Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 141. Howard Kaylan 

Episode Date: February 6, 2017

Musician and vocalist Howard Kaylan (The Turtles, The Mothers of Invention, Flo & Eddie) joins Gilbert and Frank for a funny, freewheeling discussion of a host of topics, including the virtuosity of Harry Nilsson, the "free love" of the 1960s, the nostalgic appeal of "That Thing You Do!" and the underrated artistry of The Zombies. Also: Howard disses Lulu, parties with Soupy Sales, runs afoul of Jimi Hendrix and meets his personal "Louis Prima." PLUS: Kate Smith! "Don McNeill's Breakfast Club!" Donald Fagen buys a suit! John Lennon feuds with Frank Zappa! And the Turtles invade the White House!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star.

With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Hey guys, Frank here with a quick disclaimer about this episode featuring Howard Kalin of The Turtles. It's a great episode. The audio is not ideal. We do our best to record people, but in this case, Howard could not get to a studio. We couldn't get anyone to him. He lives in Seattle and he's not Mike. So we were relying on Skype. So as I say, the audio is not the best, but the content is terrific. So stay with it. Here we go. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre, once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Furtarosa.

Our guest this week is a singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, actor, author, and raconteur, and eyewitness to 50 years of rock and roll history. Sign him up. As the lead singer of the best-selling 1960s pop rock group The Turtles, he scored hits like It Ain't Me, Babe, Eleanor, She'd Rather Be With Me, You Showed Me, and of course, Happy Together, named one of the top 50 songs of the 20th century. Along with fellow Turtle and Future partner, Mark Vollman, he became a fixture in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, and later formed the successful musical comedy duo known as Flo and Eddie. In a career spanning six decades, he's written hit songs, produced albums for fellow artists,

provided voices for animated films, and appeared in TV shows like It's Gary Shandling's Show and feature films like 200 Motels and Get Crazy. He's also performed backup vocals for Bruce Springsteen, T-Rex, Duran Duran, The Ramones, Alice Cooper, Blondie, and John Lennon and sang on hit records like Banga Gong and Hungry Heart, among others. His recent tell-all memoir is called Shell Shocked, My Life with the Turtles, Blowin' Eddie and Frank Zappa, etc. Please welcome to the podcast a genuine rock and roll legend and a man who once got high with both soupy sales and pooky. Yes. The multi-talented Howard Kalen.

Thank you, Gilbert. That is the best obituary I have ever heard in my life. Now the show's over. That was 20 minutes long. They know everything about me. You don't have to ask me a fucking question. See you later. I'm going to get an egg cream.

An egg cream. Love it. Now, so are all the turtles Jews? No, no, no. In fact, I think I'm the only guy that can claim to be chosen because the other guys are just out of the band. So I chose the other guy in the group that was half Jewish. I figured that one and a half Jews stand a much better chance in show business than none at all. better chance in show business than none at all. You know, and I figured that if it didn't work out, Kalen and Vollman sound like butchers anyway, we could open up a little store.

And have you ever had a Seda with Steely Dan? No, I have never had that pleasure. But I have seen Donald Fagan wearing something that looked very yarmulke like while shopping. He was shopping. He was buying a suit at the men's warehouse. And I saw the yarmulke and I hid. It was a Thursday. It was a Thursday. He had no reason to be wearing that thing.

You know, and shopping for schmata's at that stupid place. You know, we guarantee you. No, you don't. Shut the fuck up. Were you asked, by the way, Howard, to sing Steely Dan? Back in the day? We did. We did. We sang on their demo.

Donald hated his voice. Right. I don't know why. It's a fantastic rock his voice. I don't know why. It's a fantastic rock legendary voice, but you listen to yourself on your answering machine and you think you're an asshole, so I can understand it. But they were so nervous about it that they called Mark and I in to sing leads

on a song called Everyone's Gone to the Movies that they later recut, and then they put our version on their box set or something. But we actually did. We got them their deal at ABC Dunhill and then we were

out. I mean, they called when the Turtles broke up, they actually called me in 1970, the start of the year, and said, we're putting Steely Dan together as a real group, and we want to go out on the road. Would you like to sing with us? We heard the Turtles just broke up. And I said, frankly, no, unless Mark can come with me. We've been together since 15 years old, and we've got a good thing going here,

and I really don't want to screw it up by either doing your thing or playing the leads in hair or doing some other ridiculous thing that is going to just make our career next stop the pom-pom room. I don't want to do that. And also at this age, I'm not that interested in furthering my career. So, you know, even on the tours that we do, if a manager type comes backstage with Hollywood dreams and New York contracts, you know, we're the first people to go, get the fuck out of here. Managers, we're going to be 70 years old. The only thing I want you to manage is my funeral get the hell out of here you know no no i gotta say you know for all the people that are out there

on the road like like we take every year on the happy together tour you know the cow seals and the association and people from the you know 60s from era, from Laurel Canyon that actually grew up with us. We'd rather take people we know and love than people that are big and successful. So I'm going to spend three months in a bus with these idiots. I better like what I'm doing. I'm just saying that the older you get, the fewer times you feel like going out and proving yourself. I don't need to do that. I don't really need to make the turtles bigger than they were.

In fact, we've spent the last 30 years making the turtles bigger than they were. In the grand scheme of things, the turtles were not the mamas and the papas. We were not the Rolling Stones. the mamas and the papas. We were not the Rolling Stones. So I think in Afterlife, we've gained more respect by staying together than we ever had as a band, even with Zappa.

There's just something to being together for 52 years as a team that you can't put words on. It's just a feeling of camaraderie that won't go away even though he lives in Nashville, I live in Seattle. It's not like it used to be when we were doing vocal sessions in LA. We're grownups now. We've got families, Mark marks on his third, and I'm on my fifth, God knows. But, you know, life has been rich and wonderful, and I think that's the idea and well worth paying for. So we're all doing good psychologically.

The both of us are in the best shapes of our lives. Now we got to get to something important. You got stoned with soupy shells. Yeah. More than once. More than once, but the first time it was the shock of my life. I was in New York City visiting a friend of mine, a songwriter by the name of Steve Duboff.

