From workhouse connect in aj Benza fame. He'd like to be walked on a leash and play really dirty, kinky sex games. He's the guy put the cock in the Peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey everybody, aj Benzy here with fame as a bitch. This is your daily Unfiltered podcast from Monday, April eighteenth, twenty twenty two. And it's also your free show. Yes that's right. I'm treating you freebee people to a Patreon show because today, being Easter, Joey's got a bunch of stuff to do with his two
little girls and his wife and my family out in Chicago. I've got stuff to do. I've got a politics as a bitch that's going to appear tomorrow at some point. And I just said, you know what, I'm Catholic. Why wouldn't I make this show today the pinnacle of Catholicism between Christmas and Easter. It doesn't get bigger than that. Allow me to do one show for both of you, and maybe you folks on the free end of things will go. You know what I think I should I think I should be
a patron. Wouldn't that be great? So with that said, let me take you on a bit of a journey. Here. I am in Burbank, staying at a motel, which I've gotten to like quite a bit. I hated to stay at the At the motel when there's one bed, which is fine for me and Tutsie, but when the kids come in then I need a double bed, and I need room one eleven where we can throw the fake backboard and basket on the bed and my son Rocco can go to town and play on a little ten foot area and we can have one on
one games like when he was a baby. Well I'm not a baby but a five year old. So between the single bedroom and the double bedroom, I bounce around like some kind of a rat. And things could be worse, you know. I mean things could be better, of course, But I like where I'm at. It suits its purpose, and my kids are happy, and I saw them for three days and i'll see them later today
for Easter. But enough about that. I take a lot of walks with my dog, Tutsie, as you guys know, and a lot of walks, and now that she's in heat, her walks consist of her walking very slowly and let's just say putting some spray down at least ten or twelve different times on different lawns. What have you? Wants to meet a man, obviously, But I take these walks with Tutsie. I'm in a beautiful neighborhood, by the way, in Burbank. There are houses, many of them
are craftsman homes with lush gardens and flower beds and stately sycamore trees. Near the sidewalk, there's jacaranda trees which are beautiful, which bloom purple, which will knock your socks off when you turn a corner and see these beautiful purple blooms. But they're giant trees. They've got to be a hundred years old or more. And then there are homes with no front lawns at all,
just rocks and dozens and dozens of succulents and cacti and bloom. There's even a wacky home where the entire front is comprised of square clay pots that have plants in them. Some have wooden chips in them, some have black rocks and even volcanic volcanic volcanic type material. I don't know. There's some people who do a lot of artsy fartsy things with their lawns. But it's a very nice walk. It's the only time when I don't rush toots you to
get home, because it's calming, to be honest. And one of the houses has one of those things where it's like a glass I don't know what you call it, a glass cabinet that contains all sorts of books that people are encouraged to take. You know, you take them, you read them,
you return it back into the into the cabinet. I saw a few of those in Buffalo Grove and I was out with Rosalie, but I don't see many of them out here in La So I stopped to look at the books that were available in this one cabinet around the corner from the hotel at some house, and I think it's a great thing for people to do, you know, God knows. Whenever I've moved from house to house or apartment to apartment, the worst part of moving is placing all of my I don't
know, two hundred and fifty books in boxes. Those boxes become so goddamn heavy nobody can move but me. But I just can't find it in me to toss away a book that I thoroughly enjoyed at one point in my life. Not to mention, there are many books that I read every few years, Like I read Catch Her in the Eye. Every year I have to. I read Feast of Snakes. I read Fat Kid Saved the World, to name a few. One day I saw the incredible book called Damage in
one of those glass thing of a jigs and I grabbed it. Now back in nineteen ninety two when this book came out. This book is written by Josephine Hart. It is a killer of a book. It's about a middle aged man who succumbs to his passion over a woman who happens to be his son's fiance. Oh, it's a killer. They made a movie out of it. Forget the movie, Jeremy Iron, I think Juliet Minosh. Forget
the movie. Read the book now. Maybe because I was going through my first divorce back then, I don't know, but it's such a goddamn great book. But anyhow, these little book drops can be like landing on a garage shale where people don't know the value of what they're giving away for pennies or in this case, for free. So this morning, Easter morning, I come across the book Permanent Midnight. Now, this is a killer book written by Jerry Stall Stahl and a matter what you're going through, you need
to read this. You will feel better about your life. Permanent Midnight. And by the way, Jerry Stall's byline when I was younger used to appear everywhere from La Style to The Village Voice, to Esquire to Hustler. He was a prolific writer and still can be. He wrote scripts, He wrote Cafe Flesh, he wrote Doctor Klagari. He banged out shows for TV mega hits like Moonlighting and Twin Peaks and thirty something. We're talking prolific writer.
