Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Technically, CarMax is a virtual reality company. You
Speaker 1: can shop the lot virtually online, or you can see
Speaker 1: the cars in reality on the lot, or you could
Speaker 1: have the best of both worlds. We give you the
Speaker 1: freedom to shop or buy however you need. Like we said,
Speaker 1: virtual reality don't come for us tech people. It's car
Speaker 1: buying reimagined Carmacks. What were you doing thirty days ago?
Speaker 1: What did you eat? What did you listen to? Did
Speaker 1: you sing in the shower? Did you call your mom?
Speaker 1: Did you laugh? Did you cry? Do you even remember
Speaker 1: what day it was thirty days ago? Of course not,
Speaker 1: because thirty days is a long time, which is why
Speaker 1: CarMax gives you thirty long days to make sure you
Speaker 1: love your car. And if you don't love it, you
Speaker 1: can return it and get your money back the Carmacks
Speaker 1: thirty day money back warranty. It's car buying reimagined carmacksmit
Speaker 1: see carmacks dot com for details. I'm Katherine Townsend, host
Speaker 1: of the true crime podcast Helen Gone. On October two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, the Little Rock Police Department searched an abandoned
Speaker 1: car in a small residential part. The car belonged to
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Ebbie Stepic. Ebbie had vanished without a trace.
Speaker 1: I'm back in Arkansas trying to find out what really
Speaker 1: happened to Ebbie Stepa. Listen to Helen Gone on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Blood on the Tracks is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Double Elvis. Phil Spector was
Speaker 1: a musical genius, one of the most successful record producers
Speaker 1: of all time. He's now sitting behind bars serving a
Speaker 1: nineteen years to life sentence for murder. This is his
Speaker 1: story told by his so called friends. Is a special
Speaker 1: agent Paul Ramone with the Federal Bureau of Investigation work
Speaker 1: in case number double O four Dash ten Dash seven
Speaker 1: four one nine case subject of Specter Philip Harvey. This
Speaker 1: information pertains to the period and in August third, sixty
Speaker 1: six interview subject as Bruce Lenny Interview number one Dash
Speaker 1: thirty four DAST six five six Dash six six seven
Speaker 1: Spirit Confessional Recall number two Day jan two thousand three.
Speaker 1: People law believe is good, bad, good, and evil. Maybe
Speaker 1: he was. I don't know this music evil, free speech, evil,
Speaker 1: rock and roll, bulls music. All the First Amendment is
Speaker 1: free to speech, the right to say it. Whatever it
Speaker 1: is you want to say, you're the right to say it.
Speaker 1: But they can't police the bat out of somebody bad,
Speaker 1: and they can't beat it out of either, because there
Speaker 1: is no beating. To them all, there is this blood
Speaker 1: all the tracks. Chapter one, Phil Specter and Lenny Bruce. Look.
Speaker 1: Other people thought I was really wild, just really far
Speaker 1: out there. Like they thought that maybe I'd lost my mind,
Speaker 1: and maybe I had. I'm not talking about the so
Speaker 1: called obscenities and my act on stage. It wasn't even
Speaker 1: an act, Okay, I'm talking about later. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: after I've been arrested for the last time and people
Speaker 1: were bored with me. They moved on. I moved on
Speaker 1: to I moved into that house up in the hills,
Speaker 1: one off Hollywood Boulevard, just shot up the strip from
Speaker 1: Phil's place. People would visit and take one look at
Speaker 1: my study and it was a mess. And I could
Speaker 1: see that, Okay, I'd give him that it was a mess.
Speaker 1: It made sense in my mind, it made sense outside
Speaker 1: of my mind, made sense on paper. But to them,
Speaker 1: they saw something far out. There were hundreds of pieces
Speaker 1: of legal paper, you know, that yellow line stuff all
Speaker 1: over the floor. I wrote a word in the middle
Speaker 1: of each piece, just one word, a phrase, and then
Speaker 1: I'd ripped the page out toss it on the floor.
