we rose to number one
Speaker 2: in just a couple of months.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The title I came up with was Hot Rock Smuggled across.
Speaker 1: The Border from Mexico.
Speaker 2: And it was all up, all rock, all party, all
Speaker 2: the time, and it was you know, rock with all
Speaker 2: kinds of new rock and old classic but it was
Speaker 2: all fun and party music. And I had a guy
Speaker 2: to sell it. And I went to Sammy and I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I got a guy will sell it. And
Speaker 2: he said, I'm not going to pay anybody to sell.
Speaker 2: So I go back to the guy who had sold
Speaker 2: all over the world and sold to the Sultan of
Speaker 2: Dubai and to Steve Wynn in Las Vegas, and I said, well,
Speaker 2: he won't pay you, and he goes, fine, I'll do
Speaker 2: it for free for thirty percent. So I go back
Speaker 2: to sam and he say, you'll do it for three
Speaker 2: for thirty percent. Thirty percent.
Speaker 1: Fuck him, that's what he said. And I went there
Speaker 1: swore yes he did, and he you can't believe in
Speaker 1: anything anymore. I'm I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: It was like Santa Claus turning on yeah, and I
Speaker 2: realized it wasn't going anywhere, so you know, I had
Speaker 2: to let that one go, and then I started early
Speaker 2: mental radio was more like guests and things.
Speaker 1: Right, so tell me a little bit. We're going to
Speaker 1: play a little of metal radio because I know it's
Speaker 1: quite hard to understand, but can you give me a
Speaker 1: kind of idea of what mental radio is? Okay.
Speaker 2: Metal Radio was started at the beginning of the virus,
Speaker 2: when we were all shut down. It was March of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, and I realized everybody's freaking out, and I
Speaker 2: was a little edgy myself. And I've got this big
Speaker 2: studio and I thought, I've got to create something funny
Speaker 2: and uplifting, and I don't know what it'll be, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to start writing. And I started writing, and
Speaker 2: I started recording, and then I started like looking for music.
Speaker 2: And I called the guy that was my director and
Speaker 2: federated and he became a really world class music composer,
Speaker 2: and he said, I've got all this music I own.
Speaker 2: You can have anything you want, and he opened up
Speaker 2: the library. Now I have cinematic music. And I attracted
Speaker 2: a writing partner, Joshua Weinstein, who is a scriptwriter, and
Speaker 2: I said, here's how you write, here's how I taught
Speaker 2: him how to do it, and we hit it off,
Speaker 2: and now it's become twenty four episodes, eleven hours of
Speaker 2: stories and adventures and cereals with cliffhanger endings and parodies
Speaker 2: and it's quite funny. And if you listen with earphones,
Speaker 2: sounds come from behind you and characters move around in
Speaker 2: your head. It's deeply immersive. And I'll play you this.
Speaker 2: This is Melibu Beach Romance Biff Brando, known as Doctor
Speaker 2: Coatee Grapple on Loving Tomorrow, the number one soap on television,
Speaker 2: Lives with Piper, A star is so big.
Speaker 3: She only has one name.
Speaker 2: But Biff has a FLINGX Yes, but Biff has a
Speaker 2: fling with a barista and a coffee bean and tea
Speaker 2: leaf and tarzana, and she's named Coco poefs and things
Speaker 2: take a dark turn, very much like fatal attraction.
Speaker 4: Hey, this fitchen house catch and rays.
Speaker 2: And there she was Coco. He quickly flecks to six
Speaker 2: pack and smiled back. How could he forget the barista
Speaker 2: from coffee bean and tea leaf and tarzana and need
Speaker 2: flingn in the restroom beneath the hot breath of the
Speaker 2: hand dryer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I knew I'd find you. Loved the Billo bon
Speaker 4: board shorts. He looks so hot.
Speaker 1: Take a walk, he gazed at her.
Speaker 2: Cadie Moui, Jim Pooh, Kenne Kenny shades ample bosom and
Speaker 2: blonde hair wafting in the wind and flinched. He looked
Speaker 2: back at the house. Lucky that Piper, the love of
Speaker 2: his life, always slept late. He had to get cocoa
Speaker 2: out of here. He jumped off the deck.
Speaker 1: Dude, a sack rab move.
Speaker 4: He looks so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thanks, So what's up?
Speaker 4: I knew you and me were inevitable, biff when you
Speaker 4: ordered that triple shot low fat latte hint of vanilla
Speaker 4: one splendor, and it added up to six sixty six.
Speaker 1: I freaked.
