Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Ron Delsener

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

GGACO celebrates the birthday of legendary concert promoter Ron Delsener (b. July 15) by revisiting this memorable interview from 2018. In this episode, Ron regales Gilbert and Frank with stories about growing up in the era of automats and bowling pin boys, inventing the free concert in Central Park, his early days as a promoter of live events and working with Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce and the Beatles. Also, Arthur Godfrey lusts after Haleloke, Bruce Springsteen "opens" for Anne Murray, Ol' Blue Eyes boots Jimmy Roselli out of Vegas and Ron presents Groucho at Carnegie Hall. PLUS: Murray the K! The brilliance of David Bowie! The return of Swain's Rats & Cats! "Jimi Hendrix' Eclectic Thanksgiving"! And Ron sees Dean and Jerry's farewell show at the Copa! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough For something so fantastic So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal classic Cause we're live from New York

It's Saturday night. It's Saturday night live. Hi, I'm Alan Zweibel, and you're listening to Gilbert Godfrey's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I swear. Why would I lie about a thing like this? Ha ha ha! Why would I lie about a thing like this? Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with

our engineer, Frank Furtarosa. Our guest this week is a producer, entrepreneur, and one of the most prominent and successful promoters of live events in the 20th and 21st centuries. He began producing local events in and around New York and soon found himself promoting the very first outdoor performance of a little band known as The Beatles. He would go on to promote dozens of live concerts for landmark acts such as Bob Dylan, Bob Ristrisan, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra. Years later, he created the highly successful number one dollar concert series at New York Central Park, which featured some of the biggest acts in the pop music history,

including The Who, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, The Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Diana Ross, Simon and Garfunkel, just to name a few. But there's more. He's also produced several TV concerts, specials, and Broadway shows, including An Evening with Harry Belafonte and Friends, Good Vibrations from Central Park, Gilda Live, Roger Waters in the Flesh, Eric Clapton and Friends, Louis Black on Broadway, and Paul Simon's concert in the park. in the park. In a career spanning six decades, he's worked with everyone from Lenny Bruce to Bruce Springsteen, and had a front row seat performances of everyone from Woody Allen to Eminem.

From Woody Allen to Eminem. Please welcome to the podcast a local boy who made good. A living legend of live music and entertainment. And a man who actually saw the Ritz brothers perform live. The great Ron Deltzner. Hey, hey! Where is he? Oh, my God, my embalmer did a great job. I'm back from the fucking dead.

Welcome, Ron. Well, that was great. And the Ritz Brothers happened to be at, I think, some Romanian international theater on Broadway. I think there used to be a Latin place there called something, maybe a Latin casino. It wasn't a Latin casino. And they played there, the Ritz brothers.

And I happen to love the Ritz brothers, Harry Ritz. And they had one thing. They did a shtick, the three guys. And I forget what the shtick was. But they said, don't holla. You know, you can tickle me, you can yell at me, but don't say, don't holla. In other words, he did that kind of bit and I thought that was hysterical the way they did double talk. And I took a chorus girl to that show. I picked her up at the

car show. I used to go to the car show because they had these fantastic models saying, and here's the new Dodge. Here's the new Simca, whatever the hell they were selling. And I'm just looking at the girls. And I had my camera. And somebody from the Times must have taken a picture of me when I was about 13 years old, suit and tie. This fucking camera, I didn't even know how to work it with a ball bomb. And I was in the paper and it said, look at the youngsters that are getting into the photography business.

But I was taking these bathing suit girls. So I met this tall girl. She was taking a break, and I'm scared stiff. I must have been 19 years old, living with my parents, like Marty. Like Marty. And I was, yeah, I was not too bad looking. I had hair then. And I went up to her and I said,

would you like to see the Ritz brothers at the, Ritz brothers, I love them. This chick was about six foot tall. And she said, yeah. So I forgot her name. I thought it was, I can't say her name on radio because she may be a live table.

She was terrific. And I took her to the Ritz brothers and they were hysterical. In those days, it was like $6, you know, sit down at a table and the meal was another eight bucks. And I don't even think there were credit cards back then. If there were, it was the Diners Club.

And I don't remember what they did, but they were freaking hysterical. But I used to go to nightclubs as a kid. And what I would do, I had all kinds of jobs, marketing, things like that nature. But I'd take girls to the nightclub, and I'd live with my parents. They'd let me use their car. And I always said, where are we going? We're going to go back to our mother's house. They said, not with me, you guy. So they didn't want to go because they had their own house. They had their own apartment. So I was embarrassed. I couldn't take anybody to my apartment because I live with my parents.

So it was a drawback then, but it was also good. My mom cooked. She made the beds. She treated me nice. My father let me use his car. I'm not going anywhere until I find myself. And that took until I was about 20 years old. Took a while. 27 years old. Who else did you see in clubs? Well, my best. I used to go to the Copa all the time.

It was a guy, Herman, a little guy. He must have been from the Philippines at the time. He was at the top staircase. You see him for his $5 just to stand out alive. And then when I got downstairs, I met a captain, Ira Fisher. He's still alive. He opened a restaurant in the Hamptons called The Quiet Clam. And he was in the Hamptons at 20 years when he left there.

He was a captain. He was a captain at the Copacabana. And there was Frank Sinatra I saw there. And that was a magnificent show. He did a 2 a.m. show. There was three showsatra I saw there, and that was a magnificent show. He did a 2 a.m. show. There was three shows on a Saturday, 8, 10, no, 8, 12, and 2. So I went to the last show one night, and there was George Goebel, Edward G. Robinson.

Wow. A lot of stars came to see the 2 a.m. show, and he comes out to the 2, and I got a table kind of like behind Frank, you know. So I see the silhouette of him with the cigarette in his hand. And he comes out with a black suit, black shirt and a black tie. And they played Man with the Golden Arm. Because the movie had just come out. Frank Sinatra.

I know. He was God You know And he floored it And after the show I went out with this I don't know who I took To the show I took a lot of girls out

They only saw me once And that was it The mothers look at me The mothers look at me Let me see your driver's license One mother said to me In Brooklyn She said

I didn't even know How to drive in Brooklyn I couldn't find my way out Look at He's wearing He's wearing makeup I said Wait a minute I'm in the sun I couldn't find my way out. Look it, he's wearing makeup. I said,

wait a minute, I'm in the sun. I sit at freaking Rockaway, Beach 32. What do you mean I'm wearing makeup? You can't take her out. I just want to, those days,

we used to call it dry humping. You know, we didn't have sex. That's what we did. Dry humping. It was called petting. You know, I never really had,

I didn't know how to have sex. My wife even asked me, what are we doing? You don't know what you're doing? I said, I heard about it. So when I got married, I had to practice. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. So let me practice with some girls. Oh, God.

I saw Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they broke up, their last show at the Copacabana in July of 1956, it might have been. And they were splitting up, and I was like almost in tears. They came out and did a little bit. You and I will be buddies and partners and friends. That was the closing bit. Yeah. They did a bit with twirl.

They liked to twirl guns. Jerry could do anything. Twirl the gums. He tapped dance. He played the drums. He conducted a band. They were amazing. And just recently, two weeks ago, I met Dean Martin's youngest daughter.

Her name is Dina, D-I-N-A, D-E-N-A, D-I-N-A, Dina Martin. She sings, of course. And she lives in Branson, Missouri with her husband. It's sad how quickly our life goes and how our past goes. That's where all your memories are. And I have such great memories. And I kind of live, I always look back into that. That's the things I really remember.

And I look out in the street today, we're trying to park my car. I go, where are we in Bangladesh? It's crazy out there. I hate the people I can't stand the I fucking No one knows What I'm talking about

I had to go to two places Before a guy knew What I was meant When I said I want to park my car And he says No this is for people To have a

Are you parking For a monthly I said I don't park here monthly What it's got a ticker on I said the sticker's From my fucking Parking garage

On 84th street And I got another sticker For the car that I park in my office on 15th Street. No parking here. No parking. I go,

anybody speak English here? Anybody? It was a guy dressed pretty nicely. A nice, nice, nice guy barking like this. Sir,

here's 10 freaking dollars. Would you let me pay to park my car here? Yeah, what's the matter? Well, these two clowns over here from, right? Because wherever the hell

you got these guys from, they won't let you park here. As another woman comes out, I thought? Because wherever the hell you got these guys from, they will leave Brock here. As another woman comes out, I thought she was like taking the money. The cash lady, no puck, no puck. She says, who the fuck is she, from Latvia? Chicken Israel. No puck. I said, I know.

I know I have to pay. I will to pay. Here's the cash. Here's the cash. This is the second place I went to. I'm sorry we put you through that, Ron. So I'm going, get me the hell out of here. I want to go to New Zealand.