Speaker 1: I read another word on the next one, another phrase,
Speaker 1: just one one of the straight thoughts, and then I
Speaker 1: wropped a piece of paper up and tossed it on
Speaker 1: the floor with the others. Phil brought Mike Spencer up
Speaker 1: to the house. Mike was one of his piano guys,
Speaker 1: might get some friends with him. Phil was always bringing
Speaker 1: people by the house and say hello, Hey, come on,
Speaker 1: come meet Lenny. That's sort of thing, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Mike stood in my study just staring at the hundreds
Speaker 1: of pieces of paper on the floor. He couldn't believe
Speaker 1: that this was how a comedian worked. What can I say? Man?
Speaker 1: At that point, it was the only way that made
Speaker 1: sense to me. My life was all fucked. The judge
Speaker 1: finally came down on me with that narcotics thing, that
Speaker 1: junkie rat two hundred and sixty bucks one of year
Speaker 1: suspended sentence, a couple of years of probation that was
Speaker 1: after everything else, blue shirts, and put me in handcuffs
Speaker 1: from like six times during the first half of the sixties.
Speaker 1: They arrested me in San Francisco for saying cox sucker
Speaker 1: of all things. They arrested me in Los Angeles for
Speaker 1: saying schmuck. They squeezed me in Philadelphia, and that was
Speaker 1: for the junk I think city, Brother in love you
Speaker 1: dig And then they arrested me in Chicago, New York City.
Speaker 1: Nightclubs all over the country put me on a blacklist,
Speaker 1: A list of one brother. Let me tell you that
Speaker 1: I got yank from the stage of a burlesque club
Speaker 1: of all places, because I was too dirty. And they
Speaker 1: wouldn't even let me in the United Kingdom anymore or Australia.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to corrupt to kangaroo. So what can
Speaker 1: I say, man? I was drained physically emotionally. I was
Speaker 1: bankrupt too, and I couldn't keep from sticking that goddamn
Speaker 1: needle in my arm anymore. Phil was the only one
Speaker 1: who believed to me. Phil New destitute, Phil new loneliness,
Speaker 1: Phil Specter knew the face of a man who had
Speaker 1: been forsaken by his peers, by the beloved old guard establishment.
Speaker 1: I was penniless, addicted, I guess Phil so kindred spirit
Speaker 1: in me a brother. He took me to his place.
Speaker 1: I'm not Collina driving Beverly Hills. Jesus Christ, it was
Speaker 1: a fucking mansion. He let me use his office down
Speaker 1: on the strip. Through some money at me when I
Speaker 1: needed it. I feel even one on the MERV Griffith
Speaker 1: Show defended me in front of another film. Phil Foster,
Speaker 1: That old schmuck. Foster was this standoffice old prick who
Speaker 1: just finished telling MERV that he hated new music, the
Speaker 1: kind of music Phil was making. And then they bring
Speaker 1: Phil up from the wings and bush Foster with him.
Speaker 1: Fills there with his newsboy cap, holding on for dear
Speaker 1: life on top of his bushy hair, and his sideburns
Speaker 1: had been taken on a life of their own, taken
Speaker 1: over half his face. MURV introduces Phil as the king
Speaker 1: of rock and roll records, which he knew he was,
Speaker 1: and Foster can't see it because he's somewhat Sinatra crony.
Speaker 1: Foster starts beating on Phil the way those old girl
Speaker 1: comics do. It's all these pricks know what to do.