Speaker 4: But when I did the life Path and Destiny on it,
Speaker 4: I realized that the root number was sex plus six
Speaker 4: plus six or eighteen and one plus eight is nine.
Speaker 1: Look, you're a beautiful woman, but I have a girlfriend.
Speaker 4: I did the eye chain on us. It's at nine
Speaker 4: in the second place means perseverance brings good fortune. So
Speaker 4: I will persevere all over you, FIV.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's that. So it's kind of it's a little
Speaker 1: bit old school radio as well, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I tried to bring you know, radio theater into the
Speaker 2: twenty first century, right and make it and I call
Speaker 2: it genetically altered humor. The whole conceit of it. The
Speaker 2: mythology behind it is that everything comes from a former
Speaker 2: Masonic temple somewhere in Hollywood, and I greet you there
Speaker 2: as the voice of reason in the middle of the madness.
Speaker 2: And there are theaters and labs and laboratories and the
Speaker 2: outlook chamber at the top, and it's all kind of
Speaker 2: an allegory for the brain. And we go in and
Speaker 2: we see these stories, these adventures in the theater or
Speaker 2: in the opera house, and they all have messes.
Speaker 1: So there are episodes.
Speaker 2: Called doubt and fear and gloom and faith and space
Speaker 2: and time and on and on, and each story is
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 3: I'll just play you one other one real quick. It's
Speaker 3: a shorter one.
Speaker 2: Dixon taekwonder Roga is a writer looking for trouble and
Speaker 2: he finds himself in Atrocity, kind of a town like
Speaker 2: the Bronx before it got nice. And he goes to
Speaker 2: Whalen's Kitten Kaboodle and meets a pile of muscles with
Speaker 2: a T shirt named Buddy Malone. Last time he saw
Speaker 2: Buddy was at the Alley cat Bull and food and
Speaker 2: puff and the virus that he had and got a
Speaker 2: jar and Dixon dropped it and the virus got out.
Speaker 2: But now he's meeting buddy again. So what do you
Speaker 2: got going? You heard about the giant lizards and ghosts? Yeah,
Speaker 2: taking over city. I got a blood hornet size of
Speaker 2: a bet and got him down in Argentina doing a
Speaker 2: little ransom the size of a bet.
Speaker 1: He got it here. Yeah, it's out in the truck.
Speaker 2: I followed him outside Whalen's hitting Kaboodle, past the dumpsters
Speaker 2: to Malone's Indigo Blue custom lowered nineteen fifty Chevy three
Speaker 2: fifty fuel injected pickup with flames on the hood and
Speaker 2: just the right amount of pinstripes, And there it was,
Speaker 2: on the real camel colored leather seats. A bell jar
Speaker 2: is so big it took two hands to pick it up. Fins,
Speaker 2: teeth and stingers, stingers like more than one, three rows
Speaker 2: of teeth looking air, and lots of stingers.
Speaker 1: He dropped the jar.
Speaker 2: I looked on at the hornet shark with its bat
Speaker 2: wings flapping and saliva coming out of three sets of teeth,
Speaker 2: and it opened its jaws and flew at my face.
Speaker 2: And suddenly I left my body and I could see
Speaker 2: what was happening.
Speaker 1: In slow motion.
Speaker 2: I could see it for what it was without being afraid,
Speaker 2: and I thought, wait a minute, it's not like it's
Speaker 2: a rhinoceros.
Speaker 1: They're big and they run.
Speaker 2: I could see it coming at me and it wasn't
Speaker 2: a shark, and it wasn't a bee. It was a
Speaker 2: freak and it was the size of a bat. Joy
Speaker 2: scratched it with my fist and it was stunned, stopped
Speaker 2: in the air, confused, and then it fell to the
Speaker 2: ground for the thunder and I stumped it with my foot.
Speaker 1: And I felt good. Wow. So where where do you
Speaker 1: get this? Where do we find it?
Speaker 2: Well, it's at mental Radio dot net, okay, And there's
Speaker 2: a free app that is for Apple or for Google Play,
Speaker 2: and you can just download it and put on your
Speaker 2: phones or you don't have to listen with your phones.
Speaker 2: But it's deeply it's a whole different experience. When you
Speaker 2: listen to their.
Speaker 1: Phonic experience, it sounds a little bit like it's influenced
Speaker 1: by the noises that you heard outside window window in
Speaker 1: Malibu when you're Psychosis Shadow Stevens, you have been and
Speaker 1: will always remain a joy to me. Thank you for coming
Speaker 1: to me. Thank you I appreciate being here. It is
Speaker 1: not all before,