Californication

or something like that? Let me see one, two, three, yeah, three, wow, three weekends until Christmas. I'm a double XCEL gang, just just putting it out there, you know, to make it easier for your people. I'm only kidding. Talk to Agavino the other day about me. I'm definitely giving you guys a final exam, and it will come before the end of the year, and you better know that I'm going to go look for answers to questions from year one.

So those of you who weren't involved, or can I tell you those of you who are longtimers, tippy toppers, oh creaming the croppers, shouldn't get these wrong. But there's a lot of things on our mind, so I get it it could be a bit of an issue for some people. I'm not sure the logistics how I'm going to make it happen, How you get your answers to me? And who I consider the winner or let's say top three winners. I'll get some merch out to you guys.

That Acabino's got a box of merch sitting in storage. It's gone to three different, three different addresses these days, but it's sitting there. So that's coming up. By the way, I'm looking at myself on this on this app or platform that I record the show on riverside, and maybe it's the room in the outside Vegas, the strip and the lights behind, but I have a green hint to my face. It reminds you of oh God, minds you of wicked, which I fucking can't stand it anymore. How

does anybody look? I understand families of lovingness. Once again, this is not for dads. Yes, you could take your little girls to see it or girl, whatever you want. I'm sure you'll get a kick out of what she loves, just like we all sat through some of the shitty animated movies of our past. If the kids loved it, I loved it millions. I'd rather kill myself than watch minings with another baby, But I did it. You know, we all watch things five hundred times that the movies

the next time kid go to sleep. I get it. But wicked enough these two Arianna and Arivo, with the way they're acting toward each other. And the green By the way, did you know there is actually I forget where I'll do more of this tomorrow. There's a trigger warning now for some people who see the movie because of the green skin. I forget the entity, but some people think it might be. You know, this movie could be triggering for those with green skin. Who are these

people with green skin? Are their livers? That bad? Who? The grinch? Who's green? I don't know. I'll give you more on that tomorrow. Sorry about the sound on my bracelet hitting the glass table, but I'm into a Johnny Depp brain. Well I'm always a bracelet man. But now I got like four in each rist with things hanging from them, which I found little crucifixes. What have you I need to help? I can get I saw something funny on Instagram. Today, a husband was dropping off his

wife at her high school reunion. Look to be in their late forties, right, And she's giggling as she gets out of the car, and her husband's like, I have a good time. I guess he figured I don't want to go to these things. I know nobody. You're from a different state, friends I've ever met. It's uncomfortable for a party to go to a you know, a reunion like that. You just want to talk and get lost in your years of high school. And there's your husband

and wife sitting there doing nothing. So he's dropping her off and as she's about to leave, she goes, He's like, have fun, honey. She goes, I will, and she turns back and goes, remember somebody these guys fingered me. I mean that just killed me. They have that kind of relationship, and I love it. It's very funny, and they allowed it. I liked that they allowed on Instagram. You know, if they didn't allow on Facebook, I'm throwing off Facebook for

a while. Well, I'm looking at Jennifer Flavan and Stallone right now on Sean Hannity, sly looks better than he looks. On Tulsa King, but Jennifer Flavan still looking good. Yeah. And then when I went to Slis house way back in ninety six, she was under the weather in the living room, under a big blanket, and I walked in and he introduced us, and you know, it's kind of strange to see her under a blanket sick while stallone showing me the house and everything. But yeah, so Facebook

kicks me off for a week. You know. I posted a picture of Roxy and Rocco when they were kids, when we lived with Rosalie. And Roxy's in a bikini. She's seven years old, a little yellow bikini, nothing revealing. She's running on the lawn and there's her brother, three or four years old, probably three, in a diaper and no top but his long blonde hair, and they're both running around the lawn having fun like kids doing faithbook. No,

this is coming down nudity, nudity. Did they think Rocco was a girl because his hair is so long and his nipples are out? What's nudity? Can't show my kids? And they tell you, Okay, we have make a decision. We're gonna throw you off for a week. Here's why do you want to appeal it? Yeah, I do. And you can't even tell them what they got wrong. There's

no place for that to write that in anyhow. By the way, I'm not glad this happened, but it happens often enough that people who are out there trying to get followers and be so oh be that person with the perfect post on Instagram, it just well. Look a Russian born vacationer in Thailand. She's there with a boyfriend and she decides, I'm going to strike a beautiful yoga post on this gorgeous cliff in Thailand. And you could