Speaker 1: It's like the verbal equivalent of sitting on top of
Speaker 1: someone's face. It's fucking rope man. It's lame. I record
Speaker 1: Lenny Bruce. Phil proclaimed right there on national television, and
Speaker 1: I was a mess man. Persona on Grata America knew it,
Speaker 1: and sure ship old Mr Griffin knew it too. Phil
Speaker 1: Specter didn't give one fuck that song by the Crystals
Speaker 1: that Phil wrote. He's a rebel, yeah, and I could
Speaker 1: have been written about me. I was else rebble and
Speaker 1: I yelled that rebble yelled louder than Phil Specter. Whatever dare. Okay,
Speaker 1: Bill Specter was not hit. His reputation preceded. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the tycoon of teen on that nonsense. He said he
Speaker 1: had his finger on the pulse of young America, that
Speaker 1: he turned something disposable into art. I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about that. That wasn't my world. Talked to me about Cannonball,
Speaker 1: Adderlie or Bill Evans, and I'm picking up when you're
Speaker 1: thrown down. Talk to me about Darlene Love and the
Speaker 1: Teddy Bears, and you've lost me. So when they say
Speaker 1: he had his finger on the pulse, I only ever
Speaker 1: saw his fingers wrapped around cold, hard cash. He took
Speaker 1: the pulse of money pretty damn well. He knew what
Speaker 1: it felt like to touch what it smelled like you
Speaker 1: could smell the residue of Chris Bills and his Caddyman.
Speaker 1: It was all over him like an after shave. Get
Speaker 1: the kind of money that allowed him to catch a
Speaker 1: flight from l A to San Francisco last minute on
Speaker 1: a Sunday evening. You see a midnight show by yours. Truly,
Speaker 1: he was just hanging around one Sunday afternoon and felt
Speaker 1: like getting out of the house. Threw down his bucks.
Speaker 1: United flight, this, United flight that, and he was at
Speaker 1: the Basin Street West when I took the stage at
Speaker 1: twelve sharp. Jesus, can you imagine that kind of cash?
Speaker 1: I was up to my eyeballs and dead at that point.
Speaker 1: I'd never lived comfortably again, so I thought I was,
Speaker 1: let's see maybe four grand in the hole at that
Speaker 1: point in the Basin Street West, you should have seen
Speaker 1: this place. Phil was there with some DJs from Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and then they were a handful of other people. A
Speaker 1: handful is generous man midnight on a Sunday. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like it used to be. I didn't even have enough
Speaker 1: cash to buy a pack of smokes that alone, goddamn fix.
Speaker 1: I felt like a schmuck. I couldn't let anyone know.
Speaker 1: I felt like a shark. So here comes Phil smells
Speaker 1: like dollar bills, crisp on sure, but crumpled ones to
Speaker 1: the ones you find at the bottom of your pockets,
Speaker 1: and you levies when you're doing laundry, bawled up, forgotten about.
Speaker 1: He wants me to come down to l A spend
Speaker 1: some time with him. He wants to produce some of
Speaker 1: my shows. He's got an idea for a residence at
Speaker 1: the found The Theater. He wants to release my next
Speaker 1: live album. Can I say he came on strong? And
Speaker 1: what did I known't even enough not to say no,
Speaker 1: I'm playing to a handful of sorry, asked Fox at
Speaker 1: the Basin Street West, one of the only gigs I
Speaker 1: could find at the time. I was broke. I was down,
Speaker 1: I was out. Here's this guy, He's basically rolling up
Speaker 1: the red carpet. He may have had the means, but
Speaker 1: he certainly was not hip. I mean, he may have
Speaker 1: talked the talk, he may have worn the shades about
Speaker 1: the collar of his pea coat and dangled the occasional
Speaker 1: cigaretta from his lips, but the man was the squarest
Speaker 1: of the squares. He didn't walk nor walk, but he
Speaker 1: liked how I walked the walg Phil looked at me
Speaker 1: and saw a guy with a dirty mom, the guy
Speaker 1: who said what he wanted, a guy who didn't give
Speaker 1: a fuck. He saw a drug addict. He saw a
Speaker 1: drug addict. Within a rest record longer than the personnel
Speaker 1: sheet for one of his Wall of Sound sessions, he
Speaker 1: was close to being a has been himself. Maybe he
Speaker 1: saw a kindred spirit in me, a couple of dried up,
Speaker 1: tossed out losers. He told me about how he had
Speaker 1: made the biggest songs in the world for acts simply
Speaker 1: turned the backs on him, and about the groups that
Speaker 1: he hit big with and then struggled to hit big
Speaker 1: with again, those Ronnetts and Righteous Brothers again not my
Speaker 1: bag man. And Phil told me that he was the
Speaker 1: true artist, the true architect, the one who allowed everyone
Speaker 1: else a few minutes of infamy on the dial and
Speaker 1: then it just all slipped from his hands. And you
Speaker 1: know what, I let him see whatever he wanted to see.