There's only sheep. Sheep don't fucking talk. Tell us about, you're from Astoria. You're a local kid, as we said in the intro. I was born in Astoria. My mother kept moving further out because I was getting beaten up by Irish guys with rocks. They used to hit my hand and break. I got a split pinky right here.

When I was two years old, my mother said, somebody put a rock, little kids were playing, big stone and split my pinky in the street. I ran out screaming, I sewed it up. It's a story of 1938. And your pinky never healed. No, but I don't do it to tea. This one's good, though.

For the record. So she moved me out to Flushing and then Bayside, and there was open space out there. Now it's Korea, it's little Korea, and it's really, does you ever go out to Flushing?

No. I'm from Ozone Park. Well, we had a theater there called the RKO Keith's Theater, and they'd have two shows. They'd have two films, and between films Bernie at the organ

Would come out The organ would come Lift out of the Bowels of the stage Lift up He'd start playing Down by the old mill stream And on a screen

Were the words Down by the old mill stream And the bouncing ball Would bounce on it So go Down by the old mill stream Babadoo babadoo, babadoo, and you'd sing along with your mom and dad.

And you're always dressed up with a tie, a jacket. Next door, I remember there was an ice cream parlor that had a banana split sundae. A banana split with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, sliced banana, real, real whipped cream, real, stuff today. It's a spray can. And real marshmallow. And chopped walnuts. Five bucks. Amazing.

And that's what we had in our pocket because we had no, my father didn't have a credit card. It was cash. And we lived nicely. Everybody lived nicely. We didn't know that they opened up a can of salmon for dinner with some lettuce and some tomatoes. But that was enough in the summertime. And it was my birthday, my mother and father took me to the Swan Club.

And I think it was a restaurant on a lake someplace in Queens, not Queens, in Little Neck, their sands point. That was a big deal to go out to a restaurant. The Swan Club. Swan Club. And that was for your birthday and my mother said

order whatever you want and my mother would order scrambled eggs or eggs and she let me order shrimp cocktail or steak or whatever

that was how my mother was I saw an interview with you you were talking about the old restaurants and the Horn and Hearted with the Horn and Hearted

was the best place to go as a kid you ever go to a Horn and Hearted Godfrey? oh yeah so freaking great the people had gloves on because the hands they get black from the coins they use all the time. They said they had to put gloves on.

And you go to the machine, you like the baked beans, the meringue pie. You know, remember? Yeah. Yeah, I remember on 42nd Street. Yeah, by the Daily News. Yeah, the big automatic. Yep. That was probably the last one that was there.

That was the last one. And there was a little glass door. You opened it up and you took your sandwich or cake out. Correct. And I remember as a kid, I was really excited. For all of you having drinking parties out there, I just said, when I was a kid, they used to have like a lion's head that the hot chocolate would come out of. Right.

And I was so excited. Good memory. Right. Good stuff. Yes. It was beautiful. But what he's saying is it was a curved glass and it was stacked on like three feet high with different condiments within those stocked glass.

So you'd put a nickel with whatever you want in that glass, and then you'd turn it on, and the glass would turn around, and there would be the cake in it, and it would lift up, or you opened it up, and you took out the pie, and it spun around again, so they'd fill it up from the back. So in other words, it'd go from front to back, and somebody in the back would fill it up. That would be a great place to work,

and fill it up with some caca or something. Somebody go crazy, put them some joke in there if you were working. Get fired. Get fired. I'm just thinking how sinister this would have been way back when. But do you remember bowling alleys? We had bowling alleys with pin boys.

They didn't have automatic pins. A pin boy would stand behind there and hope that when the people threw the ball down that the ball wouldn't spit down and hit him in the groin and he'd be dead forever. I remember Jan's ice cream parlor in Queens. Jan's was fantastic. Good hangout for nice girls from Forest Hills.

That's where I used to go for my birthday. And you became pretty much a showman and a promoter when you were a little kid. When I was a kid. You used to put on your own shows. I put on my show. My father and mother would take me to see My Fair Lady

and all the musicals. Sid Caesar was on Broadway then. We saw everything. South Pacific with Ezio Pins and Mary Marne. Oh, man. We'd go to the matinees and dress up. And we'd come back and we'd try to recreate that and the circus. You and your sister?

Yeah. So on the circus, on the same block with me, was Paul Alte. He lived across the street from me. He's a big lawyer now. And he had a dog and it was like, so the dog, you know, train the dog and do, beg, do this and that. And people would pay a nickel. To come to your house. Yeah. Usually it was Barbara and Vivian Miller. They were cute girls. They lived at the block. We charged them a nickel. Then we had a guy, Charlie LeBanc.

Ed Victor was a big attorney later on and became a big literary agent. He put out Keith Richards' book recently. He just passed away, but he was a great guy. He lived across the street from us. He was a bookworm. He never came out to play stickball with us. Or, I don't know if anybody remembers stoop ball. Of course. That's the steps you had outside

your house, and it had a pink ball called a Spalding. You take the ball and if you hit the point, you go over to the guy's head, hit somebody's lawn, and that was it. That was a home run. Did you build a replica of Yankee Stadium out of cardboard? Oh, I built a replica of Yankee Stadium out of cardboard in the basement, and I charged a nickel

also, and then had to run. What was the nickel for? Just to see it? I explained what was going on. I had a pair of dice and I had bases there. And I had little chips which meant that those are the players. And I'd throw the dice and two meant like a single. And if, let's think guys, if four came up, that was like a double.

I made it all up. And guys who watched me throw the dice, they don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Here's a double. Okay. I'm moving the play. And I always cheat. I said, well, that's a home run. Didn't you say that was a double?

No, it's a home run. And the Yankees always won. So the promoting was in your blood. Yeah. At an early age, right? Yeah. And then it was a church down our block. And when we moved to Bayside, which I just went back to see the house last week,

no one spoke English on the whole block. The guy was from Serbia. I said, I have a friend from Bosnia. We hate the Bosnians. We kill them. We kill them. We kill them. I swear to God.

We swear. I said, Serbia, we hate Bosnians. That's a good video. We kill them. I go, okay, okay. I used to live here. I mean, hey, don't say that again. Herzegovina, we kill them. I go, okay, okay, I used to live here. I mean, hey, don't say that again. Don't say that again.

I got out of there so fucking fast. Oh, man. Don't mention Bosnia. That was the old neighborhood. That's hilarious. And it's still going on. The brothers are killing brothers. It happens.

North Korea, South Korea. What the hell happened to our world? What happened to John Cameron Swayze? John Cameron Swayze. And the timex keeps ticking. You put the watch on, you get in a motorboat

and stick it to the motor thing and you cut your hand off. You put your hand where the motorboat is and you cut your fucking hand off but the watch keeps ticking. You have no hand but the watch keeps ticking. H have no hand, but the watch keeps ticking.

Hilarious. And then his nephew. Really? John Cameron Swayze Jr.? Patrick Swayze? Patrick Swayze. Related to John Cameron Swayze? Yes.

I never knew that. They're related. That's good stuff. I didn't know that. I had no idea. Patrick Swayze. No idea. Good stuff.

Is he still with us? Yeah. I think he was his nephew. I think they're both gone now. Well, Patrick's gone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, he died young, Patrick.

Yeah, he died young. Unbelievable. Yeah. But, yeah. No, God, I grew up on the John Cameron story. Wasn't that incredible? You believed it. It was a wonderful thing.

I remember the one you were talking about, too, with the speedboat. The Cakes a Lick keeps on ticking. He put it on the back. Let's put it on a motorboat. I remember that one. Yeah, they go off to Niagara Falls, anything. How about Arthur Godfrey? Sure.

Oh, now, Arthur Godfrey, I think you know. Of course. Tell a story. Jew hater. Absolutely. Of course, tell a story. Jew hater. Absolutely.

He went down to Florida, and he had a dog racing track there, or someplace he stayed at. They wouldn't let people who were Sephitic in there. They wouldn't let people who wore yarmulkes in that place. He was unkind to an Italian man, famously, as well. That's true. The Julius La Rosa. That's true.

You're half Italian, half Jewish? Yeah, if I can't get it for your wholesale, I steal it. That's true. The Julius La Rosa. That's true. You're half Italian, half Jewish? Yeah, if I can't get it for your wholesale, I steal it. Okay, great. I just made Gilbert's night. Hilarious. So anyway, so I have to go ahead and say we got Holly Loki here tonight. He made Holly sit on my lap, you know, he's a horny.

Oh, Holly, yes, okay. We had that Irish girl, Colleen Quinn. What was her name, Quinn? Carmel Quinn. Carmel Quinn. Carmel, she'd seen Danny Boy, you know. Oh, that's lovely, Carmel. Come in my room after the show.

You know, he's one of those, like Ed Sullivan. You know the old Ed Sullivan joke? Yes. He walked by his door and he goes, no teeth, no teeth. Take it, no teeth. Oh, God. Somebody told me, I think it was David Steinberg

who told me that joke. I said, David, how do you, it's the truth, no teeth, no teeth. I mean, he did that with the June Taylor dancers. No kidding.