see her. She's struggling because she is on the cliff in a beautiful yoga pose and the water's coming in. Suddenly a big wave comes and knocks her off the rock. Now you see in the footage she's struggling. There's currants, and the water is getting all choppy and white. Some guy who saw this jumps in the water to try to help her. It was unsuccessful, and no one knows where he went. But she, this woman Belatskaya, she called this beautiful spot, she called it home. She called it

the best place on earth. While she died there, all you could see was her pink yoga mat swept away in the ocean, and then somebody named Chaia porn Suprasert. He's the head of the rescue center in Thailand. He's telling Look, he says, we have warning systems everywhere around the beaches. We tell tourists of the possibility of bad

swimming and coastline conditions. And he says, you know, during monsoon season, we constantly warned tourists, especially in high risk areas like Chiwang and Lamai beaches where red flags indicate no swimming. She wasn't swimming, mister super Whatever the fuck, mister Supersata, She wasn't swimming. She was sitting on her ass. This is why I can't love yoga, or can I be honest. Outside of Shiji Levanzi, who's a yoga fanatic

yoga people, I can't. My brother law, the wife's the wife's sister and her husband were yoga people, and the way they talk, and I know what they're really like in person, and yet they act like everything's under control. I mustay bullshit. I know these people underneath, they know different than you or I. They fly off the handle, they say things that don't mean, they do crazy stupid shit. Now mistake. How about not my ass stay because they're

full of shit. I don't know why yoga people always think everyone else wants to see them doing their stretchers outside at the park, on the beach, at a lake in the oceans, in a boat where you're eating lunch. We don't want to see it. If she did yoga in her hotel room, she'd still be alive, and so with the good Samaritan and tried to help her. You watch, and a week democrats will call it climate change. The

woman died because of climate change. Just the term swept away, it's a very scary term, but I'll tell you it does remind me. Boy, when I was a kid, thirteen years old, maybe there was a movie called swept Away, famous movie, foreign film. Obviously, one night my father comes down the stairs. I got the TV to myself. I don't know what I was watching, but I know whenever

he came downstairs, it means he couldn't sleep. And I'd hear the hand down the banister and he would always say the same thing, more or less, and it was, why don't you make Papa a Scotch? All right? Dad? And he'd sit in his requirer I'd go behind the bar. We had a little bar in the living room. Make a miss Scotch and water. What have you? Always take a little sip. I touch it to my lips. Oh my god, it was so powerful back then as a kid. He didn't stop me, only let it. I just a

little bit to my lips. He would say, good, you like it? No, good, don't like it. Well I ended up liking it, but that's not his fault. So he goes, let's see what's on home box He loved it. No one called it HBO. But then let's see what we got on a home box office. So it was swept Away. Great, great film by the filmmaker Lena Wertmueller, terrific director. The actual name of the film was Swept Away by an

Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August. I love it so basically in this movie, no spoilers, but it's been fifty years, guys, it's a trip. They're on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea and basically it becomes a trip into the discovery of how society's frameworks of the rich and poor are very delicate and also temporary. It's a lot about class warfare in Europe. So it starred one of the best Italian actors ever, gian Carlo Giannini. I love him, and an actress named mari Angelo Melatto.

So Malatto, blue blonde eyed, from Northern Italian, Northern Italy, right, and she represented the rich capitalists, you know, the white Italy. She spoke Milanaise Italian with a you know, kind of a French inflection, which a lot of Northern Italian people have that sort of pride about them. Well, Jane Carlo gene Edie, he's a dark skinned guy, he's kind of uncouth, he's uneducated. He's like me, Sicilian speaks with a very thick Sicilian accent. You know, I'm halfnboly Tan too. I

never give my mother credit. She half of her was Neapolitan, so you know I got that knowing for me too, which is a wonderful trait. Neopolitans are always very you know, they like to calm shit down, Let's have peace, no more fighting. Sicilians are looking for way to put the knife in your back. Neopolitan's very diplomatic, and that's exactly

my mother and my father. But now this guy on the boat who's driving her, is this lower class, all right, which really back then they considered black, honestly, and throughout the whole film, and you gotta see this movie, he tells her, you have to address me now as mister coruncio or a master, because he's been humiliated so many times by people of her ilk to be an underdog in the Italian society. He's gonna now take revenge on this woman. And he begins to really, you know, handle

her and give her a hard time. He slaps her a few times whenever he's at a loss for words, which is a lot. He's maxer. I mean, he's very evil, right, but don't forget this guy's lived with humiliation and misery all his life from people just like her. And there's this rape scene, so called rape scene. This is when he's at his most angry, and you know he's sitting there. I'll never forget this scene because I'm twelve years old.