And he, together with his friend Artie Kornfeld, who was one of the Woodstock founders, wrote the Cowsill song, the Rain the Park and Other Things, and Pied Piper and a whole bunch of other hits. And they wrote songs for us. And I got very very friendly with this guy steve and went over to his apartment on the upper west side and was just hanging out and and smoking which i found amazing in an apartment anyway because you know there was no towel by the door there was no west coast you know burning incense in an ashtray or anything. There wasn't any of that crap. It was just, he said, you know, it's an apartment. Everybody here gets high.

Nobody cares. Okay, well, it was pretty early on in the 60s, and I assumed he knew what he was talking about. We got onto a rant about the shows we had watched growing up, and I had exclaimed and explained to him that my favorite show as a kid growing up was the Soupy Sales show, and I used to rush home from school every day and watch it.

And when I was nine years old, I had these cards printed up. I was the president of the Soupy Sales fan club, and we'd all come over to my house after school and watch the show. And we'd be white fang and black. Yeah. All the characters. And I loved him.

I loved him. I loved him. And Steve Duboff said, hang on a minute. You know, and this is another just unbelievable life opportunity. He goes across the hall. He knocks on the door. And into our domicile walks Soupy Sales. I could not believe it. You know, I was beyond words. So was Mark.

We both grew up watching Soupy. And then he said, oh, you guys, and started regaling us with show business stories and wonderful vaudeville days and catskill comics and borscht belt shit and i really just loved it and we were passing around some sort of a pipe and he said oh i'll be right back and he came back with not only the best stash i had ever seen in my life. I do not know. I don't know where he got it. You know, I know the guy was connected, but I mean, you know, just rat pack ancillary does not entitle you to this incredible grade

of opiated hash and wonderful skunky weed. And back in the day, it was, you know, stems and seeds usually. And this stuff was just primo. And we were out of our minds, and then he went back to the apartment and he brought out Pookie. Now, for those who don't remember Pookie, shame on you, it was a little, tiny little hand puppet that I think was a lion. A lion, yeah. Yes, indeed. Yeah, yeah.

And he used to not only, hey, boobie, he wouldn't only interact with Soupy as a puppet, but they would mime songs together. Fantastic, like Spike Jonze kind of songs together. And we would listen and we would wonder what the hell he was playing. Cocktails for two, stuff like that you know that was just before our time or you know jonathan and darlene edwards you know uh just off-key wonderful paul weston and joe stafford shit from back in the 50s and 60s and just really educational to a whole generation of kids who were never going to be exposed to that before. Anyway, Pookie was wonderful. Soupy was wonderful.

When we had the chance to pick an opening act many years later when Flo and Eddie went out by ourselves as a solo act, we chose Soupy Sales. And he opened for us many, many times in the Northeast, in Florida, in the Midwest. We flew him out to the Detroit area, where he was also really popular. And I loved the man. I truly loved the man. And if you buy Soupy's autobiography, the first picture in it is soupy and mark and me and it just you know warmed the cockles of my heart you know that's still very near and dear to me he was a i can't say he was a close friend but he was a man who was really really kind of underrated as being one

of the great comics uh truly one of the great off the top of his head, you know, put down comics way ahead of his time, you know, and had kids had the chance to hear what he was really thinking. He never would have been on the air at all. Did you know Soupy Gilbert? Did you get to meet him? Oh yeah. And I, what I remember about Soupy is he would come up to you and his conversation would be like the oldest, corniest, dumbest jokes you've ever heard. Fantastic. That's the shit that lays me out.

When a 75 year old guy tells you a joke you heard in second grade, that is the funniest thing in the world. You have something to look forward to, Gil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's saying it with all this conviction. I mean, you know, shaggy dog stories that go on forever and ever. You just go, come on over. And then the punch is just, oh, God.

Sometimes a groaner, but once in a while you get, you know, Friars Club quality. You just go, this guy is a legend. He is a legend. And you got to remember that he ran with a rat pack for Fox. Yeah, sure. You know, he was on Reprise Records. Frank signed him.

He was that close to, you know, sitting next to Peter Laughlin. Although I never saw it. And he hit Frank Sinatra with a pie. Yes, he did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Frank volunteered. Oh, yes.

Yes. He didn't know. He would have been dead. It wasn't like he ambushed him in an alley. No. Mia, Mia, stand over here. Mia, hold him down. Now, can you sing Do the Mouse?

Offhand? No, that wasn't my big, you know, I could sing you Hippie Has a Pair of Cha-Cha Hips. Okay. No, I won't. It's a copywritten material. I'm already in so much trouble with copywritten material. I'll do it.

I'm already in so much trouble with copywritten material Now the song that put the turtles on the map is Happy Together, I guess It was the larger map It ain't me, babe, really put them on the map Yeah, but we were babies We were such babies But didn't everybody turn that down? In fact, they did.

Oh, now I can see you both. In fact, they did. They turned it down. Hi, the Vogues turned it down. I mean, when the Vogues turn a song down, you're the bottom of the bag. I mean, nothing against those. I'm sure they're wonderful. Fuck them. I don't know. everybody gary lewis too gary lewis too everybody that bonner and gordon later wrote songs for and had hit records with those two guys couldn't sell happy together

to save their lives and by the time we got the, the one and only demo I ever heard of Happy Together, the vinyl, you know, demonstration record of the song itself, it was horrible. I mean, it was horrible. It came across our desk along with 50 other, you know, like LA Greenwich songs and songs by, you know, great writers who thought, you know, we're going to write a hit for those turtle guys. And here, here it comes, here we go. Um, but this demo sounded horrible. There was this guy singing, uh, and playing guitar, acoustic guitar and singing kind of tentatively off mic. And there was another guy singing the choruses who was smacking his knees. You know, I assumed he was the drummer of the band, but it was sort of hard to tell.

And by the time they got to the chorus and that second guy was allowed to sing, it was, I can't see me loving. It was just, what the hell? And it was scratchy. And the record had been played and played and played. And nobody heard it. Nobody heard it. And we listened to the thing. We took the record off.

And all of us in the room said, play that again. Play that again. There's something mysterious about it. And something that we liked all the way back to It Ain't Me, Babe, which we kind of stole the concept of. I can't take credit for the concept of our version of It Ain't Me the zombies, sort of, who were a very big English group. Sure, time of the season, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and She's Not There, particularly. She's Not There, right.