Well, that's what they told me and Xavier Cougat had a thing he did too, but I don't want to get into that because he may have relatives. I heard like Jackie Gleason. Hilarious. Jackie Gleason was always getting in trouble with the June Taylor dancers.

You know, he's always having affairs with them. Well, wouldn't you? I think he married one of them. Oh, yeah. I think he did. I think he did. And that didn't stop him from trying out the others. No.

I would have loved to hung around with those guys when they went to Tootshores. Jackie Gleason and Sinatra and a couple other drunks and all those guys. You know, who was the guy who married Liz Taylor? Richard Burton. Yeah. It was Richard Burton, the other guy with the blue eyes, Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O'Toole. Those guys were really good. Oh, those were heavy drinkers.

Oliver Reed. I was through to all for that. But I met O'Toole at Elaine's with Bobby Zaram, who was his publicist at the time. Bobby retired and went to North Carolina. What a great guy. He was an icon. What a great actor he was. And all those great guys.

We had handsome guys back then. You remember, like Cary Grant and stuff. Now we had pretty boys, but these guys were the real deal. John Wayne, you know, used to go to the, how about going to the theater when you were a kid? There was a theater called the Roosevelt Theater when I lived in Flushing. You take the bus, the Q12 bus, the Roosevelt Theater, and you register when your birthday is. And when it was your birthday, they'd have a cake in a lobby for you, a little cake. And it was not air conditioning.

You know, somebody ran down the aisles with ice cubes. That was it. There was no air conditioning. Someone ran down the aisle with tossing ice cubes. I pray you. We didn't know. And they put you in the left. That was air conditioning.

And so you'd have to sit the extreme right. That's where they put the kids. On the other side were people sleeping, older people. But we were on the right. The kids were all in the air because the matrons wore nurse uniforms. And if you're out of line, like having spitballs and spitting them at your friend, they'd throw you out. You had to be really good when you were there.

It's great, Ron, that your parents exposed you to entertainment and show business at such an early age. They took you to Lou Walters' place, the Latin Quarter. There was a boulevard nightclub on Forest Hills. What's that big road there? Union? Not Union.

Cross Bay Boulevard? No, no. It was a boulevard. It was a boulevard. And you'd see Queens Boulevard. It was a boulevard. And you'd see guys like Jackie Wakefield, a comic. I forgot who. And Buddy, what's his name? Miles? Oh, well.

Jackie Miles. Jackie Miles. You know, he used to have jokes. It turned out the whole heart. It turned out my whole heart. You'd see little one-liners I remember from these guys. And Pat Cooper, Pasquale Caputo was the name. He was here.

Oh, yeah. Pat Cooper was Pasquale Caputo was the name. Oh, yeah. Pat Cooper was great. Yeah. He opened for Jimmy Roselli at the Palace Theater in 1966. One of my first shows on Broadway was a Pat Cooper opening for Jimmy Roselli. Now, Jimmy Roselli, the mob guys loved him, but he hated the mob. He wouldn't do Frank Sinatra's mother's birthday party, so Frank borrowed him from Las Vegas.

Wow. True story. And Jimmy would be in putting his piece on, and he had a corset. I'd go in, he'd put it on, it was a real corset, like a girdle. It was a girdle on his belly when he went out, but he had a great voice. He sang also to me in all the songs in Italian, and everybody, whether wise guys or Italian, they went to see him. He had a great voice.

That's interesting. He didn't have a big career because they wouldn't let him play a lot of places. Sinatra barred him from Vegas because he refused to play his mother's birthday party. Correct. Dolly Sinatra's part. Dolly's favorite act was Jimmy Roselle. Be damned. So he didn't want to work with the mob.

He didn't care about them. You know who he didn't care either was Louis Prima. Yeah. Louis Prima was one of the greatest lounge acts. He played the Copacabana and unfortunately I was in the Army Reserve and I couldn't get a pass out. I said, my grandmother died.

I got to go home. I wanted to see Louis Prima at the Copacabana. I tried everything. We don't give a shit. No, you don't understand. She had died two weeks before. I'd say anything to get, get me out of here. I'm wearing glasses.

I can't see. No, you got to stay here and do KP and peeled potatoes. I was so pissed. So Louis Prieman played at the freaking Copacabana, but I did see them in Las Vegas. That was a great act. I should have played them in Central Park, but I didn't. I played everybody in Central Park.

We'll get to that in a second, but what Gilbert was trying to say before, you were going to ask him about the early promotion days? Yes. That's so you just like as a kid, you were just... We recreate what we saw. We did the circus with the dog, and I also had the house that went on fire.

I lit a match to this cardboard. They got built as a house. I said, fire engine and bell, bell, bell will go off. And my friend Lenny McGee would come in with some water. What a creative kid, Ron. Because we're imagining. We had imagination. We actually could see it and believe it.

When did you start doing local stuff? I know you knocked on Dick Van Dyke's door one day. I did. Because you had a lot of chutzpah. I wanted to do a show down at NYU. I wanted to do a benefit for cancer research. So I had Earl Wrightson. I conned him to do it.

I had a color guard. Somebody sing the national anthem. Color guard. Whatever the fuck that is. I've heard that in years. It's not a colored guard. A colored guard. I know, a colored guard with a flag.

When I did a show, I had to have a show, you know? I did one on New Year's Eve in Times Square. I rented a ballroom and the guy, you might know his name. I got his name. Fancy mouth.

He looked a little bit like Buddy Hackett. Just passed away. He's a Forest Hills guy. Marty Engels. Oh. Marty Engels was doing a show. Oh, Marty Engels, yeah.

And a pay me was doing some gig and I said, you got to come over here and do this gig for me. I think he Engels was doing the show. Oh, Marty Engels, yeah. And a pay me was doing some gig, and I said, you gotta come over here and do this gig for me. I think he wanted $500 or $200. But, uh, and I asked my friends to all buy tables and tickets, and I didn't even have a date New Year's Eve. And the hotel is, I mean, not even there anymore. And everybody was all

having a good time, and I think I lost, it cost me $700 to do the show for, like, 50 people. We're dancing and everything, you know. And I lost maybe $, it cost me 700 bucks to do the show for like 50 people. We're dancing and everything. And I was there and I lost maybe a hundred bucks. And I went out, Times Square, it was midnight and everybody was kissing each other.

The ball came down. I just stood there. I said, man, I'm so unhappy. I was so depressed that, so I never forget that losing money was a big thing with me. I go to the racetrack.

My father, you know, he taught me how to bet the horses. He wanted me to be a jockey. If I lost money, I'd start to cry. And my mother said, that's a lesson. Don't ever gamble. You want to run the track, let people gamble. You be the owner of the track.

They wanted you to be a jockey. Yeah. Interesting. Because I was skinny, like still skinny. I was 117, 112 when I was a young kid. 179 pounds at one time. The horses scared me. Let's get into the promotion.

You knocked on Dick Van Dyke's door. You were doing local stuff. For benefits. Yeah. And when did it occur to you this could be a living, this could be something that I could actually? Well, we jump up to the early. I was working then in advertising writing copy,

and there was a guy, Gilbert Marketing Company, and he had a client called the ford motor company and he said i tell you what we have to get the ford car on college campuses and we're going to do this through music so i was sitting with hilly crystal hilly crystal from hilly's cvgb yeah hilly was a background singer with a bunch of guys and uh i said once jesus christ i called my friend George Abraham. I don't know how I met George, but George was the media director at Doyle Dane,

and his client was Rheingold Beer. I said, why don't you do something at Central Park? I said, wow. And Hilly goes, yeah, yeah. So I cut Hilly in. That was a big mistake. So he sold it to Rheingold. He says, all right, you're in business.

You got $35,000. I said, okay. And I just got married. I really didn't have a job except at an advertising agency. So I went to the Fox department. I said, I need an architect. We can't recommend anybody. They said, we can't recommend you.

I said, well, just tell me who you didn't recommend. I won't say anything. So they didn't want to say that we recommended them. I found this guy, Rick Scafidio, who's now a big shot. And he designed this park thing for me. And I got the ax. And I had no offers. I met a guy, Marcel Ventura.

He's a very, very rich people. They're very, very rich. He had Motta and Harry. Marcel Ventura. Let's go badass guy. They're very, very rich people. They're very, very rich. He had Mata and Harry. Marcel Ventura. Yeah. Let's go to Mata and Harry's house. They lived in the Ansonio. They come in.

Mata and Harry, we dance for you. I was like, yeah, yeah. Dance for me. Sure, we'll put you on the show. And he had Sabikis, the flamenco guy. You know, all this crap. He had a place on the top of the Plaza Hotel. It was the Eves. so you had to duck down.