Speaker 1: Phil had the cash, and he wanted to give the
Speaker 1: cash to me, and that's all that mattered. He could
Speaker 1: put me on whatever pedestal he wanted. Sure, I hung
Speaker 1: out with him in l A, spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time at that old Wolworth mansion. Has sat down in
Speaker 1: the back of that caddy with him while we cruised
Speaker 1: down Labraa so he could grab a couple of dogs
Speaker 1: from pinks. I always gave a ship for that. It's
Speaker 1: all lips and assholes, Phil, I told him, made him laugh,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's what he needed me. I needed bread.
Speaker 1: I needed bread to buy my daughter a birthday present.
Speaker 1: Needed money for a pack of smokes, needed money for
Speaker 1: other things that I didn't tell Phil about. He was
Speaker 1: on a need and no basis, as was I. I
Speaker 1: suppose I went to Danny Davis for the cash. Phil's
Speaker 1: business manager. Phil told him to give me whatever I needed,
Speaker 1: no questions asked. One time I overheard Danny talking on
Speaker 1: the phone about how I was just a phase for Phil.
Speaker 1: The Phil went through people like he went through hit records.
Speaker 1: So I decided to double down, squeeze as much juice
Speaker 1: as I could get, lending my ear when Phil was
Speaker 1: looking for one to bend. Look. I knew about his past,
Speaker 1: I knew about the ship. He had a dirty asthma's
Speaker 1: allergy to sunlight. He was a fat kid. It was
Speaker 1: teased relentlessly. He never shook that thing with his father either.
Speaker 1: Phil told everyone that this old man had a heart attack,
Speaker 1: just some normal one of the mill cover story. But
Speaker 1: he told me the real story. He told me all
Speaker 1: the real stories. I'm telling you. The guy thought he
Speaker 1: was talking to himself, and he was talking to me.
Speaker 1: I can't explain it. He told me the thing that
Speaker 1: this old man was April. It was a big deal
Speaker 1: that it was April. For some reason, that fact really
Speaker 1: stuck in his brain for some time. Around then, he
Speaker 1: made some passing reference to debts, the organized crime, distress,
Speaker 1: and depression. That was the fuzzy part the party was
Speaker 1: clear about. It was the part where his old man
Speaker 1: parked his car on the curve of Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: took a two and put one end in the exhaust
Speaker 1: p put the other end in the front window, rolled
Speaker 1: the window uptight, and turned the car on. What a
Speaker 1: way to go? All right? I means ship. I don't
Speaker 1: know what do I know about taking it along full
Speaker 1: of carbon monoxide? It seems like a hell of a
Speaker 1: way to go. We'll be right back after this word
Speaker 1: word were what were you doing? Thirty days ago? What
Speaker 1: did you eat? What did you listen to? Did you
Speaker 1: sing in the shower? Did you call your mom? Did
Speaker 1: you laugh? Did you cry? Do you even remember what
Speaker 1: day it was thirty days ago? Of course not, because
Speaker 1: thirty days is a long time, which is why CarMax
Speaker 1: gives you thirty long days to make sure you love
Speaker 1: your car. And if you don't love it, you can
Speaker 1: return it and get your money back the Carmacks thirty
Speaker 1: day money Back Guarantee. It's car buying reimagined carmacksmit. See
Speaker 1: carmacks dot com for details. Technically, CarMax is a virtual
Speaker 1: reality company. You can shop the lot virtually online, or
Speaker 1: you can see the cars in reality on the lot,
Speaker 1: or you could have the best of both worlds. We
Speaker 1: give you the freedom to shop or buy however you need.
Speaker 1: Like we said, virtual reality don't come for us tech people.