This guy was making five thousand dollars a week. He was shooting six thousand dollars a week of Heroin into his arms. Yeah. He was writing on the TV show ALF. Remember ALF, the that was that an Extra Terrestrial I never watched ALF. I watched like two episodes. I found it stupid, but was out fucking et kind of person who landed on Earth whatever it was. Jerry Stole was writing on ALF, making five grand a week, shooting six grand a week up up his arm in Heroin, and even though
he was living in a luxurious home in Los Angeles. His drug habit found him, you know, it found him knocking around hillacious nameborhoods in LA just so he could finance his heroin habit. And then the habit eventually ruined his TV writing career and nearly took his life away until he finally kicked and he emerged clean. But Permanent. Midnight is a get this book. It is a strung out confessional that sounds as if it could have been written by Lenny
Bruce or William mouse Burrows. And it details his slide into the opiate abyss and how he scratched and clawed his way back into the light. It's a remarkable book and definitely a Hollywood memoir for sure. Don't bother what the movie Ben Stiller made. Just read the book, Okay, just like damage, Read the book, don't look at the movie, So Matt, the book is a masterpiece. The movies are not masterpieces. But that's why what I saw this book behind the glass on this house with the manicured lawn, I
had to take it. And since my copy is buried somewhere in the abyss of public storage, I don't intend on ever returning this book. Back to the place behind the glass cabinet of that beautiful craftsman home with the impeccable front yard of tidy flowers and rocks and hummingbird feeders. That book is mine. Now, I'm sorry, but I flipped a few chapters in while I was standing there and took he was trying to do her number one and number two,
and man, it brought back some memories. You know, once I read this book, I couldn't wait for a chance to actually meet Jerry Stall, because I knew when I read his book, I knew I had to write a book like this one day. I didn't want the heroin habit, don't get me wrong, but I knew I had to write a book that
was as raw and honest as he was in this book. And I mean, just for a little background, Jerry Stall, among other things, was his staff writer, like I said on the TV show Out, and there are passages where he's making incredible money as a writer on Network TV, and
he's got a girlfriend who's pregnant with his firstborn. Everything in life is wonderful, right network TV job, You're making a fortune, your girlfriend's pregnant with your baby, Except for the fact that he's shooting thousands of dollars of heroin into his arm and feet every week just so he can function and keep turning
out dialogue for this ridiculous TV show. And there's a horrifyingly honest story in the book where right before his girlfriend is giving birth, he's got a run in the bathroom and shoot up. He has to leave the scene where he's championing his girlfriend on to give birth to their baby. He's got a run out and shoot some dope. It's awful, and he comes back. He's got a roll of sleeves down so the nurses or doctors don't see the blood
running down his arm. And there are stories about him shooting up and almost Odine on the Alf set, locking himself in the bathroom and passing out, only to find the actor who played alf banging on the door to wake him. He didn't know if he was tripping out or if that was real life. So I did finally meet Jerry Stole once and we spoke briefly, and like I'll get to at the end of this podcast, I didn't ask for an autograph. I didn't do all that crap. I just wanted to talk
to him. I just want to have a moment with him. I think that whatever celebrity you're meeting, athlete, actor, it doesn't matter. I think they appreciate that more than the macinations of here's a piece of paper, Do you have a pen? Can you write your autograph down? People generally don't like that. It's just it's not natural. And I spoke to him, and I got to the root of the matter, which is so much