It was so low. He let me have a desk. I think he kind of liked me because he was, you know, one of those guys. He's kind of like, you know, nice. He was a happy guy. He was a happy guy. Nice guy. And very extinguished.

I mean, distinguished. He was a very distinguished, not extinguished. Very distinguished guy. And I had to just stay away from him. I didn't go to the bathroom the same time as he did. So I had one phone and no buttons. And I had it booked. And I'd go out and people would call me.

And he said, your phone was ringing all day long. I said, I had no second to it. Anyway, I booked a series and it was a big hit. A dollar a ticket. I had Mort Sahl open it. Mort Sahl, wow. Jesse Cullen Young and the Youngbloods. Dave Brubeck and Dan Walker on the first show. Wow. For a dollar a ticket. That's all, wow. Jesse Cullen Young and the Youngbloods, Dave Brubeck, and Dan Walker on the first show.

Wow. For a dollar a ticket. That's a bill. And I wasn't allowed to sell Rheingold beer. The Parks Department said, those people who go to these shows, the devil's music. That's what it was back then. So I couldn't even sell my beer. But outside the gate, they were selling Heineken pills, uppers, downers, blackies, bluties And heroin

Not heroin, marijuana It got so big That I had to do two shows a night And then I started doing the free shows My first free show was Barbara Streisand And I gave Marty Ehrlich When he was the manager and still is the manager At 87 years old, we were there forever

He I said I'll give you 25,000 bucks. That's what we paid her at South Forest Hills. And she was playing in Funny Girl. So we did it on a night off. I think it was a Sunday

or Monday. And we took platforms and built a stage over the rocks in Central Park. Very easy. Put these two trees up. We call them trees,

but they're really poles, light poles, which are fused to the ground with cables. We put lighting on that. Very simple. And then Marty said, look, I'm going to have CBS come in here, Sony, Capbook, you know, Channel 2 come in, whatever. Sony Records come in and tape us.

Whatever you want. I didn't get a nickel from that show. The Streisand show. It was all free. And I got the security from the state of New York. They gave me security. And my satellite guy did it for free. And I got the security from the state of New York. They gave me security. And my satellite guy did it for free. Bob Kiernan, he went on to go tour with Barbara and Ed Frank Sinatra. And I lost him, and he was a great guy.

So it was all done that way. Whenever I did a free show, I got on the air with WNW Radio, Scott Muni. And I said, Scott, I got to raise some money to do a free show with the Grateful Dead or Elton John or Simon and Garfunkel. So we sold T-shirts with their name on it. $35 over the years. So we get the money to pay the stage hands to do the show. The acts work for free. James Taylor. We had a show, Save the Sheet Metal, Close the Sheet Metal.

So James Taylor was the show we did at the Sheet Metal. And after that, they closed it and made it the place where you can't run around. You got to watch it. They put fences up. The Professor Scott Mooney. Yeah. Yeah fences up. The professor, Scott Mooney. Yeah. Yeah. I remember him.

Scotch Mooney. Yeah, yeah. It's Scott Mooney. Scott Mooney. A great voice. For years, you've been in the music business. How have you seen it change? Well, right now, there's no lyrics like there were with Julie Stein and all those great Johnny Mercer.

Sure. lyrics like they were with Julie Stein and all those great Johnny Mercer you know Khan, Sammy Khan and Hoagie Carmack all the great songs so it went from those beautiful songs, love songs to I want to F your sister I want to it got crazy and I go Gilbert has that single

when I was a kid my mother used to wash my soap out if they said the S word she'd take this Rokit soap which when I was a kid, my mother used to wash my soap out. If they said the S word, she'd take this Rokit soap, which I think was a kosher soap, and wash my mouth out in the sink. And your daddy's going to come home, he's going to spank you. I couldn't say the S word. I'd never say the F word because that was, you'd go to jail if you said that in the 40s. While I nudge Gilbert awake,

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Please play responsibly. They're Gil and Frank on and they're happy. They're Gil and Frank, they're kooky, wacky. Just run around and have fun. Fun, fun. Just watch me. And now, sadly, we return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. You've experienced the height of demands, artist demands.

Like, you know, like they always talk about. Yeah, the Brown M&Ms. Oh, you mean the writers. Yes. The contract writers. The problem with that, and this is mild now, but we got it down. I mean, last night I spent $7,500 on food where it should have been $5,000. We got it down to a thing.

Hey, listen, if you want to go eat out, here's $2,000. Go outside and eat. We're not going to cook backstage. It's cheaper to get money not to eat there. Go outside. But the writers get crazy But now we get them down Years ago

They'd have the champagne The best champagne That was Dom Pavillon And we found out They wanted the great French wines And who wanted it? The guy who made

The writer up Which is usually The tour manager Who travels with the band And I used to say Why are you asking For Domaine La Tache Domaine Romaine Cante?

$1,000 a bottle. Well, the band demands it. The guy, the tour manager, had a wine cell. He takes the wine. He wanted it. Absolutely. The thing with the Van Halen and the Brown M&Ms, were you personally involved with that? Oh, sure.

Were you sorting M&Ms? No, not me. We had PI. Because I know you did every job. It was Billy Squire, who's a nice guy, still around. If you spelled his name. We have PI. Because I know you did every job. It was Billy Squire who's a nice guy. He's still around. If you spelled his name. Billy Squire.

His name was on a marquee of coming to town and being in New York, wherever. If you spelled it wrong, it was a $10,000 fine. And he made people pay him $10,000. If you spelled his name wrong on the marquee. Now, is it S-Q-U-I-E-R or is S-Q-U-E-I-R? I think it's I-E-R. I don't want to say because I forget because I have Alzheimer's right now. Water the stroke.

When we first met a couple of months ago, you put on the Groucho show. Yeah. The Groucho Marx show on – Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall. 1983. 72. No.

Was it that late? That long ago? I think it was May. Really? That long ago? Yeah. May of 72 And it was a weird

Period for Groucho Cause He was like Very weak And feeble Yeah 83 years old I knocked

83 He was staying at The Regency Hotel On Park Avenue On 61st I knocked Then as he wanted to see me I knocked on the door

And he opened the door And I look at this Little old man With a bray on He said You must be my producer. I said, Roger March, I don't produce anything. Come on.

And he said, come on, and we talked. And I took him across the street for lunch. Then I said, when I got to know him, and I should have stayed with him. I didn't treat him too good after that. I'll tell you what happened. He had a girl with him, Erin. Erin Fleming. She was with him. I think she might have. I'll tell you what happened. He had a girl with him, Erin, Erin Fleming.

She was with him. I think she might have, I don't know. We'll let our listeners fill that in. Yeah, she was doing stuff with Groucho.

Very close friend. She was a very close friend. And she was with him. So, I took him to the office and then we did the show. And he said, and the writer, I had to get him a certain scene from the state room. Oh, the night at the opera.

Whatever the hell it was. Oh, the state room. So I got on the phone with him. We were at the gate, and blah, blah, blah. And it's the day of the show, and I got the film. And I said, let's show it. See, do a run through a little. It's the wrong freaking film.

It's something else like something on day of the races. I go, holy shit, there goes the whole show. So I got in my car and I went to Jersey. The place is locked up.

It's a Saturday night. I'm banging at the windows. I come all the way back. I said, we got to show what there is. By the way, it's okay to show something wrong because he didn't know.

He found out later when he's looking at it. It was great and crowd show like they thought it was a gag out later when he's looking at it. It was great. And Krautsch, they thought it was a gag, and it turned out to be a gag. That's great. Here's a night at the opera, and it was something a day at the races. So it was funny. So getting back to the ground show thing, his accompaniment was?

Hamlisch. Marvin Hamlisch. First time I ever met him. And his secretary, Erin Fleming, I think she came out and sang a song, too. Yeah, she sang the Window Cleaners song. How do you know all this? She sang that and I guess Margaret Dumont's section of Hello, I Must Be Going. How do you remember this? Where'd you get this from? Research.

And I actually saw it. I need this from my book. You were there? Woody Allen was there there Mayor Lindsey was there A lot of people were there And a lot of people were dressed like Groucho With the eyes and the mustache and nose And Cabot opened the show Cabot, Cabot Introduce him

The Cabot And so you say there definitely was something Going on between Groucho and that woman Well Let me say she might have been interested in a southern part of the anatomy that I don't even want to talk about. And I couldn't.

And I don't know. I really don't know for sure. I can only imagine if I was a fine young man like Groucho, I would be thinking about the same thing. However, you can't talk about things like that. No, of course not. I heard Cabot was worried that no one would show up, that people didn't remember. And it sold out. No, of course not. I heard Cavett was worried that no one would show up, that people didn't remember.

And it sold out. It was a smash hit. I should have taped it. I should have taped it. I think they did tape it. Well, like, they have an album. Yeah, there's an album. There's an album.