You know, because it had a very minor kind of verse, it was really mysterious. And then for the chorus, they break into a major chord, and it was triumphant. It was really mysterious. And then for the chorus, they break into a major chord, and it was triumphant. It was really great. Well, we kind of heard the same thing happening to Happy Together, but with more of a kind of a march, kind of a 4-4 tempo. And it wasn't really rock and roll. It was really strange. It was, you can't dance to it. really rock and roll. It was really strange. It was, you can't dance to it. You know, it's just kind of a listening song and a sing-along song. And it turned into an anthem. And I swear to God,

when we went into the studio after eight months of preparing the shit on the road, we came out the first night before the thing was even finished and we knew it was a number one record it was the only time in our lives where we went uh-oh uh-oh we better do this one right because this this deserves it so even though the presentation was terrible you heard something in it you even from the get-go yeah i still do when i when i listen back to that early demo there's there's a mystery and a magic and a once in a lifetime studio situation uh and you put on the mono version the 45 record version of happy together i swear it sounds huge It sounds bigger than the stereo version. It's just, how did they get all of those tracks onto a record? It's good vibrations in a lot of ways.

And it epitomized the West Coast sound, and it wound up epitomizing flower power and the summer of love, and it also has kept me alive for 52 years. love and it also has kept me alive for 52 years. If I should call you up, invest a dime And you'd say you belong to me, you'd lose my mind Imagine how the world could be so verified So happy together I can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Back to the show. And you had a bunch of people you loved growing up on tv yeah ernie kovacs i mean you you say in the book howard and again we'll mention the name of the book shell shocked which is a terrific memoir you said howdy doody and kukla fran and ollie and ernie kovacs were your true friends. They were my only friends, man. My brother was three years younger than I was. My parents, my dad was right out of World War II. We lived in Brooklyn in some sort of a bizarre housing setup, the Linden Houses. And it wasn't a happy childhood, really.

I mean, it was a lot of snow and I remember being just shoved into snowsuits and thrown onto school buses and not really getting it. I didn't get the whole social part of school at all. I wanted to come home on that bus as soon as I could and turn on the television. And I stayed that way as a kid all through coming home

and turning on American Bandstand. You know, I'm a child of the TV age, and I loved everything about it. Like us? Yeah, from Sky King to Dinah Shore. Did you run home to watch Kate Smith? She was my favorite. To this day, I don't know why. Did you run home to watch Kate Smith? She was my favorite. To this day, I don't know why.

She's certainly, she's not my physical type. Adele, I'm sorry, you're not in the running. For my sixth wife. But I was really attracted to, I don't know, the voice or the production of the show or something. But every day she would sing her theme song, which was, when the moon comes over the mountain. And it was just, what the hell, man? What the hell? And it was, you know, nothing a kid would like at all. Most adults would shun it. But I i was drawn to it you know she was like a friend to me and everything that followed uh including soupy they were they were my friends

but in the early days yeah before that kukla fran and ollie we had a we had a six inch round television set when i was growing up and it was the only one in the entire neighborhood. The console was the size of big blue and it had this tiny little screen and all the neighbors would come over to watch Kate Smith or to watch Betty White Life with Elizabeth or something. I'm dating myself. That's a good reference. I was only like five or six years old at the time, but it made such an impression on me that since my real world in Utica, New York, later as a kid was so dark and gray, but those were the friends I chose. Those TV friends from the big circus and all those,

they were a lot hipper than anybody I knew at school or my teachers or my parents. So screw all of them. I would eat my food in front of the TV. I still do. And get into my fantasy world, which I still do. I prefer that to the real life around me, you know, because the rest of my time I spend watching MSNBC and that that be depressing, you know. OK, we're going to take a quick moment and we're going to talk about one of our sponsors.

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I can't explain it. But I can tell you when Steve met Edie, I can tell you what song Julius La Rosa sang on any given day. And Arthur Godfrey, who was probably a nightmare. I mean, thinking back, the guy was some sort of a Trumpish diva with a uke, you know, and he was playing songs that were just unbelievable. I remember, you know, songs that were just unbelievable. I remember, you know, he would start every show with the same greeting and it almost drove me insane. It was kind of like

early Matthew McConaughey, but instead of instead of alright, alright, alright, he would go How are you? How are you? How are you? I couldn't believe anybody had the balls to do that. And Arthur Godfrey, I don't know if you ever found this out on your own,

vicious anti-Semites. I was just going to ask that. Yeah. He's famous for it. Oh, yeah. You know, he reminded me of a sort of a link letter type of a, you know, right wing fascist. Yeah. Yeah. you hater yeah sure i can see that how are you how are you i hate you oh i voted for hitler you know another guy from that era who drove me equally nuts, my mother used to listen to him every day, was Don McNeil and the Breakfast Club out of Chicago.

Do you remember that? Once a show, this moron who couldn't sing or act or dance or anything, you know, he would just introduce his cadre of comrades who were less talented than the East coast people, but something for the Midwest people to grab onto in central time. So once a show, he would say, all right, everybody get up and march around the breakfast table. And the entire audience, if you watched it on TV,

he was also on radio uh everybody got up and left their seats and it was like musical chairs with 250 fat blue-haired women all marching around the breakfast table like the music was going to stop and they would steal somebody else's eggs you know but it wasn't it't like that. It was just a happy kind of a morning. Let's get up and exercise because you're in walkers, you're rolling, you know, it's not good a lot. I think Ron Liebman and Jessica Walter serenaded us with one of the theme songs from the Breakfast Club.

Yes. I think that was what they, yeah, they were, Ron Liebman was here and Jessica Walter and they, they, uh, they, they, uh, treated us to, I think it was, if I'm not mistaken, it was Don McNeil's Breakfast Club. That's fantastic. We'll send you the clip. Oh, that's, I would really appreciate that. I would love

that. I would love that. Tell us about your trip. Maybe it was your first trip to England. Ooh. You got a minute? Oh, there's so much good stuff in the book on that. Okay. I can sum this up pretty briefly.

This is in 1967. Happy Together had already been a number one record in America. We put out a record called She'd Rather Be With Me as the follow-up. We should point out, too, that Happy Together knocked Penny Lane out of the number one position on the charts. Didn't want to brag. Go ahead. But it's hanging on the wall, so we love it.