more valuable than a goddamn autograph on a little piece of paper. And I remember he told me when he wrote the book Permanent Midnight, he banged out eighteen hundred pages a few information. Eighteen hundred pages to anyone who doesn't write, eighteen hundred pages is enough for four books. He didn't have a computer when he wrote that masterpiece. But he's such an interesting guy it's crazy. After Ben Stiller optioned the book and played Jerry in the movie, the two
became best friends. Stiller had him as his best man when he got married, flew him out to Hawaii. He had to buy him a nice suit too, because Jerry couldn't afford one. He's also written a book called Happy Mutant Baby Pills, and he and still or turned that into a TV show called If Swelling Persists. It didn't make it. It's about a guy who failed as a novelist that gets a gig writing the side effects on pharmaceutical products. But as you can see, this is the kind of guy, the
kind of brain he's got. I love the way the guy's head works. But when I was flipping through the book, it got me thinking about the show alf Now. I don't know if you remember how scandalous one of the stars of that show turned out to be. Do you remember the dad Max Wright. Max Wright was a mild mounted married man, also a guy who you know, used to more or less spend his time doing wonderful stage plays, worked with Shakespeare, he worked on Shakespeare plays and Heinrich Ibsen like major
stage productions. I'm talking tippy top of stage acting. And at one point some years ago, he turned his back on his television show's success and decided to go abe shit and go wild with a vice filled life of hardcore casual gay sex with men and taking hardcore drugs, even though he was still married to his wife Linda. Yeah, this guy went bananas. Max Wright went bananas. If you don't know what he looks like no google his name you'll
remember immediately. And after his wife thought of breast cancer in twenty seventeen, after fifty two years together, this guy decided the jig is up and it's time to let my freak flag fly. So he took up with a very like minded German male nurse. And it was through this male nurse they began to understand why Max Wright never felt right in his shoes. The male nurse was name Reiner debt Linger, and Max described him as his life partner.
And this particular German guy said he's ashamed of the TV show ALF. It was a demotion because he came from the theater. It was a demotion, but he needed the money the network TV paid him to live his sordid life behind the camera and away from his wife. Could you imagine the hell this
guy was in? And as many of you might recall, Max Wright played this mild manner TV dad named Willie Tanner in that family comedy which centered around the extraterrestrial Alf who comes to live with the middle class American family all screen. His life was to complete opposite The guy beats cancer the nineteen nineties and then some cracks begin to appear. He got a couple of DUIs. Whenever that happens, you know that dramas right around the corner. You can't get
a dui or two late in life. That I mean, is there some issues creeping up? So in two thousand and one, the National Inquirer Exposed exposed him. It showed stills from a video get this of him smoking a handmaid I'm sorry, a homemade crack pipe while kissing another man with a dwarf right next to them. This guy wasn't scared of any exposure to AIDS. He went headlong into gay male sex, didn't care. He would meet twice
a week with this German guy. They'd picked up homeless men, take them home, pay them one hundred bucks to sex, and they'd have unprotected sex with the homeless guys. A lot like the Democratic donor and Buck who just got thirty years a couple of days ago for doing similar shit, picking up homeless guys downtown LA, bringing them back to his West Hollywood condo, inject
them with meth and having sets with them. Two of them unfortunately had overdoses, but you know, each his own I suppose, and this guy did drugs with his German male nurse paling the homeless men, and he took a page out of the h He took a page out of the Kim Kardashian story. It eventually started a shocking homemade porn tape before his wife Linda forced him
into a twelve step program and began to straighten his life out. But eventually she couldn't take his druggie antics and she kicked him out in two thousand and three. Now, Alf was done thirteen years before that was only on the air for four years, and Max Wright's career had languished with a number of bit parts. You know, you'd a couple of small stints in early episodes of Ends. Basically he stopped working back in two thousand and five. The