Thirteen maybe now d never happens. But he's telling her what he's gonna do, and he's using racial slurs, very derisive language. And in this scene he tells her I'm in complete control now, I mean it's in Italian, but he's saying he's in complete control, and before they consummate the sex. What she eventually does, she starts to like him the way he is. She starts to like being told what to do by him. It's very uh, I don't know, it's very dark, and uh, what's the word. Uh?

I can't take of the word primordial. That's the word, right, because you know, she hasn't had much affection because of who she is. And they have this love affair, and he tells her when he's seducing her, he's behind her and in her ear he says to her, I am subdomizing you. I'm sudomizing you. And I knew it was a kid. Excuse me, I knew it was a kid. What's that word sodomized? I sees behind her. I didn't

couldn't put two and two together. And my father just says, yeah, he's screwing her from the back, just turns to his right and tells that to his young son. Oh okay, yeah, okay, I'm not gonna tell you more. See the movie, but don't make a mistake, and see there swept away made by Guy Ritchie that starred Madonna. That is hell. Don't do it. It's garbage. Actually Madonna. You know, I had the brilliant idea to rewrite the movie Ladulce Vita, to

rewrite the screenplay. I said, I'm gonna write leadulce Vita. I'm gonna rewrite it and take it out of Italy and put it in New York City and even Miami. I'm gonna make it all different. I went scene for scene and just like like a doctor, I said, okay, this scene instead of Italy, instead of this, it's gonna be this person, this girl. I knew the next scene,

and I the whole movie like that. I called it Beautiful Lies, and I had a lot of respect for it because I said, look, if anybody can rewrite Adultivita, it's me. Marcello Mastroani is apparently related to me somehow, someway he started in that movie. He played a gossip columnist. I'm a gossip column both Italian. Well, give me a break. This has got to be the movie that I do. Right. But you know, suddenly swept the way comes out with Madonna and the word was out, nobody will remake famous

Italian cinema. So there went me trying to to pitch Beautiful Lies. But I don't know why at twelve years old, thirteen years old, I get so turned on by that scene. But it was the words that did it, because there wasn't real nudity to look at, but the words got me. But Jesus, what was my father thinking. I'm glad he

showed me, but what was he thinking? This? This? I gotta say, I look at the story because I know it's like right now in Gwyneth Paltrow's life, the waters are turning dark because Goop, her big big business, is not doing well. They've been getting sued, they've had layoffs. Things aren't going great, and everybody's saying that Gwyneth Paltrow's

empire was crumbling. Well, she didn't care. She said that could be, but I'm gonna make sure I take me and Chris our daughter Apple, which we all laughed at when she named her that twenty years ago. If you could believe it, Apple, I guess it's Apple Martin, not Apple Paltrow. Apple Martin, who's very beautiful girl, made her debut at the La Balds Debutants over the weekend. A lot of a list people with daughters do this sort of thing. I'm not much for debutante bulls and what not.

But more people than you know have put their daughters in this sort of thing. But you see, I mean, Apple is wearing this Valentino gown. There's stars everywhere and their daughters twenty to twenty five women who are being introduced into society at the Palace of Versailles. That's pretty pretty cool. The girls are between sixteen and twenty two, and their hand picked from all different countries, and they go through months and months of fittings. Who needs this shit?