Speaker 1: It's car buying reimagined Carmacks. Hi. I'm Katie Lows. You
Speaker 1: might also know me as Quinn Perkins from Scandal or
Speaker 1: Rachel from Inventing Anna. I'm also a mother to my
Speaker 1: son Albi and my daughter Vera. I wanted to create
Speaker 1: a space for open and honest conversations about all things parted,
Speaker 1: and I thought a podcast was the best way to
Speaker 1: do just that. Check out season five of my podcast,
Speaker 1: Katie's Crib. It is super raw, vulnerable, and hilarious. Katie's
Speaker 1: Crib in no way shape form is judgmental or telling
Speaker 1: you exactly how to parent or exactly how you should be.
Speaker 1: I think it really just makes you feel less alone
Speaker 1: and gives you a community. We're going deep with guests
Speaker 1: like inventing Anna's Anna club Ski, how to Get Away
Speaker 1: with Murders Asian Naomi King, and yes, sometimes my fun
Speaker 1: Albi when he burst into my studio. So that's cool.
Speaker 1: Listen to Hatis Cram every Thursday on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: One night, Bill wouldn't let me leave his car. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about that caddy a limo, right. The thing was
Speaker 1: a beast ship. A couple of guys like us could
Speaker 1: have lived in that thing for a few days. And
Speaker 1: this night I really thought that was gonna happen, that
Speaker 1: we live in the thing. He just didn't want me
Speaker 1: to leave him, not that, not yet. It was so
Speaker 1: late and the sun was almost up again. It was
Speaker 1: late it was early. What was the difference? Phil and
Speaker 1: I were both living the kind of lives that didn't
Speaker 1: pay attention to the day of the week, let alone
Speaker 1: what hour it was. He sat in the back of
Speaker 1: that caddy together, one across from the other. He just
Speaker 1: kept talking to me. I would make a movement, motioned
Speaker 1: towards the door. He put a hand up, asked me
Speaker 1: another question and asked me where I was going? Tell
Speaker 1: me another story? Hey, Lenny, did I tell you about
Speaker 1: the time? Give me a reason to stay the caddie
Speaker 1: i'le We sat talked until we ran out of things
Speaker 1: to talk about. When he had nothing else to talk about,
Speaker 1: we listened to the engine harming per He didn't want
Speaker 1: to go back to his place all alone. The guy
Speaker 1: was the biggest pot producer on the planet did but
Speaker 1: he was always alone. Charles Foster came going back to
Speaker 1: Xantitude for another lonely night. We had just driven back
Speaker 1: from Cancers out on Fairfax Joint Coacher scene and be
Speaker 1: seen the whole scene, the whole night. You are the
Speaker 1: knock worst, the knock worst that cancers have. You had
Speaker 1: it out of sight. It was late, so late, nighthawks
Speaker 1: at the Diaming League. Probably two am. Doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: late it gets in l A. The lights are always
Speaker 1: on the neon hums above the storefront. Sounds like steak
Speaker 1: sizzling on the grill. And it's bright too, manh It's
Speaker 1: sometimes l A at night. It feels more alive than
Speaker 1: it does during the day. Is that big electric hum
Speaker 1: before nineteen North Fairfax Cantors, Fairfax open twenty four hours
Speaker 1: Bakery Delicatessen. You can tell what time it was by
Speaker 1: the crowd of cancers. You didn't need to watch. If
Speaker 1: the joint was full of a bunch of octogenarians taking
Speaker 1: long slopes of suit, it was midmorning. The place was
Speaker 1: jumping with a bunch of wire kids, kicking out from
Speaker 1: the last party and looking for the next one. It
Speaker 1: was two am. Phil took me with him to meet
Speaker 1: with Frank Sappa that night. Phil, one of the company,
Speaker 1: wanted a familiar face with him in case Frank bored
Speaker 1: him to tears. Of course, he brought one of his
Speaker 1: bodyguards with The two might have a big red. Phil
Speaker 1: thought he was the most important person in the world,
Speaker 1: and the bodyguard helps sell that image. Was the ultimate
Speaker 1: hustle Frank was doing a little hustling himself. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the big labels were a bit skeptical of him. Everyone
Speaker 1: was skeptical of whom in his band. The Mother's are invention,
Speaker 1: long hairs, beards, looked like a bunch of acts murderers,
Speaker 1: he did. Frank needed a label to release his first record.