phone stop ringing. It's an awful thing to happen in Hollywood when the phone stop ringing. It's just said. So, there's a picture of this guy when he went berserk. He's holding a crack pipe making out with a black guy and there's a dwarf in the picture too. It's just insane. You can find it online now. Feet of that set where the head writer Jerry Stall is shooting heroin locked in the bathroom while the character Alf is banging on the door. All the while Max right, the daddy, is on set
pretending to be straight and normal. Guys, this is Hollywood. Can you imagine? Speaking of crazy sexy Hollywood ship. The other day we learned that Tandy Newton had made the difficult decision to step away from starring in Magic Mike's Last Dance, that promising new drama, the third and the franchise of hit movies. That's gonna be just ridiculous. She stepped away. Well, last I told you, Channing Tatum fired her as the star and producer of the
movie. They've got some mahaiak coming in to replace it. They've got they've got to redo eleven days of shooting that Tandy was in for now. Various publications have reported that Channing Tatum fired Tandy. And by the way, just so you know, I don't know when this began, but when Tandy Newton first came out, her name was spelled t A N d i E. They've thrown a w in there, guys. Now her name is t A n d I wue. Nobody knows why. Nobody remembers why this happened when
it happened. But apparently there's a w there and we don't know what it means, but let's just go on with this pretentious bullshit. So the initial story was Channing Tatum fired her after an argument over the slap at the Oscars and the discussion got out of hand. Apparently Tandy sided with Will Smith. Channing, Tatum and his girlfriend Zoey Kravitz are big Chris Rock fans, and they sided with him. It got loud and it got nasty, and Channing
was like, I can't work with her. I think there's more to it than that, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. But now Tandy Newton has got bigger family issues to deal with than merely having to as we all must divide our house in two with masking tape and insist that everybody who thinks Will Smith was in the right live on one side and everybody who thinks Will was in the live on another side. It's all harshit So
Paige Sense has said that Tandy is headed to rehab. That's the way they spun this story. She's going to rehab for acting bizarrely on this set. Because her marriage of twenty four years is breaking up. It's imploding. That's all they're saying the tape. I'm sorry, the slap is sending her to rehab, but that's not really true. They're making you believe that when she went bananas on set. They don't want to make it racial. They don't
want to make it she's pro Will Smith. That's going to be worse for her career than drugs. So now they're blaming drugs. Don't believe the drug thing. They just don't want somebody on their roster to be pro Will Smith during a very tense time in Hollywood where you cannot throw your allegiance to his side of things. You can't do it. It's too raw. So they decided, let's take her to rehab. Okay, So she's headed to rehab after exiting that movie because she acted very bizarrely on the set and had a
supposed breakdown while her marriage is dissolving. Tandy Newton had been in London filming Magic Mike's Last Dance and people apparently became worried about her, so her agent flew in from la to try to smooth things over. But the other day they said it's not gonna work. We've got to get her into facility. I think what happened is he sat it down and said, what the fuck is the problem, and she told him, I'm on Will Smith's side and
Channing is on Chris rock side. I can't work with this person. And they said, Tandy, are you what your fucking mind? You cannot side with Will Smith? Do you understand that? And we cannot leave this set telling the world that the fight happen because you are pro Will Smith. You'll never work again. It's better to have a drug habit. Do you understand me? While he shook her by the arms. At least that's the way I see it. But they said, what's going on in your life?