Months and months of fittings before stepping out in the costume or the catoo gown they love the most. Gwyneth Paltrow looked like she thought she was Marie Antoinette. Okay, and I think we should remind Gwyneth what happened to Marie Antoinette. Didn't end too well. But this girl and other girls are walking around like they're literally bells of

the ball. But I just felt like, you know, I'm this goes on, this happens, but just just once in my life, I want to feel what it feels like to first of all, start to leave Hollywood as an OSC winning actress, then marry have a kid at a rock star, start a huge business where you can sell candles for seventy five bucks that smell like your vagina, and all sorts of other things you can do, like a fucking cap that goes on your head with red light therapy that helps men grow hair, which is nonsense,

for only five hundred and fifty dollars. I mean, she catered, as we all know, to a very upper crust rich group of people, and then that's failing and she's like, fuck it, let's go to Paris for the ball. What a life? What a life? And it got me thinking. It got me thinking about, you know what it must feel like for those Pemigwyneth Paltrow has been famous for many, many years before her mother and father were famous, so

she's always been around that sort of fame thing. And I got to think, in the other day, why what was it about me in my life that I decided, Oh, I'm going out to LA to be a celebrity or a star. And I always thought I'd do it, but then things began to happen with me that made it It all made sense for me to go forward, Like I didn't want to leave New York ever, but then I was kind of excited to get to LA because a number of things happened that really got me juiced up.

And I don't think I've been through all these things, but for one, Howard Stern, who I got very close to, obviously, had just bought the rights to something, some kind of book, and he'd paired up with this TV producer named Craig Poligian who's a monster, done a bunch of stuff on TV. This is over twenty years ago, but he was still the guy to meet back then. So as I'm getting settled in Hollywood, Howard calls me and says, look, I got something going on. I bought the rights d blah

blah blah blah book. I'm gonna make it a show and we're gonna shoot a sizzle reel. I want you to host it because I was like, I don't know how much they're gonna want to be out here. Yeah, you got something, you know, Because Howld I used to talk about, we'd write letters to each other. We call. After I had to get fired from that show, how was very supportive to me, called me you okay, man, how you doing man? I love you. I missed you

on the show. But it wasn't my decision. That went on for weeks, and I'm like, of course, it's I get it, man, don't worry about it. And he said, I got something for you in my back pocket. Just stay calm. I'm gonna come back here. And he did. But then before he did, there was a big problem. Apparently Craig Poligion shot the Sizzle role behind his back. I wasn't included because Poligion didn't know who I was. Anyhow, Howard and him split. He wanted nothing to do with Poligion,

so there went that opportunity. Then when things really the first thing that really kicked into gear for me was that when New York Magazine wrote that cover story on me, and a lot of things in my life went crazy. But one of the good things that happened was this Hollywood producer named Beverly Cammy Cimhe she loved this story written about me for New York Magazine, and she optioned the piece and had plans to make my story a movie.

And she was motivated by the fact because years earlier she just missed out on optioning another story that was written in New York Magazine, written by a guy named Nick Cohen, and it was called the Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night doesn't probably sound familiar, but that article was about a young working class Italian kid in bens and Urst, Brooklyn, my hometown, who spent this night's dancing at a local disco called two thousand and one.

Obviously that was Saturday Night Fever. So she flipped from my article contacted the writer asked about optioning it for a movie. But a guy that beat her to the punch for this article about the kid who dances in Brooklyn. That's Robert Stigwood. He got it first, he purchased the film rights. He beat Beverly Cami, and he turned that into Saturday Night Fever, and then the director changed the

title from it was just Saturday Night. Then it became Saturday Night Fever after the Beg's gave the soundtrack and it included the song night Fever that I've heard from the documentary I saw on the BEG. So I'm feeling a bit high on myself when the article hit. I met this young guy in New York City who's like tracking me down, and when he finally called up to me, he's like out of breath. And basically it's like, you're a j Benzon. Yeah, my mother's a producer. She loved

the article about you in New York Magazine. She wants to turn it into a movie. I said, did that be great? And he said, look, we're gonna fly you out to LA have meeting with my mother. I'm like, your mother's gonna fly out to New York, you'll fly me out to LA either one. I said, well, toll he come here. He's like, yeah, she will. She's serious. I go, okay, she's this crazy for the story. And I meet her and she tells me, listen to me.

Not since I read the article in New York Magazine that became Saturday Night Fever, have I wanted to option the story this badly. I think this story can be bigger than that. And by the time she got to me, I had to tell her, you know youugh. Hefner had already optioned the story rights, and he had six months to see if he could get anything done with respect to attaching a director and getting funding and shit like that.

I said, after six months, it's yours. But you know, you get you get hooked when you hear stuff like that about these big players who like your property. And want to make you a star. So I'm walking around knowing that, okay, maybe Bev Camy' another ace up my sleeve. Six months comes and goes. I'm expecting Beverley Camey to rush over to me, but of course this is Los Angeles.