We love it. Anyway, we were working on our second record, and the first thing we saw was a review from New Musical Express the week before we were about to go to London for the first time. We were so excited. We wanted to be Beatles so bad that we named ourselves Turtles, T-L-E-S ending, animal name, small label. People thought we were British for a long time. So we really emulated these guys and wanted to be them very, very badly. Well, our first knock was when Blind Date, a column in New Musical Express, one of their music papers, had Lulu, the singer Lulu, to serve with love, do a blind date and played her She'd Rather Be With with me sight unseen. And she recognized who it was instantly. And it went,

Oh, those are those turtle guys from America. Aren't they? Oh, too bad. I expected so much more than this, you know, and it was just a knock and it was,

it felt really bad. This by Lulu. Yeah. Who the hell gives a shit? What Lulu thinks? She had one song, by Lulu. Yeah. Lulu. Who the hell gives a shit? What Lulu thinks? She had one song, maybe two. Yeah.

She was a short little squat nugget. Nobody cared about her anyway. She, she had no neck. So I couldn't take her seriously. I still don't take her seriously. Nor the songs that she recorded, to be honest with you. But anyway, it was depressing.

We went over to England. We didn't really know what to expect. We wanted to meet our idols. The first night we were there, in fact, before we had even unpacked our suitcases, I had a message in my hotel room. Graham Nash had called. We had met the Hollies when they were touring America. So he knew we were coming to town. He said,

come on over. We said, well, we haven't even unpacked. He said, what the fuck difference does that make? Come on over. So we went over there to his flat, which was very Tonyony he's a very very you know cultured individual still and um he said after a few rounds of passing the hookah around donovan donovan was there he was sitting cross-legged on an indian rug smoking a fucking hookah this couldn't have been made up it was it was unbelievable it was everything i dreamed England would be. I'm sitting there with these two stars. And now Graham says, you want to hear something? Sure.

We figure it's the Hollies' new record. We're into them. Puts it on. It turns out to be the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, which hadn't come out yet. And we heard it for the first time under those conditions and our minds were suitably blown and he said uh you want to meet him what so we got into a taxi we went to this club called the speakeasy on all night little private club uh and on the way in we bumped into the rolling stones and all these other people that we were to see later on in our careers and did eventually run into or got led by the Beatles table.

It was kind of like meeting the queen. We filed by very respectfully, one at a time. We shook all of their hands. You know, Paul said, oh, lovely bit of the la-la-la stuff on that Happy Together song. That's really great. You know, that really was fantastic. And actually, there was room. He indicated, sit down next to me.

I sat down next to Paul. We started singing, you know, Lottie Miss Claudia and all these great old American rock songs are having the time of my life. I swear to God, I was in fucking heaven. And then our idiot rhythm player, I think I can say that with impunity because I hate the guy, went up to John Lennon to shake his hand. The guy was wearing a three-piece mohair suit, the same suit he had worn on the plane because we went there that quickly. He had a kind of a Nero-ish shag haircut. He was a skinny guy. He was trying to look all mod.

And Lennon said, oh, you're lovely, aren't you? You're a lovely piece of work. What the hell is your name? And he said, oh, Jim Tucker. And Lennon comes back and goes, Tucker? Tucker? They call you Tucko? Tucko? I can have quite a bit of fun with that name. Let's see. Tucko, Tucko. And they started rhyming. Well, by the time he got to Fucko, and he started rhyming. Well, by the time he got to fucko, Jim was getting a little pissed and there was nothing he could do about it. John was his idol and he just kept going.

You give rhythm players a bad name. You know, what did you tell your barber? You wanted a beetle cut? You know, trade in that suit, man. I mean, the moths are flying into my drink, you know, stuff like that. And it was just hurtful and harmful. And at some point, Jim Tucker, the rhythm player, said, you know, you're an ass, man. I'm really sorry I met you. And Lennon said, you never did, son. You never did.

And that was it. Jim Tucker turned around. He walked out of the club. He got on a plane. He went home. He never played music again. He quit the group, and we were never a six-piece band again after that. We stayed five pieces, and I stayed in the club, and Brian Jones introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, and I ate dinner with Jimmy hendrix and he got me even higher than i was then and i threw up all over his red velvets a spinach omelet i believe a spinach omelet after six cognacs and incredible hash and i i couldn't handle it i couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle it. Maybe it was the excitement of the night, but I woke up in my hotel room the next day and no one to this day has ever told me how I got there. Wow.

And you said Mr. Cool himself, Jimi Hendrix totally lost his cool when you threw up on him. Well, what are you going to do? I mean, even if you're, you know, Gandhi, you're going to freak if your only loincloth has been spewed. So what did he start yelling?

Well, it was pretty, you know, first thing he did was stand up. You know, we were he did was stand up. We were in a booth, so he didn't have the drama of throwing his chair over. But he stood up quickly and just went, what the fuck, man? What the fuck? What are you doing to me, man? Everybody was looking. Everybody was standing up.

Waiters were coming over to mop the shit off of his suit. But he was like, I can't wear this ever again. I can't wear this ever again. I can't wear this ever again. It was like a custom. I read, you know, what are you going to do? But he did come back to see us. I didn't really add this to the book, I think. I don't remember. But he did come back to see us that weekend when we performed at that very club.

And he was very complimentary. And he acted like the night hadn't happened at all. And, uh, that's why I didn't put it in the book because it's anticlimactic and it puts me to sleep. But you did make a movie out of it called my dinner with Jimmy. True that. And it was a 30 minute movie, uh, that was just made about the dinner itself. It was when Rhino was still part of Warner Brothers, and those guys paid for it. We gave it to Warners, and they said, yeah, this is great. What are we going to do with a 30-minute movie? And the producers, Harold Bronson and Richard Foose said, well, we made it for Sundance. we made it as a festival film and warner brother said we'll make it longer and then it's a festival film so i had to go in and write another hour

which is why it goes all the way back to the early days at the whiskey a go-go and jim morrison and uh the draft board and all the other things that I had to sort of throw in there that are explained in the book in a little more depth. And the kid from Kramer versus Kramer, Justin Henry, grown up, played you. The youngest Oscar nominee. How about that, Gil? Oh, geez.