A&M Records did it. The guy's name is Brooks, Arthur Brooks. Anyway, he did it. I didn't get a nickel for that. I don't think they got credit for it. But I had a poster It sold out like that

Spoiler And the fact the kid Who helped me in the office Jonathan Shearer I must say that He passed away 10 years ago He said

Why don't you do Groucho Amongst on Broadway I said You write him the letter And I'll get him So he wrote the letter And Groucho goes back Okay

Forget about the chorus girls How much And I said Look at Groucho how's uh ten thousand bucks or whatever it was you're in and he told me he used to go he lived in great neck with the boys with the family with the mom and uh so we found out the address so i said let's go there so i got a car and driver and a Aaron came with us. Aaron, a photographer. I forget her name, but she has a lot of great pictures.

And I never asked her to give me a photograph of me and Groucho. Wow, we've got to track her down. Never. I forget her name. Look, she wrote a book about her. We'll find out. I never, because I was embarrassed in front of Groucho. I didn't like to have a picture.

I would look like a groupie. I don't want to be like an asshole. So on the way, we stopped on 1590 before we went over the bridge, 1590 Bridge, the Queensborough Bridge. There was a wig place I stopped out and I got a blonde wig and a red wig I put one on Groucho, one on me And she said it was the greatest

He put it on, we're going to go into the house dressed like this We get to the street, he knew exactly where he was going He told us where he wanted to go Wow A few stairs to go up Attached houses in those days Attached, means a common wall everybody had. And the guy opens the door and he says, welcome home, Mr. Marks.

The guy had to be 80 years old. He was the grandfather of the woman who lived there, happened to be his daughter. And she came, oh, Mr. Marks, come on in. And we went and he walked upstairs and he showed us the little rooms, they look small, where he slept, where his brother slept. What was their real names? I forgot. Arthur was—

Leonard was Chico. Yeah, Leonard was— Adolph originally, Harpo, and then changed it to Arthur. Wait, wait a minute. Harpo was Adolph, and then he changed it to Arthur. For reasons we don't know. Yeah. What was wrong with the name Adolf?

Gummo was Milton. Ah, yeah. Gummo. And Groucho was Julius. Julius, correct. Right, Julius. So he showed me the rooms. He said, you know, we used to go home late at night from our shooting in Astoria Studios.

Because Astoria Studios is where they shoot their silent movies back then. Well, they shot Animal Crackers and Coconuts there. You guys got everything. I need that for my book. Okay. I'll give you 20 bucks later. Okay, they shot Animal Crackers and Coconuts there. Yeah. That's got everything. I need that for my book, so I'll give you 20 bucks later. Okay, Ron, you're on. So that's what they did. I just made a quick 20. And they come back there, and they live there.

And so we did the show, and after the show, he ran out the back door, and I don't know if he saw anything, I guess, right in the car, and I took him to, which is now Doubles, the Sherry Dethland Hotel. It has a club below them. It's now now Doubles the Sherry Dethland Hotel has a club below them

it's now called Doubles then it was called Raffles you couldn't it's a private club you couldn't get in unless you had a suit

but I knew the maitre d' a French guy called Jean-Francois Marchand Jean-Francois Marchand because he had a little restaurant

later on in life he was a maitre d' he let us come in he gave us a little table later on in life. He was a maitre d'. He let us come in. Gave us a little table. It was me, Groucho, Aaron, Marvin Hamlisch, and Dick Cabot. Stories were great. I'll bet.

And then the next day, I went to Dunhill. And I bought him a cigarette, gold cigarette lighter. And I said, S-R-O, S-R-O, Steddy Ramone, Carnegie Hall. And he cried. I gave him that lighter. And Carnegie Hall, that's how big it was for these people who played places in Coney Island. He told me they used to play two, three shows a day in Coney Island. Oh, yeah.

And there was an act on before him called Swains, Rats, and Cats. Rats and Cats. How do you know that? Glad you brought it up. Oh, God, yes. Yes, Swains, Rats, and Cats. But they you know that? Glad you brought it up. Oh, God, yes. Yes, Swains Rats and Cats. But they also work with Burns and Allen.

Yeah. That was at Vaudeville. Correct. George Burns always used to talk about that. Swains Rats and Cats. Swains Rats and Cats. We got a book for you.

Oh, and he gave me a little thing he bought at an antique store with a little pony and on it was a rat, a cat, whatever, something else.

How about that? Who knows what the hell it was I stole it. It sounds like you treated him great. Well, he cat, whatever, something else. About that. Who knows what the hell it was. It sounds like you treated him great. Well, he treated me great, didn't he? And then one night he took me out with Goddard Liebeson. He said, we're going to Lutece. Lutece, wow. Bastard.

I had to dress up and Goddard Liebeson there who really controlled us, Columbia Records, was having dinner with us. And they were talking about everybody in the business. And I said, well, I wish I had a tape recorder. And the stories they were telling, it just opened my eyes. To Harry, I forget the guy, Harry Warren. These guys who wrote the songs. Oh, Warren and Dubin.

Warren and Dubin. Yeah, 42nd Street. Who wrote those songs. Yeah, oh, yeah, it was good stuff. These people. Of course. That era that we, the 20s, it's an amazing era

and you don't hear that. You don't, people, people don't talk about anything like that anymore. Now it's the Kardashians. We came down from such high,

high hopes back in the 40s and 50s after the depression was over, after the war was over, all the way into the toilet. It happened, I saw it capping in the 50s when they came out

the frozen dinner with the, Swanson's, frozen dinners. That in the 50s when they came out to frozen dinner with the... Swanson's frozen dinners. That was the beginning of the end for you, huh, Ron? Exactly. I ate it all day. There's peas in one little thing,

there's a little mashed potato. That was the beginning of the end of culture. And there's a little piece of meat, whatever. And you peel it back and you put it in a muffin and that's it.

Speaking of icons... What happened to cooking? Tell us about the Beatles at Forest Hills. I mean, you promoted the very first outdoor concert. Yes, that's true. I was working with a guy, Don Freeman, who passed away. He got me the job there because his sister said,

I'm really good at what I do. And I was writing copy at that time. And I was doing shows with this marketing company going around the country. And he said, all right, what do you do? I said, I can write. All right, you're a PR guy. I'm going to give you 75 bucks a week. I always lived in my parents

so I said, okay, this is our first year together. He said, all right, here's, we got these acts and we're going to do this

and okay, I'm on the phone. I'm like his assistant. He had a secretary. That's when you were the third banana? I was the third banana. Yeah.

And the assistant was Vicky, Vicky Pike. She was married to a guy who played the, David Pike, who played the xylophone, whatever it's called, vibraphone. The vibes, yeah.

And I think, and so we got to, he rents a little space in some building on the first floor. That's where I met my wife, by the way, I'll tell you this. On the first floor. So he's got the one room with the couch, and I'm in with Vicky. Vicky's here, and I'm here. Now, Vicky's pretty hot,'m here. Now Vicky's pretty hot. You know, I think Vicky goes in to have dictation once in a while. And I take it.

I take that a cup of coffee and they did a lot of steto. And I come out and I was typing my press releases. And so I said, well, all right, my job was to go and I did it great. I didn't take a cab. I didn't take a cab. I didn't take a bus. I walked the Journal American, the Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily News, the Mirror at the time. I went to every newspaper in town to look at it. I'm working at Farrar's still state of study.

I got the Beatles coming in there. I got Barbara Swayze coming in. I got Three Nights with Harry Belafonte. I got Woody Allen over the floor. Trini Lopez. Oh, yeah. Woody Allen and Trini Lopez. What a bill.

Yeah. And they were playing the Bassist Street East. And I went over to see Woody. And I said, would you do a commercial here? And I gave him the copy. He had to say, hi, this is Woody Allen. I'm going to see Trini Lopez at the first sales because the show wasn't sold out. So I had a lot of balls. And these guys gave me full pages of their paper because they wanted to see with Trini Lopez at Forest Hills because the show wasn't sold out. So I had a lot of balls.

And these guys gave me full pages in their paper because they wanted to see the Beatles. And I took care of them with the tickets. And when they came to Forest Hills, I was backstage with them. And the helicopter landed on the lawn, which is the tennis court in the back. Right. And no one was allowed to sit on the tennis courts. So the cops had put in police barriers. That didn't stop the kids.

All girls. All girls. 90%. Jumping over the barriers. And I had a chick I met. I wasn't married. In West Abilene. I tried.

I could take her back to my mother's house and go, what are you, crazy? I'd have to go after some blind person. I was fucked. You were trying to take girls to the Beatles show. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even drive. You go to Central Park, the cop has put the flashlight.