Is your marriage not doing well? Of course it's not doing well. Well, that's a good thing. We can pin it on that. We can pin it on a bad marriage, twenty four years marriage, You've got three kids. This is perfect. This is what we'll hang it on. So that's what we're going on. That's what happens when agents fly into town and try to concoct a new theory of why an actress or an actor is acting a certain way. God forbid, They tell you the truth that she thinks
Will Smith was right. That won't wash in Hollywood right now. You've got to either be triggered by what happened, or you've got to be solidly on Chris rock side. You cannot at all think that Will Smith was partially right. That is career death. Now. Will Smith will bounce back because he's made billions for Hollywood. He'll being put in time out for a year and then he'll come back. He's having meetings right now for movies that'll start to
shoot a year from now. Don't worry about him. But you cannot be an actress or an actor who works once in a while who throws your allegiance to him. You'll never work for a long goddamn time. I mean, it's bad enough. She put up an Instagram picture of her and two people from this set. I don't know if it's makeup or wardrobe people, but they're all sitting there, and she hashtagent Will Smith, hashtag Jada Pinken Smith, hashtag the Academy, and then she texted U booon too. Uboon too
is the ancient African word meaning humanity to others. Well, clearly, Will Smith wasn't thinking about humanity when he smacked Chris Rock, So I'm not sure what that hypocritical text means. Also, Ubuntu is often described as reminding us that I am what I am because of who we all are. I don't even understand that, but that's how deep this girl runs. The truth of the matter is this, If she's taking Will and Jada Pinkensmith and the Academy,
she probably had some strong feelings about it. But if we are to believe some other reports from the tabloids in London like The Sun, Tandy's unhinged behavior on set went beyond one single incident. There's a crew member who reportedly said that everyone on set found her challenging to work with, she's an absolute diva, and that they watched her have a go at the first assistant director
and her costume girl. Apparently, the word is that she was in such a state that she even brought her two pet rabbits to her hotel for emotional support. Put a pin in that for a second. I go to a pizza place around ther yesterday. Paul Dinos very good. Pizza LA's got horrible, Pizza Dinos is good. The water comes in from New York. They got a whole thing, and I really enjoy Dinos. It's mainly a takeout joint. You don't get slices. There's a dining room in there, but
right now people are getting takeout. Yesterday, I feel like a slice. It was like two o'clock, two thirty and anthrom and I said, I just want to slice a pizza, maybe two. I don't want to poe, So I've got a Dinos. I'm holding Tootsie. It's big, tall, black, big fat, tall black guy, obviously gay. If you're gonna ask me, how do I know, I can't. I can't help you. I'm almost sixty years old. I've been around gay people on the life. I can tell why I'm doing there in front of me in a
second. So I very nicely said, with Tootsie in my arms, you guys sell slices sometimes, because I heard they do. He goes, well, we do until two and then no, I said, what time is it now? He said two twenty. I said, you got nothing left? At that point I knew him dealing with a gay guy. No big deal. I go, okay, um, he goes, sir, you can't have a dog in here, and I just ignored him. I go, all right, so what's the smallest pie I can get? He holds up a pan, which was perfect for me. I see, ye,
I'll take I'll take a sausage by I'll take a cheese and sausage. Sir, you can't have a dog in here. How much is that? Do you take a straight credit card? Do you take a debit card? I just steamrolled him. I'm like, here's my card here it is. Put fight all tip down for yourself and rack that one up. I know, sir, we just can't have dogs in here. I said, hey, listen to me. Shut the fuck up. The dogs in here we already ordered. No one got bit or killed. She's not running around the dining
room. She's in my fucking arms. She's a puppy ring up the pizza. I'm not doing this anymore. I said, you didn't even ask me is she's an emotional support dog? And he goes, is she? I say yeah, which is a complete line, but at this point you might as well be, because emotionally I get ripped up. I said, yeah, she is. I said, you know, want let me tell you something. I go look after the pizza was putting me up and I said, gonna tell you something. I said, listen. I said, look,
I know who you are. You and people like you. You fought for years for equal rights. You fought for years to be included. You want inclusivity. You people are still fighting for that. The trans people would have you. I walk in with a fucking dog, that's an emotional support dog. I would think someone like you, who's been on the other end of trying to work toward inclusion, would look at me and go, there's nothing wrong with a guy holding his puppy. But no, you want to
exclude us without even asking if she's emotional support. Does that sound right to you? Pal. At this point, the owner comes out, taps him on the shoulder, tells him to leave. He goes, so, I'm sorry, what could I do face it? You don't have to do nothing. You put the pizza the oven. I paid for the pizza. I gave him a final tip. I don't like the fact that the first thing he said out of this was my dog's not allowed anything. That's not good.