And our old friend Taylor Negron is in it, too. Oh, wow. I love Taylor. Yes, the sweetest man. You can imagine how cool it is for me to be on the road with Chuck. Oh, right. Chuck Negron. Three Dog Night.

Yeah, Three Dog Night. So we've taken him now. This summer will be the third or fourth tour that we've done with Chuck. this summer will be the third or fourth tour that we've done with Chuck. We, we pick the people on the happy together tours that we do every summer based on how well we get along with them, not how big they were on the charts. I really don't care.

You know, if we can get along with them on a bus, which is like a sub for three fucking months, that's well worth it to me to have someone I can tell stories to and laugh about and with and not be uptight and not be a damn prima donna because it doesn't suit you when you're 70 years old and you think you're, you know, Celine Dion. It just doesn't work.

And when I hear that story, though, with John Lennon, I don't know, he comes across like a scumbag. Yeah, you could say that. And apropos of that, many years later in the Mothers of Invention, when we were playing at the Fillmore East in New York City, John and Yoko sat in with us and improvised a song that we had sort of thrown together the afternoon before called Scumbag, where John just repeated, scumbag, scumbag, scumbag, scumbag. It was, you know, kind of a Yoko-influ influenced thing. I guess that was art, but I decided, uh, or Frank decided, or somebody decided at the time, that's kind of not enough for a song, John. So I added lyrics to it and it was just, you know, it was stupid. Uh,

but I was listing things that you could put in your scumbag and, uh, it was recorded live at the Fillmore, and it came out on two separate albums. On the Mothers of Invention album, you hear all the words, you hear the mix as Frank intended it to be, and I'm credited. It's amazing to see Lennon, Zappa, Kalen as writers of anything. That's just nuts. Well, as far as Jim Tucker is concerned, didn't he apologize to you many years later?

And you said the apology would be better, Jim would be better served by the apology? I don't even know if I was that magnanimous about it. I nodded my head, certainly. I remembered the incident, but it hadn't harmed me. I'm glad it stuck with him, though. I'm glad he remembered he was a dick. But he was continuing to be a dick because that very song, Scumbag, was released on the John Lennon Sometime in New York City album. He took out the

lead vocals. He didn't have a cover for that record, so he used the Fillmore East cover, scratched out like lead in front of vocals, put himself in the credits, and released the thing without vocals on it at all. You can hear me sort of screaming in the back, but he called it Scumbag, and he credited it to Lennon. Lennon, oh no, period. So Frank, needless to say, was pissed off. He also took other pieces from that very show, that very encore that we were doing, renamed them, even though they were famous Frank Zappa compositions like Lumpy Gravy and King Kong and stuff. He called it something like, you know, Walking the Dog and wrote it himself, Lennon, and published it and put it on the album. And Frank just said, no, here it is from 17 years ago. I've been playing it for 17 years and it's not a jam. The band knows it by rote.

And so we sued him, and he won. And there was bad blood between Lennon and Zappa till the end. Didn't know that. That's interesting. Let's go back just a little bit, too, because we talked about Happy Together, but let's talk about you meeting Mark for the first time, because you guys were classmates. You were the Crossfires, you were the Knight Riders before you became the Turtles, and Mark came up and introduced

himself to you and said he wanted to audition for the band? Exactly. We had played a dance, a sports night, they used to call it at our school. And we were a little four-piece group called the Night Riders. I was the sax player. I wasn't very good, but I had gotten a phone call from this guy the first semester I was in school asking me to join a rock and roll band. I was really a clarinet player, but I borrowed a sax.

I figured, what the hell, close enough. And I honked my way through the first band, which was called the Knight Riders. So Mark Vollman went to see us play a dance at the high school and came up to me at lunch the next day. I didn't really know who he was, except he was also in choir with me. So I knew he could sort of sing. And he was really funny. He was class clown. And he said, Hey, I'd like to join your group. I said, that'd be great. What is it that you do exactly? And he said, nothing. That's great, man.

You fit right in with the rest of us. None of us do anything either. But we did know that he had like a following. You know, he was really the school clown. And everybody kind of watched him as if he were our own little Jonah Hill, you know. So he had that going for him. And we figured that would pull in enough people from the surf community. We lived like half mile from the beach, um, to make it worthwhile putting him in the band, even as a tambourine player.

I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to ask you when did it occur to you? Cause this is intriguing in the book. You talk about how you guys borrowed from Martin and Lewis lewis and and kaylee smith and and louis prima but when did this idea that you would be the straight man and and mark would would kind of do the funny when did that even occur to you when we first shook hands uh it made perfect sense to me i mean i couldn't think of a team that didn't have a straight man and a clown and since mark was so good at being the straight man and our timing was so good together it was so natural

uh it was obvious that i was going to be keely which i didn't mind at all i really really enjoyed that whole attitude they were great you know and, and the semi hostility they had going on stage, it was sort of cute knowing they were married or best friends or whatever that we had going parallel to theirs. So that's what we did. It was a natural thing. You know, when the guy next to you is spinning tambourines and they're falling into the audience and scarring the people in the first row you know you got to let that guy do it because he's obviously you know the visual focus of right of what you're doing on stage and i was perfectly content to stand there uh before i was even hand holding the mic and just being the voice of the band. I wanted to be the voice of the

band. That's all I ever wanted to be. When I walked out of college and my parents said, what are you doing home? I said, I want to be in the band. And they thought it was the biggest idiot in the world. And then six months later, it ain't me, babe came out and I bought them a trip to Hawaii and a color TV set. And they loved me ever since. There's a nice story in the book of you hearing It Ain't Me, Babe on the radio, but you guys were at a gig, and you were sitting in the car, and you heard it for the first time. It's a little like that scene in the Tom Hanks movie, that thing you do where they first hear their record on the radio. It was very touching that it really happened. Exactly.

I love that movie. Yeah, we do too. For that very reason, because it was so true to life, you know, it wasn't the glamor of almost famous. It was more spinal tappy to me.

It was more real, more realistic. And that, that kind of stuff happened all the time. I mean, when you were in a band a band uh everybody went through the same things that's why spinal tap hits home for so many groups um everybody has been through that stuff everybody and and you said uh not unlike a lot of rock stars, you had a lot of girls over the years. Yeah. You got to understand, Gilbert.