I said, give me a break. Flash, you got to get to Central Park. I had no house to go to, no place, no home. Cramptree style. I got to tell you, I hit no house to go to, no place, no home. Crampton style. I got to tell you, I hit on one girl once from Brooklyn. Oh, my gosh. She was, I think, an infamous, craziest, Nazi, Nazi. And she turned out to be Moish's friend, Morris Levy,

President Morris Levy. Morris Levy, the infamous Morris Levy. Yes. Roulette records. Could you believe this? Tommy James. Tommy James. Correct. He was the president of Roulette. Oh, yeah believe this? Tommy James. Tommy James.

Correct. He was the president of Roulette Records. Oh, yeah. We know all about him. I got to know him later on in life, but he was a pretty powerful guy. So where are you? The Beatles? I just wanted to go back to the Beatles. Murray the K emceed.

Jackie DeShannon and the Righteous Brothers. Was it Murray the K or was it the ABC good guys? Was it Cousin Brucie? No. No, I think it was. It might have been Murray the K. I think it was Murray the K. Murray the K was one of the good guys. Wait, we did two shows with them, didn't we?

There was the one in 64 is the one I know about where they played the 30 minutes. One in 64, I thought we did two shows with them. The 30 minute set. Were there two? There were two shows. One with Jackie DeShannon and the Righteous Brothers opening. That's right. We did two. I'm pretty sure we did two. Okay. I read somewhere that Benny Goodman was in the audience,

which is a pretty cool thing. And you used... I got very friendly with Benny Goodman. He was... I could be here all night. Well, we'll get to some stuff. I got to have my legs shaved. I got to get out of here.

Go ahead, Gil. So, the Beatles, what really started to break them up was as far as doing live concerts. What happened was the screaming. They go, we can't hear ourselves. What are we doing here? Shea Stadium was a disaster. The sound was bad.

They didn't have sound and lights. You know what they used? They used the PA system. Yeah, those days. Number 16. Right. Lingerie on six. Whatever. Number five at the PA system. Yeah, those days. Like, number 16. Right. Lingerie on six. Whatever, number five at the bat now.

There was terrible sound, so they couldn't hear themselves at all on stage, let alone the fans. I went to the show. I couldn't hear a goddamn thing. And they were so big. That's the second time they came back. Well, the first time they came back, they played Carnegie Hall in 1963. And then they came back in 64, the first time they came back, they played Carnegie Hall in 1963. And then they came back

in 64 and I played them at the Forest. You took a picture of Ringo? Is there a story? I got a picture. I'm right on the stage with him. I'm laying down right behind him. I had a girl with me laying down too on the floor watching the show. It would sneak there. And I took Ringo and it won honorable mention in the Daily News.

So 20 years later, I'm playing Ringo at the radio station. There you go. Sign this. He doesn't sign it 1964. He signs it 2008, which is okay. I sold it for 2,000 bucks on eBay. No, I'm just kidding.

I still have it. Tell us about paying Jimmy Hendrix. Well, I'll tell you what I did with Hendrix. Wait, the Beatles is not done yet. I just remembered this now. Okay. I said, I'm going to buy everything out of the rooms they slept in at the International Hotel. And I called up the manager of the International Hotel.

I think it was the Riviera Hotel. And I went into the rooms with an attorney. We looked at all the rooms. We took an inventory of everything. And we got a letter saying The attorney had a test to Everything from these rooms came from the Beatles John, George, Paul and Ringo And it came from the hotel

And I made copies of this thing So I gave that And that one inch piece of a pillowcase or sheet Whichever they wanted I stapled it to this And I took ads in newspapers Magazines for girls and guys guys, like it would be People Magazine today, or Teen Magazines, all over the world.

I got letters from Nigeria. I got letters from people sending me money from India. You know what? Really, I got money, cash, and checks, and I go down to the post office, and I have bags of this stuff. I don't have to put this stuff on the ground. I didn't cut my Don Friedman, the guy I was working with. This is my own private.

You took stuff out of their rooms. Everything. So then. I love this. Put it in my father's car. So anyway. Put it in his father's car. Everything.

Wait a minute. I had plates, cigarettes. You are an entrepreneur, Rob. I had cigarette butts, ashtrays. And so a lot of the plates weren't dirty. So my sister and I put oil and vinegar and oregano on the plates. Made them look like they ate something. The Beatles ain't here.

Yeah. Made them look like they ate something. Did you ever tell Paul this? You know him well. Well, I didn't tell him the story. But I told him. Well, I didn't tell him. I'll tell him no matter what.

Tell him. You know him. Because he's a friend. him. I'll tell him no matter what. Tell him. You know him. Because he's a friend. So here's what happens. I call Murray the case. I say, Murray, I want you to emcee this thing. You be the auctioneer. I want to sell all this crap.

And so I pull up. I rented the nightclub called The Cheater at the time. Went to the West Side at the time. Used to be something else. Probably had price fights three years ago. And I went on the radio with Murray. He says, go forget the Beatles. Remember when we were going to have it all? Everything they had. Blah, blah, blah. So I pull up in a limousine and all the crap, the dishes, the salt and pepper shakers, the figure-up bus,

anything we could find. Not the pieces, the one-inch squares. I was sold that to people who took, well, I took it in the paper. They sent me the money. So at this, Murrayry goes up and here's the thing, here's the dish that Ringo Starr actually ate on hilarious and here's a fork and knife the whole set

and these kids, when I pulled up in the limo they attacked the car, I had to get security to get them away from the car, I couldn't get the junk out of the car, unbelievable I couldn't get this garbage out of the car it Unbelievable. I couldn't get this garbage out of the car. It's all garbage. You got to tell Paul. And you worked with and were friends with Lenny Bruce.

Yeah, I drove him around a couple of times to a couple of gigs. He was a client. We did shows with him at the Village Theater, Village East Theater, which became the Fillmore. So the Village East Theater Which became the Fillmore So the Village East Theater On 2nd Avenue Right next door

Right upstairs Was the Crystal Palace Ballroom Billy Crystal's uncle owned it And they'd have Jitterbug dancing up there Big bands and swing dancing So when I see Billy That was his uncle

Crystal Palace Ballroom and Lenny played there we did twice we played there he'd come to the office all the time by the way and he'd do a midnight show and between shows I had my mother's car and he goes hey good I gotta go someplace again I got my car Lenny hased in the car with somebody else. I took my few blocks away on the Lower East Side. And they jumped out, and they went to this townhouse, attached house. He said, I'll be right down, two floors, three floors up. I'm going, don't forget, we got a show at midnight. You got to be back.

I'm waiting down there. It's like 10 of midnight. Didn't come back. Comes back about midnight. And he was so glassy-eyed. You know he was doing heroin. I mean, he was like a a different person Came back to the show And everybody came to that show

Willie Shoemaker, the jockey was there Everybody, he was so hip He played Dead End of Dwayne before that show Mr. Kelly's in Chicago So He needed the money The thing came about About the words you can't say On television And so he needed the money. The thing came about about the words you can't say on television.

You know, you say, I can't say it on the radio. But there was ten words or seven words you can't say. And he said them at every show. And the cops now were going to be there. So I took him to Babylon. That's the only place they would take him because they know that the cops are going to show up and shut it down. But they took a shot with us. I forget what I got, $2,500 I think I got for him.

And we walk in. He sees, ah, hi, boys. I see the boys are here tonight. And the cops are sitting in the back, standing, actually standing, places so on. And he started off, I guess this is what you want to hear. And he gave them 10. And right away he goes, that's it to me. What do you mean that's it?

That's it. Right out, got him in a car, got the hell out of there. Oh, shit. That's how bad it became, and then it got worse and worse. I heard you say the censorship is really what killed him, what led to his demise. He really got into heavy, heavy drugs. So I used to type up his His comments about What do you call him when somebody

You know I was his guy I don't know who his attorney was at the time He was representing himself I think Yeah he was And I'd have a typewriter with the onion skin I wish I had the onion skins Maybe I do someplace hidden And I'd type up

What did you say again And I'd type up what he said You know the first case The first clause Oh I bring that back Oh change this I remember him telling me this stuff. And I said, well, doesn't he have an attorney?

Who's defending this guy? He was so angry and so nervous about it and so hateful about this whole thing. They took all these. He was the guy that took the rap for everybody else to get famous and make a fortune. That goes for Eddie Murphy. Carlin. That goes for everybody. He went in and said those words Which are now nice

You can say them Kevin Hart Everybody uses these words today And then he was the guy who went to jail for them He was the guy who killed himself Because of that He was the guy that overdosed He was the one that they persecuted

You know First of all The best, Richard Pryor was a genius. He was another genius. And I went to see him during the later part of his life when he couldn't work anymore. He had MS, I think. Yeah. A talent agent calls me up from Los Angeles.

He says, you got to come out at the comedy store. She just died, that woman who had the place. Mitzi. Yeah. So I went out there to see Richard Pryor and he comes out. I think he was in a wheelchair and he stood up and he couldn't, he said, and he started talking about the disease just like Lenny was.