He shouldn't do that to people, because you're absolutely right, he isn't wait in your car. I'll bring your pizza out I'm very sorry. Oh score one from me. Fuck these people talking about your dog can't be in here. Why there are dirty people on the fucking doorway who are looking for a pizza. My dogs clean as a whistle anyhow, don't get me started. So. A source on the set of this movie said, Dandy've been
acting strange, very strange on set. She was very high strung. Her breakdown caused so much disruption on the set it became clear she could not play the role. There's a lot going on in her personal life. She and her husband are separated. She seems very stressed out. Listen as a person who's going through a separation out, I understand. Maybe that's why I got so fucking nuts at the pizza place. This is what happens. I mean. Dandy Newton fired her agent back in the in the UK after ten years
of being together. It's bad and her team wants her to go to rehab for mental health support. She was supposed to leave immediately for a facility. They tried for a malible rehab. They couldn't get her in there. Now she's going to Arizona. The rehab is bullshit, guys. She's not on drugs. Don't believe a word of it. I mean, I hope she gets to help she needs. But it's not about drugs. Okay, this
is not a trip for someone who was on drugs. Tandy Newton is not a drug abuser, so this trip away should be properly noted as such. A lot of rehabs have at least a dual diagnosis unit where people who have both addictions and mental health issues are treating. I never really heard of her being a mess before. This is perhaps a side effect of a relationship breaking down in a bad way. I've been there before myself, so I don't want to judge her for it. I hope she gets better in heels from
the pain that's causing this alleged anger. It's Magic Mike three. It's not like it's says she's losing out on some big giant role. It's not a big, wonderful scores ac movie. You know, it's Magic Mike three. Who gives a shit you got? You know, if you think about it, you know Tandy Newton is the epitome of the perfect face broken brain syndrome. Think about that for now. On perfect Face, Broken Brain. There's a lot of actresses and actors who suffer from perfect face, broken brain,
and Tandy is a little lobots for years. Like I said, she went by Tandy a few years ago. She added a we have you seen the spelling. It doesn't make any sense. I could give you five years to spell Candy the way she prefers it, and none of you would get it right. No one would add to w in there. But honestly, Dandy seems like one of those insufferable women with lots of opinions. The reality is that it gets tiring when someone is subject to it on a never ending basis,
when everything is an exhausting battle. That's what she's like. I see people like that, I just want to exit the room they're in. It's not a tractor or inviting the older we get. It's even worse. It just seems a sign of true unhappiness. I want to grab her by the face and say, Candy, would you rather be right or be happy? But the fuck is wrong with you? But no one will do that.
Everybody's too scared. But not for nothing. As to Tandy, if you see her in recent interviews, when her star was really shining bright with working on Westworld, on HBO a big hit. She became so vocal and challenging, and her character became that of someone unafraid where she may have once been before. She even talked about a ton of childhood trauma and shit she had
to deal with because she was an interracial British actress. Oh, I don't know why that's so fucking so lame that people gotta put up with crap for being into racial. But imagine if you woke up one morning married to this person or was not who you married twenty plus years ago. She may be dealing with a lot. So if rehab is going to help her, good for her. I personally believe it's not rehab, But it's a mental facility. You heard it here first, because this is not the first time she's
gone off on people. She was with Tom Cruise together a Mission Impossible too, and she said a lot of bad shit about Tom Cruise back then. She called him a very dominant individual. She discussed what it was like working with him, even the fact that she left the cast of Charlie's Angels. This girl goes through things that are not drug related. They're about mental illness. Trust me. Tom even gave her a scientology, Bible, trying to help her. She didn't want any part of it. You know, this
is the way she is. And when you work with Tom Cruise, the last thing you're supposed to do is talk about what it's like to work with Tom Cruise, especially if you're going to be critical, and she was critical. That's a certain death in Hollywood. She talked about filming this entire scene where Tom didn't like what she was doing, so he switched it around and said, okay, we filmed the entire scene with me being him and him being me. And it was the most unhelpful. I can't think of anything
less revealing. It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. I remember at the beginning of the night seeing this slight red mark on Tom's nose, and by the end of the night, I kid you not, this is how his metabolism is so fierce. He had a big white head where that red dot was, and it was like the ZiT was me just getting bigger and bigger. You think Tom Cruise wants to hear shit like
that. Now, people say, well, Tandy's honesty, it happens to be because she's an older woman, who's recognized that knowing the truth and speaking the truth has benefited her a hell of a lot more than being silence or seeing people's silenced around her. Some people say she has nothing to lose. I disagree. Tandy says, I've got nothing to lose because I could just then not get hired, which is kind of normal for people in my generation.