I had a very stunted social life. I mean, truly. In high school, when you look like a potato or Neil Sedaka, pick one, you are not going to get laid in high school. You're just not. So I palled around with people in the band, people in the audiovisual. I was a dweeb pretty much. I went to prom with a beautiful girl, but that was only

because her sister, who I really loved, had a boyfriend. So it was not a big social situation until I picked up a saxophone and had a business card and was in a band. And then all of a sudden, funny things started happening to me. Girls would be backstage and want to ride home and stuff. And I was 15, 16, and just realizing that even a potato could get laid under the right circumstances. So there were lots of little fingerlings along the way. Um, I think, and, uh, uh, fingerlings staying with the potato metaphor. I thought I would. Sorry.

Um, it works. That wasn't meant to be a Trump kind of a reference. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, perhaps I know i definitely abused it i abused it as we all did and there were nights on the road when there were no shit lines of girls and it was pretty damned i was going to say horrible but the word that comes to mind is spectacular. I don't regret a single day of the 60s, 70s, and even early 80s when I was being so promiscuous before the bad shit happened, before everybody needed to be aware of what they were doing

and with whom. The free love era was me. I mean, I am still that hippie guy. I am still the guy who can reach over with one of these and not feel. He's holding a joint. Yeah, the size of my arm. What is it about music that gets your pussy? Because we in comedy don't know.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no no no you get your groupies i see the groupies they're basically the same i mean the people that you meet uh at the improv at the bar are not unlike the people that are waiting you know meet you backstage with the vip passes or the tribal chicks you know with their vip passes going oh i'm silver cloud nice to meet, you know, with their VIP passes going, oh, I'm Silver Cloud. Nice to meet you. You know, okay. But the whole, I think it's just having the lights, you've captured the intelligence of at least the millennials. So we've got that going for us. They've heard our shit growing up all their lives. So have their parents. And in many cases, so have their parents. Let's talk just a little bit too. And we're jumping all over the place. We don't go in order here, Howard. Jump, baby. When Happy Together was a smash

and the record company was busting your balls and they kept saying, give us another Happy Together and another Happy Together, you kind of wrote Eleanor a little bit as a protest? As an FU? It was a spiteful,

evil song that I wrote to show those motherfuckers that Happy Together, just because you had a Happy Together didn't mean anything. That wasn't the point. It was the record. It wasn't the song. So if they want a song

that was as stupid as Happy Together was, I figured I could do that for them. It was a very simple thing to do. Every time Happy Together went up chord-wise, I took my chords down. And every time, you know, I wanted to still follow the pattern of the zombies. Same pattern that followed in Happy together and even it ain't me babe a minor soft verse and a strong pounding chorus so eleanor was happy together through a funny mirror and i wanted to make sure that the lyrics were so teenaged and cliche and trite and offensive that the record company would go all right smart ass we get it we'll try to find you something that makes you sound like an adult uh so we recorded

the thing as a joke and sent them the demo from chicago where we were staying and they didn't think it was a joke uh they said oh my god this song's fantastic get to la quick so you can record it what what are you talking about you got to record this song i swear to god so we went in and recorded this song um it sounded good but we just thought the lyrics are going to keep it way off the charts way off the charts they're so stupid they were meant to be so inane and uh we hope that people at least would get the joke i don't think a lot of people did get the joke when you're singing lyric like pride and joy etc. or your folks hate me things like that that are obviously

so you know, hermits at the age of 15. My favorite lyric in that song is I really think you're groovy let's go out to a movie. That's great.

And as a kid when I loved that song, I had no idea that it was, that it was written as a kind of a, as a joke. That verse was written on a Cantor's napkin. Wow. At Cantor's in LA? Yeah.

Wow. Cantor's Deli. Yeah. They said, where's the second verse? I don't have a second verse. Write a second verse. Okay.

Give me a minute. I'll write a second verse. Okay, give me a minute. I'll write a second verse. We went to Cantor's. I had an egg cream and a corned beef and I wrote a verse. I really think you're groovy. Let's go out to a movie. What do you say now, Eleanor, can we? Say now, Eleanor, can we?

They'll turn the lights way down low And maybe we won't watch the show I think I love you, Eleanor, love me Eleanor G., I think you're swell speaking of lyrics and happy together you you threw in how is the weather because where did that come from was that that an ad lib? Was it on the demo? In fact, I had heard Gary, Alan Gordon, the other writer of the song, sing that line while Gary was going out. He was like across the room and he sang that one time and I went, that's got to be on the record.

That's just too weird. So I put it on the record thinking they were going to. This was the first take. Happy Together was my first take vocally. So I was playing around thinking that, all right, they've got the mic settings now. Let's start going for the takes. And I went into the control room and they said, we got it.

And I said, what do you mean you got it? You know, I expected to be there for four hours getting this vocal right. I was there for two minutes and 48 seconds and you're telling me it's done. Listen to it back. Well, okay. It sounds okay. Yeah, it sounds okay. Go home. So I did. And, and the next time I heard it, I, you know,, and we all did, for the only time in our career, we've got a number one record. We've got a number one record. What the hell, man?

We knew it. And we had no reason to believe it. We were on this mob-related tiny little label in L.A. that really had no business buying its way onto any chart. And yet, happy together legitimately and illegitimately, because it was bootlegged everywhere, sold all over the world and kind of reinvented us. That was our second coming, so to speak. And we had a run of hits with those very writers. She'd Rather Be With Me, which wound up being a much bigger international record than Happy Together. Love that one too. And thank you. And you showed me and you had a bunch of hits too.

Well, we had like four in a row um you know what i mean and she's my girl right and from those same writers and then we were such punks uh we were the only guys recording on our little label right well we were such dicks i can't believe it but but they were too they were too they were bigger dicks than we were. And we just, we wanted to be the Beatles. So when Apple Corps came out, we said, we want that. So we kind of illegally started dealing with RCA, which is not constitutional. One can't do that legally but word got out to the label that we were negotiating with other places when our contract ran out and they got scared and said

we'll give you anything you want so we went from a very low percentage artist deal to a very high percentage production deal and we got our logo on the record, which was blimp because they had Apple limp. And, uh, as the doors did, uh, they made their whole thing about being a democracy.