Speaker 1: He thought, maybe Phil get involved, put it out on
Speaker 1: his Phillies label. I think Frank saw fellow outcast, a
Speaker 1: fellow member of the French Frank thought he had found
Speaker 1: his meal ticket. Sure, and of course there was Frank's
Speaker 1: idea of Fringe, and then there was Phil's idea of Fringe,
Speaker 1: and the two were light years apart. Frank brought this
Speaker 1: cat with him, Danny Bruce. Danny Bruce, no ship, I said,
Speaker 1: are you shooting me? Who the fuck is this guy?
Speaker 1: He had to be working with me, right, am I? Right,
Speaker 1: Danny fucking Bruce. I looked this guy straight in his
Speaker 1: eyes and I said, are you working with me? Man?
Speaker 1: I swear I thought it was some cosmic joke, some
Speaker 1: cosmic two am joke on Junkie Jones and for something
Speaker 1: sharp and hot at the Kosher Delhi on Fairfax, And
Speaker 1: Denny Bruce said no, man, I'm Danny Bruce, no relation,
Speaker 1: no ship. Frank starts talking about how he changed his
Speaker 1: name as a tribute to me, so Danny corrects him.
Speaker 1: The name has nothing to do with me. His room
Speaker 1: name was Leonard Schneider, and he needs something a little
Speaker 1: less jew and a little more going for show biz.
Speaker 1: I get that, me and Frank who got into it.
Speaker 1: He looked at me and saw a kindred spirit. Frank
Speaker 1: thought I was some besiah, no joke. All Frank wonder
Speaker 1: was the question authority against authority, And here he had
Speaker 1: the guy who took that anti authority chat all the
Speaker 1: wags of the bitter end. I couldn't have cared less Jack, Jack, Frank,
Speaker 1: whatever the fucking name is. I just needed to get
Speaker 1: through the social engagement so that I could feel okay.
Speaker 1: But I hit and Phil up for some more cash,
Speaker 1: which of course meant more junk. And then we were
Speaker 1: back home, the Caddy limo rolling up to my place
Speaker 1: out on West Hollywood Boulevard, way up there in the
Speaker 1: weeds of Tinseltown. I just needed to fix That's all
Speaker 1: I could think about. It's all I thought about all night.
Speaker 1: They filled any idea. He didn't care. He wouldn't know
Speaker 1: a needle if it jumped from the ground and poked
Speaker 1: him in their ass. I kept my secrets pretty close
Speaker 1: to the vest. Phil's secrets weren't kept at all, at
Speaker 1: least not around me. They tumbled out, they spewed forth,
Speaker 1: they were blurted. There was no embargo on the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that came out of his mouth. He used
Speaker 1: the stories to keep me hanging around after he doled
Speaker 1: out the money, like to think about his old man.
Speaker 1: And now in the car outside my place, way out
Speaker 1: in the Willie Wags of Hollywood Boulevard, he was telling
Speaker 1: me more secrets, secrets that would buy him a few
Speaker 1: more minutes with me, a few more minutes before he
Speaker 1: had to be alone again. He was telling me about
Speaker 1: the time he got pissed on by a couple of
Speaker 1: kids have followed him into a bathroom after he just
Speaker 1: played a show, The Teddy Bears, that's what they were called,
Speaker 1: which I mean, in all fairness, sounds like the name
Speaker 1: of a band that wants to get piste on in
Speaker 1: a men's bathroom, if you know what I'm saying. Here's
Speaker 1: Phil and his flat top and embroidered sweater. He's the
Speaker 1: manifestation of a mark a square. And this is back
Speaker 1: when he couldn't hide be in the square. It's so
Speaker 1: lay fifties. I think he said it was in New York,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter. These kids he feel performed. And
Speaker 1: then when he heads into the men's room there on
Speaker 1: his tail, he has no clue. A couple of them
Speaker 1: whole fill down on the floor. Another one keeps watching
Speaker 1: at the door, and another one on zips his khakis
Speaker 1: and just pisces all over him. Humiliates. Phil is like
Speaker 1: twenty years old, breaking into show biss and he's being
Speaker 1: held down against the cold, wet tile of a nondescript
Speaker 1: men's room while pisces raining down on him. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: why I felt a connection with me. He was humiliated
Speaker 1: on the floor of the bathroom by some holier than that.