Anyway, it's not about confessionalism. It's not even about my confessions. It's about that this is the reality of what people face. Well now it might not. It might be about either drug addiction or mental illness. I side with mental illness. Either way, we're about to find out if the press does their job. I just hope that when she's there that she go on to some type of treatment to remove the pomposity and the needless we at
the end of her fucking name. Maybe then she'll start heading toward a healthy lifestyle. Because she's shot. Tandy Newton is done. She keeps talking. She's not gonna work again. She's got to be careful anyhow. I'm going to finish today's show with a Fame is a Bitch story. You know, I've asked my listeners, those of you on the free site. Don't know this, but I've asked my listeners, my patrons, to send me their
brushes with celebrity, good, bad, or indifferent. They are to send those stories to fiab Stories at gmail dot com, in which case I read them Summer anonymous. Many people want their name attached. And these are fun stories that people get a chance to listen in on because we've all had brushes with celebrity, some good, some bad, some indifferent. And here I go reading this latest one from patron Laura faith So. Laura says, back in the mid nineties, she was living in Las Vegas. I was at
the Gold Coast Casino with my husband and infant daughter. It turns out there was at Kenny Rogers convention. We saw Kenny Rogers walking with a hot young blonde That makes a lot of sense. He looked really awful. He was definitely up all night, maybe still a little wasted. We were shocked to see him, but didn't bother him. We were in the ice cream shop.
He came in and a little boy went up to get Kenny's autograph, and the kid was pushed there by his parents to do so, and the kid told Kenny that he loved him and he loved his music, and Kenny was so rude. He looked at the kid and he said, name the song I sing. Kid. The little boy was mortified and ran away back to his parents crying. He was really sad. Kenny Rogers was a total dick. You know, I've gotten a few of these on the same theme. One of you, one of you patrons, wrote to me about the
wonderful NFL great Gail Sayers doing the same thing. Where he was at a restaurant in Chicago, his hometown where he's a god, waiting for friends, I guess, and some people sent their kid up to get an autograph, and Gail Says told the kid, you must be confusing me with someone else. I'm not, Gail says, And it left the parents perplexed. And then fifteen minutes later some friends walked in and shouted Gail and obviously it was him, and the kid was so forlorn it stayed with him for a very
long time. Here's what I do. Don't do that. Don't ask for an autograph, because most likely that piece of paper will only get lost or become smudged years later. The kind of thing nobody's gonna want to hear about it will be able to even read. You know. I had an autograph of all four Beatles. My uncle Sal got it to me because he used to work on the Ed Sullivan Show doing color and when the Beatles showed up that show, Uncle Sal took the back of the shot chart, which is
when the commercials air would acts come on. It's like a shot to show you what's happening in the show. And he turned his over and he got all four Beatles to sign it. It would be worth a lot of money one day now that two Beatles are dead. But it got stolen from me when my house got robbed. The people who stolen didn't even know what they was stealing. They just wanted jewelry, but that was in the bottom of my jewelry box they emptied. They emptied my jewelry box into a pillowcase.