Nobody wrote a door song. The doors wrote the doors songs. So we figured, all right, let's do that with the Turtles. The Turtles are right. The Turtles songs. We had had a couple of records that hadn't been that big. And before Eleanor came out, we thought the career was on its way out. And then Eleanor gave us like another life life an entirely new life in 1968 and 9 and into 70 with you showed me from the same album so it was kind of a blessing and chip douglas our former bass player who had gone on to produce the monkeys sure um came back and produced for us. And Jerry Yester, his friend, also from MFQ, produced for us.

And it was great. The third coming was great. Battle of the Bands was probably our best. Battle of the Bands is a pretty ambitious album. A concept album. And, you know, you guys could have been content to just been knocking out singles, but you tried to do something big with Harry Nielsen. Well, it goes to show you, kids, keep the bar low.

To our listeners that don't know, Battle of the Bands was a concept album where you guys basically tried to do a different song in every kind of genre. Correct, sir. And we dressed up as each one of the bands we were taping. So we had all these incredible pictures, Western costume. We rated Western costume. And we took out everything. We were the bar band, the country and Western band,

the psychedelic band. And each one of the songs followed those bands in order. It was the battle of the bands, and it ended. Harry Nilsson wrote the opening and closing chorus. It's great. An earth anthem was on there. It was a really great record. Tell us about, as we wind down here, Howard, and there's so much stuff in the book.

There's so many stories to get to. I urge people to read the book, by the way. Tell us about Harry Nielsen, the guy whose name comes up on this show quite a bit. Oh, I loved, loved Harry Nilsson as a human. He was the best singer I ever heard in my life. If you haven't heard the stuff he did with Gordon Jenkins in England, it's the most incredible live recording I've ever heard or seen. Because there are videos of this album being made and Harry just sits on a stool

and sings them one after another and Gordon conducts and it's fucking incredible. Anyway, I've always loved him as a singer. When we were doing animated films in the 80s, Harry was also working with the same production company, Murakami Wolf, who had done the point um so he was hanging out he was hanging out there all the time and we daily uh because our office was right

next door to theirs would go across the street to this little bar on hot sunsat boulevard called vjs i don't know if it's still there real dive dive. But a piano and a great bar. And we would stay in there till closing time. I would come home at 3 a.m. every day and my wife would go, how's Harry? Well, he's a little down today. We knew each other since then. In his latter days, it got very, very strange. And those of us who were his friends, I guess, were fortunate enough to have Harry pick us up in his car, as he would often do. And we would drive around and he would always listen to his music. It was only his music that played. And in this case, you know, which he played like you know a touch of schmilzen in the night and we listened to it and he knew that he couldn't do that anymore because

of the screaming contest that he had with john lennon we talked about it on the show yeah yeah so he would cry he would drive and he would cry. He knew he was dying. He wouldn't stop eating and drinking and doing the things that he loved because it was too late. We would drive around. He would listen to shit and he would go, I was a good singer once, wasn't I? Harry, you were the best. You're the best, Harry.

Nobody ever came close to you and it was just horrible it was horrible uh but he stayed himself he stayed himself all the way to the end and um one of the sad parts about it is that uh he wanted his legacy to go on and and outlive him. So he sent his famous bathrobe from those album covers, and practically the only thing he ever wore, by the way, he sent it to a gentleman who worked at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland who had promised him that it would get in. And it hasn't left that guy's closet. I know him.

Uh, he's probably going to hear this. Uh, he knows who he is. And, uh, I really think that that robe should go someplace where it can be appreciated. And I don't like what you've done to this man's legacy,

sir. Wow. Okay. I know there's a, there's a movement I see in social media to get Harry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but that's a whole other conversation and the politics of that. We could go on. Some people will never get into the Hall of Fame, and anybody who was ever connected to anyone suspicious will never get into the Hall of Fame. And if you weren't in

bed with Ahmet Erdogan, you will never get into the hall of fame and if you weren't in bed with ahmed erdogan you will never get into the rock and roll hall of fame if you weren't you know already ripped production or something you can kiss your future goodbye and if you were god forbid on a mob related label uh like we were or like tommy james was on roulette that guy morris levy you know that's a book unto itself and i'm sure there are many books about that but uh not tommy's necessarily but you know yeah it's it's a scary thing out there there are no independents you can think there are you can think that the world has changed and the internet has made things different. But the same four assholes run this business that have run it for the last 50 years. And you can't get away.

The minute your little indie label gets a star, they buy you out. You're corporate. And then you're on The Voice. So those are your steps to to start this is an education well it's an education for me too you know having lived through it and gone through it and seen the pop side of it from am and fm and being on radio for 40 years and doing all the shit that we have done in our lives it's kind of like okay i can be objective about this because I don't give a fuck. There are some great stories

in the book, things we're not going to get to here because we run out of time. I mean, the fire in Montreal, the zap of Montreal, I'm sorry. There's so much in the book, but at least tell us, and Gilbert was fascinated by this, tell us the White

House story real quick. You got invited to sing at Nixon's Tell us the, and Gilbert was fascinated by this, tell us the White House story real quick. Oh, yeah. You got invited to sing at Nixon's White House. Well, you know, it was still a teenage thing because Trisha Nixon, Trisha Nixon, it was Trisha Nixon's coming out party. She was turning 16 years old um it was her birthday they asked her who she wanted to perform at the white house and she said the turtles her favorite group you showed me was her favorite record uh this was right after that came out. So we're talking about like 1970 here, the start of 1970. It was the Nixon White House. He was not there that night, fortunately. But nothing would have changed

had he showed up. It wouldn't have been any different. We came in the afternoon to set up and do a sound check. And the Secret Service was there at the gate to go through the equipment make sure we weren't sneaking guns in or anything bizarre so they go to our stuff now they start going to the drum case the trap case that's where all the sticks are and everything else and they come upon this little black box which happens to be a tuning fork and a metronome just a little cheap 20 guitar center thing and they hit the button on it they don't know what it is and it starts ticking it's a fucking metronome of course it's gonna tick so now every gun is drawn down on the ground. We're down on the ground, hands behind your head, hands behind our heads. It's like, what the hell, man?