There's something else she's wrapped up, and she's producing another movie, Something Cold Junior, with Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito I'van Wrightman directing, clearly a bigger get. And she also produced something called The Package with Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones. So she was for real, but now she's too busy and everything in Hollywood is timing. But I didn't know how

Hollywood worked back then. But by the time that finished and she could have maybe done something again, my book Fame Ain't the Bitch comes out, and now Harvey Weinstein bought the movie rights and they're too similar to the magazine story, so Harvey's got it, and that caught my ear for sure. All these things happening, now, one of these things has to hit right. Maybe living in La ain't that big. Then everything falls apart, as it always

does in Hollywood. And to be honest, I honestly had not developed the tough skin I needed to have to make a life in that town. But as you can imagine, with all those beautiful, promising possibilities, I thought I was gonna have it easy. But you find out nothing comes

easy in that town. And there came a point in like twenty ten or twenty eleven I finally got to meet Craig Piligian, who by this time was the showrunner for Deadliest Catch, Ultimate Fighter, Ghost Hunters, American Chopper, Dirty Jobs. And in fact that's how Mike Rowe got the gig for Dirty Jobs. Poligion liked them and just handed them

a series. And you know, he was in a meeting with Mike Rowe and suddenly there's Dana Whites in there with the Ultimate Fighter TV show and Mike Rose at the office and they're talking about who can host it or narrated and Pligon goes, no, I'm sorry. Dana White goes, hey, you're a voice of a guy. Say something. He goes, what do you mean, just say something? And he goes, okay, next on Ultimate Fighter and Dany goes, yeah, right, and

he did ten seasons of that show. Mike Rowe has made a fortune because of that beautiful velvet voice, and I liked the guy. Meanwhile, Craig Piligeon's worth three hundred million dollars now, so he meets me. He likes me, and he says, look, the guy's he's an ex marine, tough guy, fighter. We hit a lot right away. Let's get this guy as show. He says, to his old office, that's exactly what I want. And I pitched him some ideas.

He liked him. I pitched him one idea he really liked, but he passed me off to another producer because he was slammed with four fucking shows he was running. But the guy put me with at a cocaine issue, and I knew about it because I knew my own issues back then, and I could tell, you know, this guy was not going to help me. And I couldn't appeal to Poligia because that you can't talk badly about the guys he has working for him. But I knew. I told my wife, this isn't gonna happen, you know, And

I pitched the show. I love this idea. I mean, it's been done, but go back, you know, ten twelve years ago, it wasn't really being done. I said, I want to just I want to interview cold murderers. I'm not scared of any of them. Put put us in a dark room. I want to talk to very bad bad men. Just me and a camera that moves around the table in a circle. The criminal is not going

to be handcuffed. All we got is a bottle of water and we talk, and I'm gonna try them on to stand a guy because a while ago one of my my uncle Donnie, who did some prison time, and told me, you know, when we're in prison, we can't do bad things anymore, but we can't do good things either, and a lot of us want to help. And that's

stuck in my head. And I thought, well, if I talk to these murderers and get down to the minni gritty of their crimes and shit, maybe we can uncover something like we uncovered the Bernanda's brothers getting sexually abused by their father. I don't know. I just thought, these guys don't get to talk enough about their life. We all know their crimes and with bad things they did. What else do we need to know about these guys? Never happened. This guy, the apartmouth, never got shit done.

Pelige and fired him, and then Poligion lost touch, his career got extremely busy. Enter a company called Asylum Entertainment. Now this was twenty twelve. I thought, this is gonna happen. It's gonna happen. Asylum Entertainment was owned by two guys. Steve Michaels, who's the son of the famous announcer sports announcer Al Michaels, and I sit down on him and I thought, well, this is great. I've met Al Michaels and I thought, what a great dad. I mean, what

a famous dad. I mean. I said to Steve, hey, you know you must be a big fan of sports, which is your favorite? He goes, I don't. I hate sports? He hates you hate Right away, I go, this guy, I will never work with this guy if you hate sports. Yeah, I said why, He goes, because you know that's all my father did. And it hit me. Sports kept his dad away from him, So he hates sports. I go, this is not gonna be easy. But then enter his partner,