In that box was all the jewelry my father left me after he died, and I'm left with nothing but a gold ring on my middle finger of my right hand. Everything else was taken, including the Beatles autograph, and I guarantee that ended up in a fucking garbage. Autographs don't mean shit. I know, it's like what we automatically do. It's our default thing to do. You don't need an autograph. You don't need it because I know as
a society we're conditioned to ask for the signature. And as a person who signed autographs before, I always feel stupid because I know that my signature waning absolutely nothing in time and all the machinations to get it or useless. It's when paparazzi shoot me. I go, what the fuck is this is gonna be used for my death? There's no way you're gonna give this picture to a magazine. I laugh with them. They laughed back. Really you're gonna
you're gonna sell this to a magazine for what? Six dollars? Who's gonna buy a picture for me? And as I kill someone or I kill myself otherwise this picture it doesn't mean nothing naturally, if it's a big star, you're going for that signature. Why, maybe it's gonna be worth something one day. I don't know. Is it written on a piece of paper or won't mean shit? Is it written on a playbill of a play he acted in? But are there six thousand other ones of those? It won't mean
shit? It won't mean did he sign the back of his baseball card? Again, If there's five thousand other signatures on the back of his baseball card, your autograph won't mean shit. So trust me, you know what's worth more. Just go up and say hi to an actor or an athlete or a rock store. Say hi. Have a human experience for five to ten seconds. Tell them you loved him in this. Tell me you'll never forget that touchdown run. Tell him you'll never forget that home run. Have a
human moment. They'll appreciate that way more than the robotic motion of signing a football or a baseball or a playbill or whatever the hell's in your pocket. Years ago, many years ago, I could have gotten Al Pacino's autographed way back when I was an acting student in New York City in the early eighties, and I waited for Al, took him out the backdoor after a performance
of American Buffalo. I think of what the Schubert Theater I could be wrong, And while everyone was shoving playbills in front of him, which he signed without even looking, and good luck figuring out what he signed, by the way, I just stuck my hand out and said to him this way, Al, and we locked eyes and he took my hint and he literally followed
me. And a few minutes later he was in his truck and my wife and I were behind him, following him out of New York City towards the tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey, and we had about four more wives before we could talk to him. I said to my wife, you gotta do it now. We were neck and neck with his car and we stopped at a red light. I got out of the car. I said, Al, you gotta see my wife. She's crazy for you. He
lowered his window down. My wife went to the window and he shook her hand and he kissed her on the cheek, and we said, we love you, Al, and he loved us back. That's worth more than an autograph. Use your imagination. Ten years after you get that signature, tell the truth. Nobody wants to see it. Don't even know what to do. It is when story is worth one hundred signatures, Do the story, not the signature. If you get the autograph, that's it for today.
I hope you had a great easter. I hope you had a great easter. I could have told the story about my last column appearing on Easter Sunday way back in nineteen ninety seven. Maybe I'll do that for tomorrow's show. Maybe I'll took my own home. Our last column ran in nineteen ninety seven East to Sunday, and I said in the column, and now the resurrection, the Resurrection of me begins. It was very narcissistic and crazy, but I had a great time writing it. So anyhow, guys, hope you
had a great Easter. I hope you saw your family kissed. Everybody made nice. No arguments like Thanksgiving and Christmas. East. It seems to be a more calm holiday. Pink and blue and Pastel's. That seems to work right. The kids search for eggs in the morning. Hope you had a great day. That was your free show. That was your daily Unfiltered podcast for April eighteenth, twenty twenty two. There will be a Politics is a Bitch landing today Monday. Beyond that, I will talk to you folks tomorrow.
I'm a J. Benza And that was Fame is a Bitch. Thank you for listening. Fame as a Bitch is an AJ Benza Workhouse Connect production featuring the Endless wisdom, insightful commentary, and sometimes fucked up perspective of aj Benza executive producer Mike Agabno