Speaker 1: Thus I was humiliated on the stage by some holier
Speaker 1: than the cops. Phil Specter was absolutely fucking nothing like me,
Speaker 1: but he thought he was man. What else he thought?
Speaker 1: I'd never know? And that was last night I ever saw.
Speaker 1: August thirty six to five West Hollywood Boulevard, not the
Speaker 1: iconic Hollywood Boulevard that runs parallel to Sunset Bulevard. But
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Boulevard that passes over Laurel Canyon, The Hollywood
Speaker 1: Boulevard that retreats up the hill, the one that hides
Speaker 1: him on the oaks and sycamores and eucalyptus trees, the
Speaker 1: one that gets squirrelly, twisted, winding, shady, obscured. That's the
Speaker 1: Hollywood Boulevard. The sirens raced up that night. A little
Speaker 1: to the west, the phone rang in Phil Specter's house.
Speaker 1: Were traveled fast. Phil answered the phone, listen to the
Speaker 1: voice on the other line, didn't say a word. Within seconds,
Speaker 1: he slammed the receiver down so hard it made the
Speaker 1: bell ring on the base of the rotary. Phil grabbed
Speaker 1: Danny Davis by the shirt collar, pulled him quickly from
Speaker 1: the house, and they ran outside. They tore ass to
Speaker 1: the white caddy. Phil yelled at Danny, told him to
Speaker 1: get in the car and told him to drive fast.
Speaker 1: They needed to get over to Lenny's place as quickly
Speaker 1: as fucking possible. They needed to be there ten minutes ago.
Speaker 1: They avoided the strip and went the back roads. They
Speaker 1: hit to he Neat Too, Sunset Hills, right onto Oriole
Speaker 1: and then thrash her app rising Glen Road, Sunset Plaza Drive,
Speaker 1: and finally banged a hard right on the Hollywood Boulevard.
Speaker 1: There were cops outside Lenny's place. When they arrived, bright coplights.
Speaker 1: Phil was out of the caddy and pacing furiously towards
Speaker 1: the front door. The cops were standing around, talking low,
Speaker 1: mumbling under their breath, smoking cigarette butts with red hot
Speaker 1: ends flicked to the ground, filled it and stopped to
Speaker 1: ask questions or announce his presence. Phil was inside now.
Speaker 1: He followed the cops, made his way into the living room,
Speaker 1: passed the kitchen, more cops towards the bathroom. Even more cops,
Speaker 1: and they were like a trail of breadcrumbs, those cops.
Speaker 1: And they led Phil Specter right to what he'd been
Speaker 1: told he would find Lenny Bruce dead on the floor
Speaker 1: next to the john, his pants around his ankles, a
Speaker 1: needle at his arm, gloated, half naked, exposed, humiliated. Lenny
Speaker 1: was gone, daddy O. Phil looked around at the bathroom
Speaker 1: full of cops, These goddamn cops. They persecuted Lenny, harassed him,
Speaker 1: told him what he could and couldn't say, told him
Speaker 1: which jaks he could tell, told him what words he
Speaker 1: could say, pulled him from the stage, put him in handcuffs,
Speaker 1: chewed him up, spat him out, left him for dead.
Speaker 1: Lenny wasn't the only one exposed and humiliated on a
Speaker 1: bathroom floor. Phil also thought back to his own bad
Speaker 1: memory in a bathroom. Bathrooms were a bad scene, man,
Speaker 1: and this scene was the worst. His heart pounded. He
Speaker 1: felt himself losing control of his better judgment. He was
Speaker 1: on his knees now, and the cops tried to haul
Speaker 1: him away, but he stood his ground. You did this,
Speaker 1: he shouted at every batch in the room. You killed him.