big tall, strong guy named Jonathan Kotch. Jonathan Couch liked me from the get and I'd already gotten. I was. I was up for these two shows. Demons in the City of Angels, which is just a voiceover show narration, not me on film. I got that gig. Then they loved the idea of me doing something else, and we developed Case Clothes with aj Benz only eight episodes. I said, listen to me, if I get a million viewers, if

we hit a million, can you guarantee season two? Because I know, like the pay wasn't outstanding whatever, six seven thousand a show, but you know it's something. It's good and I wanted my kids to see Daddy working on TV again, so I loved it. I would have done for free so my kids can see Daddy work. So now I have two shows. And I said to Jonathan Couch, listen to me, I'm gonna I'm gonna present something to you all. It was a big meeting with everybody in

the office. I said, I want to be the Anthony Bourdain of the Reels channel. I said, I think you got Micro at Discovery, right, you got Bordain at CNN and whatever the fuck else he was at before that with with you know, no reservations. I said, I want to be that guy for Reels. You got some good shows. Let my voice cover these shows. Plus, you got two of my shows that are on guarantee a million viewers.

If you can guarantee me season two on Case Clothes, if you get a million, and Jonath's like, I love the idea. I see it exactly. This guy was my hero. I said, fantastic results come in after the fourth show. A million viewers. Now right now, you look at TV shows, people are getting one hundred thousand people and they're called hits. A million was still a lot in twenty twelve. But then the Bean counters at Reels, which is owned by a billionaire who owns a bunch of radio stations. That's

how he got his money. Forget his name, was it Hubbard? Some old timer? The Bean characters said, you know we like this show, well, we liked a million viewers. But you know, let's just for augument saying, say this show costs us I don't know, thirty two thousand dollars an episode to film, plus your pay. We can want to repeat what should cost to seventeenth down whatever the fuck, and get roughly the same amount of view as a little bit less. I said, yeah, but you're building something here.

By the time we get the season two, three and four. We're gonna get a lot more viewers that people were memory for mysteries and scalings. This is just the beginning. Yeah. No, fucking people who aren't creative at all, who've never done anything creative in their lives get to tell you no, we're not gonna do it. I said, well, bullshit, I said to myself. Jonathan Kotch is gonna override them, and he told me he would. AJ Sit tight, I'm not gonna let this happen. I believe in you. I believe

in the show. Sit tight, all right, buddy, I will So. Now I'm producing the movie with my buddy Adam and we're making so be it. So I got income over there. Things are good and I'm going I'm gonna get more work from reels. This is gonna be fantastic. This is the second that the second coming of me. Jonathan Kotch. I won't get into the whole story because it's so dramatic. He's going to some common in DC for some television blah blah blah. Al Michaels' his partner is there who.

By the way, Asylum Entertainment got one hundred million dollars to make TV shows, so clearly they were the right people to be with. On the way to d C from La Jonathan Koch feels a little sick on the plane. Okay, guess that hotel figures he'll take a nap, take a nice shower, he'll be fine for the conference. Then he's in his room when he's thrown up. He's doing bed, he's sweat and he's got a big fever. He calls Steve, I can't make it. What do you mean I'm thrown up.

I gotta feel all right, Hank tight rest. Well, you know you're not gonna miss much. I'll brief you. Just just get better, buddy, you got Jonathan Kotch was in a battle for his life. I forget this illness he had. It's a tiny little germ. It's almost like a spider meningitis or a crazy staff in infection. That by a time the next two days came, he'd lost I think a hand and a foot. I mean, this disease was eating him. And I would call people at Reels, going

is Jonathan, Like, where's he at? I had a contact there and they couldn't tell me, Yeah, he's back. But then he had to run with his wife to blah blah. They were like stalling me. I said, look, somebody just tell me, is he back? What are we doing? Because you know I'm riding this guy to make me come back again. You know the second company. We're aware of that. AJ. He really likes you, but he's sick. And then he got better, but all like jumbled up. I had no

idea what was going on. And then they finally told me, look, he's not gonna be working for a while. He can't walk. He has to learn how to walk, he has to learn how to use his hands. Again. I don't even know what's up with Jonathan Coach now. About six years ago we touched base on Facebook or Instagram and he said really sweet things to me and more to the effect of I wish I were around AJ, we'd have done something great. Guys like that are so important in

this town. And when you when you fall into one of their arms or just happened to be there, when you're a pitch meets their interest level and you can make music together. That's a beautiful TV show. That's a beautiful career. That's like when Sandra Bullock saw George Lopez perform and in her mind. She has an idea, this comedy, this Mexican humor about the mother, the grandmother living with them and the kids, and there's so much gold here.