He was so hooked on, he couldn't do an act. He was so full of, I got to tell you this and it kills you and it grabs your heart and you go, ah, he started doing stuff and it wasn't funny, nothing funny, but we'll look at a guy destruct and I'm going into the Asia and I said, you flew me out here to make fun of this guy.

This guy shouldn't be up there. You shouldn't be taking money from him. You shouldn't be asking people to book him. If he needs money, we'll do a benefit. We'll give him money. But to put him up there in front of people and make a joke of himself and put him down, what a genius this guy really is, is bad. Good for you. And I went home. Good for you. That was it. Good for you. I felt what a genius this guy really is is bad good for you and i went home good for you that was it good for you i felt so bad for this guy that was the last time i ever saw him

we will return to gilbert gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this tell us about hendrix because i was reading an interview with you when you were talking about some of the the guitar antics on stage and you wound up paying them $100? Well, this is Central Park at the Wilmot Ice Skating Rink, and tickets were a dollar back then. And I got $35,000 just to try to get X, and I couldn't spend much more than $2,500 or $1,500. And when I spent all my money with Rangel Beer, I said, I have to ask for more money. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I didn't. So I said to acts like Jimi Hendrix, manager, I got only 100 bucks.

He says, we'll take it. So I said, well, I just had a cancellation. Len Chandler, a folk singer, was opening for the Rascals. Rascals were hot then. Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon, all those songs. So the kids are there with their mothers and fathers for the Rascals. Hey, Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon All those songs So The kids are there With their mothers and fathers For the rascals

Hey Groovin' Hey everybody And he comes out And he starts You know With the guitar And now The tongue licking

The microphone And he starts like Gyrating with his groin On the guitar Like he's having sex With the guitar Licking it And so

I'm going Holy shit This guy's great And then at the end he lights the goddamn thing on fire and smashes it on a stick I should have said

go out and get the goddamn guitar it's gonna be worth a lot of money one day shut up you know fucking goddamn guitar what are we doing here so always one thought on your head

yeah always you gotta make money and I played him again. I did. I went, Philobon a call. He go, who? Jimi Hendrix? We can't play that here.

I said, let me tell you something. We're going to call it the eclectic Thanksgiving. It's going to be a concert. The eclectic Thanksgiving. It's going to be for people who love the opera, who like symphonies. What do you mean? I'm going to put on a New York brass quintet, and I want the best harpsichord player we have. Really? So they gave me some harpsichord player, French.

Like chamber music. You sold Avery Fisher Hall on this idea that Hendrix was good. Mrs. I forgot her name was. It's got to be in my book. I forget. Mrs. So-and-so. Hello, hello, hello, lovely. You told her Jimi Hendrix was a classical act. I forget, Mrs. So-and-so. Hello, hello, hello, lovely. She told you. She told you Jimi Hendrix was a classical act. Jimi Hendrix, we had the harpsichord player, but the only thing she said, you have to have Mr. Hendrix or members of his band

play when a harpsichord player comes out. No problem. Now, I had a problem. So I asked the guys in the band. There was, I know Mitch Mitchell was the drummer. Jimi Hendrixrix the guitar play with the fuzzy hair what was his name uh i booked him later on in life he was broke he came to me i put noel redding no already yeah my mind works thank you god in an afro very good in an afro

no already you stumped me ron jesus christ. So they go, what are you kidding me? Fuck you. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. So I said, please, you gotta do it for me. That's how I got the show here. So Mitch says, hey, it'll be a goof. I go out there. Who is it? A harpsichord guy? Yeah, I go out with the drums. So the harpsichord player comes out and the kids are laughing.

Get off! I feel so sorry for this harpsichord player with the tuxedo on. So Mitch Mitchell comes out, the drummer. Oh, yeah. And he starts playing along with him like he's making fun of him. And the kids are laughing. They think it's the greatest thing that ever happened.

So that's how I got away with it. Wow. Same thing with Bowie? I'll tell you about Bowie. So Jimmy was a prince, though. He was the nicest guy. I had no idea he was doing that many drugs. I never asked you about both. So Jimmy was the prince, though. He was the nicest guy. I had no idea he was doing that many drugs. I never asked for autographs.

I never did the stuff that kids do today in my office and all over the place. I should have. So after that, that was the end of it. And later on, she died, and his girlfriend asked me to the house, and that was a whole other thing. She said, I spiked the punch. You're not going anywhere. I figured, holy Christ, I'm going to be on a trip.

I just got married. I can't go home. I'll jump out a window. She never spiked the punch. You're not going anywhere. I figured, holy Christ, I'm going to be on a trip. I just got married. I can't go home. I'll jump out a window. She never spiked it. Jimi Hendrix's girlfriend spiked the punch. Devin, gorgeous. She was going up to Harlem. She said to get some heroin.

I said, okay, don't leave. Don't leave. I left. Of course, I was scared out of my mind. I told my wife, I just been spiked. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Where were you?

I was at I was at some place I got spiked What about Bowie At Carnegie Hall? Well Bowie at Carnegie Hall Well I said They said you gotta be kidding

We don't take transvestites here What do we transvestite? God I swear to God There was some Transvestite The guy's dressed up in makeup He wears girls clothes

No no no You're not coming here I said please I'm gonna I said I'm gonna call The New York Times I'm gonna make I'm gonna have you sued

But he played there And the guy says to me This is the house manager He was okay But the people above him Didn't want to have him But Stuart Walker Was house manager

He's still alive He said you know You were right This guy's a genius. And he was. He was a great guy. What he did was transform himself

into a character called Ziggy Stardust. Oh, yeah. Magical. And Mick Ronson, who died right after that, the guitar player, they had the interplay.

It was so exciting. We don't see acts like that anymore. They come out in street clothes now and they sit up there and they just sing and they don't have, oh, they say dirty words. Then it was a show. Can I throw a couple of names at you, Ron? Yeah, let's get, I gotta go home and change my

pants. Tell us. If we just threw a name at you, if we said Bob Dylan, what comes to mind? I just got seven shows today and that was great for the Be Good Theater. Good for you. Thank God. I said, hey, Bob wants to work. Good for you. Well, God, he's amazing.

I first met him at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium when, who was the keyboard player back then? Come on. Still around today.

This is a tough one. Yeah. Who else did he play with? He was in the Blues Project, Blues Project keyboard. Used to play the organ. Our fans are yelling the answer into that. You know who he is. Anyway He was in a blues project. Blues project. Keyboard. Used to play the organ. Our fans are yelling. You'll know who he is.

Anyway, fans should call in. Well, anyway, and there's another guy, Newworth, who played with him. They were a fun band. They were having fun, and they were great for ourselves. He opened for Joan Baez, though, before that. Before that, he opened for Joan Baez solo acoustic. He was electric at this point?

No, no. He was solo acoustic. Joan and he were, you know, like friends. I think friends. And he opened for her. But the next year, when he brought her back in 65, he went electric. That's when he was electric, yeah. And they were marching in front of the stage with mops, you know.

Booing, where's Bob Dylan? After he did a few folk songs, he went into the electric. They didn't go for it. But in the beginning, he started with a few folk songs He went into the electric And they didn't go for it But in the beginning He started with a few folk songs And the band was behind him Then he started doing The Rolling Stone

Which is a huge hit Bring on Bob Dylan Where's Bob Dylan These are the purists I can understand that Yeah You know they like Len Chandler

And they like Carolyn Hester And the Fab Four Whatever Not the Fab Four Those Four Freshmen

Whatever that kind of stuff. Well, these were folkies you're talking about? Lots of folks. Kingston Trio and those guys? Yeah, Oscar Brown Jr. and Peter Paul and all that stuff. Real purists. And also, you know, Leonard Cohen. I had Leonard Cohen in Central Park for a dollar.

I had everybody in Central Park for a dollar. You did. Led Zepp. Everybody. Incredible. And you had Diana Ross. We had a little riot there one night. People came down and I can't say this on a rant.

Oh, that was the night of the rainstorm. Oh, it was a rainstorm. She performed in the downpour. Well, yeah. And so we had to cancel it. Well, Barry Diller said that's it. And it was a storm coming right at us. You could see the clouds.

And she's on the stage. And Barry Diller runs out and puts his coat over her. And the next day, the front page of the Daily News, a stranger puts his coat on Diana Ross. Barry Diller's the big guy. I want pictures. So we go into the trailer with two feet of water, a foot of water. It was one of those real big downpours that you get. And the water killed all the cables. And the sound went out, and the lights went out.

So we're in the trailer, and we're all soaking wet, and we're sitting there, and he says, Well, we've got to come back tomorrow night. I said, Did you see that crowd out there? Are you kidding me? We're lucky. I said, You've got 35 minutes of a great show. The storm was magnificent. Why don't you fill in with some filler about Diana's history or Ross?