Speaker 1: An overdose of morphine. Fucking ponderous. It was an overdose
Speaker 1: of police, plain and simple. Phil couldn't shake the police.
Speaker 1: They came by his office soon after Lenny's stat fist
Speaker 1: full of photos from the scene in Lenny's bathroom. The
Speaker 1: raw shots of Lenny Lang prone in the bathroom tile
Speaker 1: looked like something from Luigi's portfolio. The cops joke that
Speaker 1: maybe Phil wanted to buy them for one of his
Speaker 1: album covers. It was a sick joke, but Phil took
Speaker 1: it as a serious offer. How much he asked five
Speaker 1: grand sold it was a small price to pay to
Speaker 1: keep them out of someone else's hands, and it was
Speaker 1: the last piece of Lenny that he could hold on to.
Speaker 1: Phil couldn't shake Lenny. He paid for the funeral, delivered
Speaker 1: the eulogy. He hung a giant poster of money directly
Speaker 1: above his bed, larger than life. In it, Lenny's gaze
Speaker 1: was tired but foreboding, the look of a man far
Speaker 1: past his prime, bloated, worn out, scatter rained on junk.
Speaker 1: Phil would climb into bed, find comfort in Lenny's gaze
Speaker 1: wearing down on him, But his wife, Ronnie Specter, would
Speaker 1: lay next to him, Unable to close her eyes. She'd
Speaker 1: turn on her side, her stomach, but she always felt
Speaker 1: Lenny's eyes following her, burning into her, judging her. She
Speaker 1: would roll onto her back, look up at the overbearing
Speaker 1: image of the man her husband briefly idolized his Socrates,
Speaker 1: he would say, and she felt that something was terribly wrong.
Speaker 1: She felt it was an omen a warning from on
Speaker 1: the grave and above her bed, something evil. There is
Speaker 1: no good, and there is no evil. There's only blood
Speaker 1: on the tracks. This episode of Blood on the Tracks
Speaker 1: is brought to you by twenty seven Club, a podcast
Speaker 1: that I host on Musicians who Died at the Age
Speaker 1: of Season two, featuring Jim Morrison is now available, as
Speaker 1: is season one, with twelve episodes featuring Jimmy Hendrix. Subscribed
Speaker 1: to The Seven Club on Apple podcast, I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: app or wherever you get your podcast, and of course,
Speaker 1: this episode was also brought to you by Disgrace Land,
Speaker 1: the award winning music and true crime podcast also hosted
Speaker 1: by Yours Truly. Episodes on The Rolling Stones, Jerry Lewis,
Speaker 1: Cardi b, The Grateful Dead, J C. Prince, and many
Speaker 1: many more are all waiting for you right now. Just
Speaker 1: search Disgrace Land on Apple podcast, I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast, All right. This episode
Speaker 1: of Blood on the Tracks was written by Zeth Lundi
Speaker 1: and scored in mixed by Matt Boden, posted by me
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan. Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker
Speaker 1: and Henry Lunetta. Blood on the Tracks is produced by
Speaker 1: myself for Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot
Speaker 1: com on the Blood on the Tracks serious page. If
Speaker 1: you like what you here, please be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: to Blood on the Tracks on Apple podcast, I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app wherever you get your podcasts, and if you'd
Speaker 1: like to win a free Blood on the Tracks poster
Speaker 1: designed by Nate Gonzalez, and leave a review for Blood
Speaker 1: on the Tracks on the Apple podcast. You can hashtag
Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks on social media. Leave a review
Speaker 1: there and we'll pick two winners each week and announce
Speaker 1: them on the Double Elvis Instagram page that's at Double Elvis.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and give that a phone alright. As always,
Speaker 1: you can find me blabbing about other crazy rock stars
Speaker 1: on Disgrace Land and twenty seven Club, and you can
Speaker 1: talk to me per usual on Instagram and Twitter at
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Speaker 1: I'm Elliott Kalin, comedian, author, history buff and host of
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