And George Lopez couldn't believe Sandra Bullock wanted a meeting with him to produce this show. And she said to George, he's nervous, Like, look, you know, she said, I just want you to be funny. Okay, I'll handle all the rest. I'll take all the meetings. They can't push me around. You be funny. I'll sell it. And she did. And if it wasn't for Sandra Bullock meeting George Lopez or having the idea to turn his act into a comedy series, a sitcom, where's George Lopez? Now? I don't even like

the guy. I used to like it when he first came out. Now he's a prick. He looks like an evil person with that hair all over the place, takes his wife's kidney and cheats on it. Real slim, real slime. But that's the way how we can be. Sometimes it's crazy talk about myself the whole fucking show. I'm sorry, guys, I didn't think i'd I'd do the whole show about me, but sometimes I just want to talk about me. I'm kidding, Yeah, I'm getting the show out to you guys late on

Monday evening. Poker ran late, so Mike's gonna post this first thing, so you might, you might talk to me. You're gonna You're not gonna hear this till you get the show. Either way. I want to set this all up by ending the show with something that really hit me today. Because we're all in a hurry. We're all busy, whether you're a TV show run on like Craig Pligeon or Jonathan Kotch who's deal them with life and death, or myself trying to get my career back on track.

Whatever you guys are involved in, and your businesses and your lives were all in a fucking hurry. I know the last few weeks have felt good because of the change and leadership in this country. Even though it hasn't happened yet, you can feel it. I feel differently. I think a lot of you too. But make the time to say hi to people, reach out to them, especially if they reached out to you two times three times. A few months ago, a kid that graduated with me

at West Issap high school. Bobby Bridefeller, good athlete man, great diver on the swim team. We always had great swim teams. Bobby could dive. Not a real tall, tall guy, but a terrific diver. And I'm on Facebook a few months ago and i get a Oh, Bobby Bridefeller's waving or poking or whatever they do. And I'm like, I don't have any to say that. Bobby Bridefeld has been forty five years, whatever it is, whatever you know. I got my high school friends. I'm done. Kenny, I got Marve,

got Galla, got Tony. I'm out. No, he keeps poking me. I'm like, what does he want to do? And then he would he would send me a message. I got a weird like three thirty am. I'm like, uh, he's either drinking or in. The things he'd write to me didn't really sound right. I'm like, you know what, better not even to start a conversation. I found out this morning Kenny and Mike and my buddy Godzilla and Tony Godzilla's Gallagher, Bobby brad Phil died. What do you mean

he dropped dead? What happened? He had health issues from drinking. He had lost a leg recently. I said, Fuck, this guy's been poking me and sending me messages. I didn't get back to him. I feel horrible, and I really do this morning, I feel like shit, Like, who the fuck am I not to just say something back to a guy who I was in class with and walked past in the hallways and we walked around his athletes in school. Was I that busy that I couldn't have

said a Hi, Bobby, how you been? Buddy? Let that be a lesson to everybody out there. You're not too busy to say all to a friend, especially in those years where you became, you know, your formidable years. Those guys are everything to you. So he wasn't the closest friend of mine, that's for sure. But I just feel guilty that give him a chance to poke him back or give him a wave, or just go how you doing, Bobby? How you been? Buddy? He would have opened up and

told me something. Instead, I knew nothing, and those advances he made toward me never got back to him, and maybe he knew he was dying. I don't know, but I feel like shit. So don't do what I did. You're not too busy to say hi to an old friend. All right, that's my lesson for today. I'm aj Ben's a gang that was fame as a bit your daily Unfiltered podcast for December third, twenty twenty four. And I'll talk to these tomorrow if I'm here tomorrow. I'm being real.

You never know, walk out of the cause you don't have a heart attack and die drop dead. People have strokes. Didn't TD Jakes have a stroke up there on stage? You know what? Just just be careful with yourselves, love each other, do the right thing. You're not too busy, that's all.