It's not like you found our stash. You didn't, fortunately. You know, so what's going on? The metronome thing. Now the guys are looking at the metronome. They got hazmat suits on or vests or some kind of crap to cover up there and they're looking at what the thing is they call in all these other units they're examining the robot we're yelling it's a metronome it's a metronome now they start hitting the buttons to see what

they do if i were in their shoes i don't think i would have started hitting buttons on a machine i didn't know what it was. They're hitting buttons, they're hitting buttons. Well, it's got a tuning fork built into it, which produces a 440 hertz A to tune to. And you tune to it, and then you tune your guitar, you tune to it. But tick, tick, tick, tick, and then, well, well that wasn't good now the guns are cocked we're yelling it's a metronome it's a fucking metronome so they take the thing two guys two

guys have to handle this thing they take it over to the lawn and they they start stomping on it stomping on it you know and just whacking it with their rifle butts and just wiping it out wiping it out and then the guy comes back we're scared shitless the guy comes back like 17 minutes later it's a metronome. Yeah, it's a metronome. Okay, you guys are good to go. So we were good to go. We were covered in sweat, and we thought we were dead and shit in our pants. Other than that, it was great. We played the White House.

We were so high, incredibly high. Our road manager at the time was holding all of the stash, and on the way out of the room, he said, hey, want a bump? Yeah. We didn't think there would be cameras in the Lincoln Library. That would be stupid. In fact, there weren't cameras in the Lincoln Library until after the Watergate

bullshit. And, you know, statute of limitations. Can't get get me now motherfuckers. So I feel good about it. And we were high as hell. Mark fell off the stage four times. Didn't he hit on LBJ his daughter too? Yeah.

And she had just married that Pat, whatever his name is. And, and he was not too happy about it. And I thought they were going to get into a fight right there on the floor, right there on the floor. He tried to pick her up in front of her newly married husband, who was I thought that this is it. But it wasn't. And they took pictures and we wound up on the cover of parade magazine which is real status and uh and that was it but but it brought us to a different social strata

and our price went up so uh and you can't refuse i learned it's like the queen you know you can't refuse an invitation to the fucking white house you just don't do it as an American, no matter who's in office. Okay, we'll do it. We hate you. We hate your war, but the White House is the White House. Good story. What do you got, Gil? Okay.

Well, there's one thing my audience is waiting for, and if you'd like to join me... Curse your loins, Howard. I'm holding my balls. I'm holding them tight. Here it comes. Sing with me. Imagine me and you.

I do. I think about you every night. It's only right to think about the girl you love and hold her tight. Happy Together. Hey, stay with me. I should call her.

Invest the time. And you say you belong to me. And ease my mind. Imagine how the world could be so very fine. So happy together. I can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life. I know you're blue. Baby, the skies will be blue for all my life.

The dice will be blue for all my life! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! You and me, no matter how they toss the dice, it had to be the only one for me is you, and you for me, so happy together! Yes! Can't see me loving nobody but you For all my life When you're near me, baby

The stars will be blue For all my life Me and you, and you and me No matter how they toss the dice It had to be the only one for me Is you and you and me No matter how they toss the dice It had to be

The only one for me is you And you and me So happy together How is the weather? So happy together We're happy together So happy together So happy together So happy together

So happy together Yeah! I need this in my library so badly. I am waiting for an MPC of this. I am posting it live. It is going to go viral. We'll provide it for you, Howard. I love you guys.

I love you. Gilbert, you are the funniest man on the planet without a doubt. He is. Oh, thank you. I'm your biggest fan. Howard, this has been an absolute treat. And what do you got coming up? You guys are still touring.

You're doing that. Here's what I do. I tour June, July, and August, and then I hang up my rock and roll shoes. I won't be out there again until next June, July, and August to do it all again. And that's all I need to do at this stage of my life. Everything is paid for and it's fucking great. Well, you're out with Gary Puckett and Mark Lindsay and the Cow Sills and Chuck Negron. A lot of changes every year.

You know, we're adding people. We're taking people away. We got the Association this year. We got the Archies this year. Oh, Ron Dante's going out with you? Ron is the best, man. If people don't know who that guy is from the Archies or the Cufflinks

or the fact he produced seven Neil Diamond albums, Neil Diamond albums, Barry Manilow albums. Including, I write the songs, and Mandy, and he's getting up there and singing his idiot Archie's songs. It proves a couple of things. A, we're not doing this for the money. And B, it still feels good to get out there and feel an instantaneous audience reaction.

And if that guy can do it and he's got more money than God himself, then I can do it too, you know? And yeah, 70, it's kind of old, but then you see what happened at old cella this past weekend. And,

and we'll come out to see it. And when you bring the show to them in Davenport, Iowa, it's not like they can get to Indio, California. This is their festival and we are their guys. And we understand that this is probably the first and only time they're ever going to see us.

And we want them to remember us. So we give it 110. And you're going to be in New York or East coast. We'll be back at the beacon. You can bet on it. Oh, good. Steely Dan We will indeed. We'll be back at the Beacon. You can bet on it. Oh, good. Steely Dan's there now. We'll come see you at the Beacon. We follow them everywhere. I got to plug your book again, and it is Shell Shocked,

My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc. Howard Kalin with Jeff Tamarkin. The book's great. There's stories about Nielsen and David Bowie and Keith Moon and obviously Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, John Belushi. It goes on. You work with Robert Ridgely, somebody we talk about on this podcast. I love him.

I love him. He was terrific. He was the best. Incredible. Incredible. And the foreword is from our pal Penn Jillette. Penn Jillette. Absolutely.

And you know, there's an audio book version, an audio file, and Penn actually reads his introduction, and I read the book. Oh, got to get that. Yeah, it's great. Anything else to plug, Howard, before we let you go? This has been great. Well, you know what? There are two new Turtle releases.

One of them are all our albums collected in a box with the original covers. And the other record is all the A and B sides we ever released. That's a different album. They both came out on the same day, and they're both available now anywhere you go, and certainly Amazon. Wow. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. We once again recorded at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa, and we've been talking to the very, very talented and entertaining Howard Kalin. Thank you, Gilbert.

Love you, man. I love you, too. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Howard. My pleasure, buddy. Thank you for doing this for us. We'll see you soon. My pleasure. Thanks. Bye-bye, guys. Thank you.