You got 30. And that's another, you need another 25 minutes for an hour show. We came here to give them one hour show, and we're going to do an hour show for television. So I said, I'm not coming back tomorrow night. I have a show in Far Asus Tennis Stadium. I'm going to be there. Okay?

I'm not coming back. I don't think you should do the show. P.S. They did the show and we got a phone call back from the agent for our stills. I was with Warner Leroy

who owned the Tavern on the Green. He came with me. I said, Warner, people are just broken who are running crazy through your restaurant. Oh yeah,

that was an infamous night. And they're taking their pocketbooks. What are you crazy? So what happened? It was called Wilding. Whatever happened. Whatever happened, you know, in those days,

you know, they used to run down Fifth Avenue and take Vicuna coats or something like that out of the store windows. It was crazy. It was one off thing

that never happened before and it got out of hand because a handful of kids, that's all it was. That's all it took, a handful of kids. But the rest of the audience was great.

They shouldn't have done the show because the ground was still wet. It was just a terrible condition. I had the same problem when I did Tijuana Brass there. It rained like crazy. I had to cancel the show and the weekend they came back.

The next weekend it rained again. Did you move that show to Amarush Park? I moved to Amarush Park and he went crazy. I said, I said, Herb, I'm sorry.

We had no roof. I couldn't afford a roof. No roof over the stage. So the first thing We stopped it We stopped it at noon The sun comes out at 3 in the afternoon Oh my God So the client says

It's okay We don't want people to sit on the wet grass I said Herb you know Wet grass Okay we understand So instead of having it the next night We waited a whole week Until the Saturday came again

And sure enough It poured like a son of a bitch So he was really angry Because I didn't have a roof over the stage. I couldn't afford it. So I said, we've got to move it to Domrush Park, which, if you're in New York City, it's got a band shell. Yeah. Where the Goldman band plays.

The Goldman family gave a lot of money so people could enjoy classy music, classical music. That was the thing. And I made him play there. We had to carry the piano over. It was an upright piano. We had to leave the piano over. It was an upright piano. We had to leave the other good piano, the Steinway, because it was going to get wet. We got an upright piano, not a real piano, you know, like a bar piano.

And he was so pissed at me. But it worked good. We didn't have 100,000 people like Barbra Streisand. We must have had 10,000 people. And it poured with umbrellas, but at least we did it. And I see him today you know we were friends he remembers it i want to put him together by the way with the with the tijuana brass again he wanted to do it and i had i had sergio mendez of brazil 66 which was on his label

i said listen and we had it all done i swear to god we're gonna do 219 i had it all set and i got a call from the agent He says I can't tell you what happened But it's off So let me tell you something Somebody wanted more money Than somebody else Something like that

So I don't know what happened Probably Sergio Wanted more money Who knows what happened Who opens Who closes But that would have been marvelous What?

No Next question Next question The guy who got his hand On his membrane Whoops Get that man a raincoat Throw that guy a towel

Get him out of here Like Buck Henry Used to go to the place Over there Right there Put his hand in a He puts his hand in a hole He said Buck what do you do

You put a quarter And you put your hand Through a hole What are you feeling Anything that comes there He puts his hand in a hole. I said, Buck, what do you do? You put a quarter and you put your hand through a hole. What are you feeling? Anything that comes there. This is Buck Haley. I'm going to ask Buck that next time. Good stuff.

You can feel something, whatever it is. Wasn't there a whole scandal with Diana Ross that she was supposed to donate it to a park? Yep, there you go. So we said, you gotta give $250,000 and they're fighting about it. Barry Dillon from Paramount and Diana Ross. I said, you guys better work it out because

we promised the Parks Department that after we destroyed the place forever, you're gonna make a park or something. So I left that alone. I said, Barry, here's Diane. That's your friend. You work it out. I don't know whatever happened with that.

Tell us about the Springsteen story. Tell us the Springsteen story, too, with Ann Murray, because that's a fun one. He's good. Where'd you get this guy? Pain in the ass. He does too much shit. Oh, my God. Try to earn my 20 bucks for helping you with the book. I want all this stuff. I want you to have it. I'll give it all to you. Pain in the ass You know it's too much shit Oh my god

Try to earn my 20 bucks For helping you with the book I want all this stuff I want you to I'll give it all to you I'm doing this for nothing Of course The car's gonna cost me

50 bucks in a garage With people from Rikers Island Park the car Guy wouldn't let me Park there I gave the guy 20 Then I gave him 10

Park the car I found somebody Who actually You don't have to tell You don't have to tell The Springsteen story. Well, no, here's what happened with Springsteen, if you want to know. It was Central Park again. It's a dollar a ticket. And again, I had no money. And I get a call from John Land, that was his manager. And they said, we've got to play this guy.

He's great. I never heard of him at the time. And I go, sure, okay, well, I'll try to help you. I have no money. I can give you $100 like I gave Jimi Hendrix. You gave him $100? Yeah. Okay. So, and Bruce remembers better than me.

I said, Bruce, remember the time you opened for him? No, he said, I didn't open. I was second. Ah, I said, who opened? He said, well, you had Brewer and Shipley. Brewer and Shipley. Brewer and Shipley. One took over the line.

You got it. Oh, geez had Brewer and Shipley. Brewer and Shipley. Brewer and Shipley. One took over the line. You got it. Oh, geez. Brewer and Shipley. And then I came on and I said, the place with Poncus, by the way, when he won, you can't follow Bruce Springsteen. And Anne Murray, the country singer that comes on, completely died. I mean, people went out. They went out after they saw him. They didn't want to see this girl.

Forget about it. He knocked the socks off this audience. And she fired her manager, Shep Gordon. Oh, wow. Shep Gordon's a famous guy. Sure. He did a movie, Super Mensch.

Mike Myers made it. Mike Myers did this movie about Shep because they were best friends because when Mike Myers was getting a divorce, it was a little People Magazine shit. Little trash for the Kardashian frown. He says, Shep says, come to my house in Maui and I'll cook for you. And you know, Mike went there, he was

consoled by Shep, and Shep's a nice guy, funny guy, and they were best friends. So in return, 20 years later, Mike Myers does a little movie about how great Shep Gordon is. What a great guy. It's a great movie. We've got to get Shep on this show. He's funny. Yeah, we'll get him. He laughs like you. You two guys would laugh like crazy. By the way, he'll come with a nice chicken. He'll make a chicken dinner for you. Did you want to ask the thing you wanted to ask about Mr. Murray?

Oh, yes. But first, before that, the most important thing we have to bring up again. Groucho definitely did have something going on with that. Erin Fleming. I would think that this beautiful lady, and he likes ladies, I think she had to do something to make him happy. I don't know. I mean, they were good friends, but you got to read into it.

I can't say, you know, I didn't say anything, so I don't talk about that. I never saw anybody in bed with anybody. It's not my thing. That's not what you said to me. Well. You were pretty graphic when we were at the Geraldo book party. You were pretty graphic about what Groucho and Aaron would do.

I would say, you know, maybe they were intimate. She was intimate with the piano player. Hamlet. I would think. I would say, you know, maybe they were intimate. She was intimate with the piano player. Hamlisch. Marvin Hamlisch. Marvin Hamlisch. That makes sense. A younger gentleman. Yeah.

But I would think a young lady like that was with an elderly guy. I mean, maybe he had something else. Maybe it was ice cubes. I don't know. She was throwing ice cubes. Oh, here's something we found. We gave you a lengthy intro, but I think this... Too lengthy.

You've done a lot, Ron. This, to me, seems like it wraps it up really briefly. Bill Murray said this about... I saw Delsner at the peak of his insanity, and he was fun to watch, Bill Murray said, adding, Ron Delsner is the craziest Jewish guy. Tell your Jew. Who is nutty as hell, says insane things that you think he would go to jail for, and he doesn't because he's so funny. He's just the craziest promoter and has seen more weird stuff than anybody.

That's great. Can I have that? He based his character on you. I can sell it on eBay. We got a pillowcase for you, too. He based his character in you. I can sell it on eBay. We got a pillowcase for you, too. He based his character in Rock the Catwalk on you. I said you sucked. I said I saw you.

You were terrible. Why don't you have me on a set? I will show you how to do it. You were too nice to people. You got to talk down to people. Do things that they want to hit you. I get hit. If you got hit, then you were good.

If you don't get hit, then you stink. Somebody's got to level you and punch you out. You got to be threatened by the mob. You're too nice. That's true. He's a great guy. He's all over the place. He pops up here and there. You see him at the Grammys or the Tarleys or the Emmys. He comes to everything. He used to hang around us a lot. I made him come to the Van Morris shows, Van Morris. Because Van insisted that he meet Bill Murray. And then Van would fall asleep or fall down and get drunk.

And then Bill would get up. I'm leaving now. I can't talk to him all night. Bill was great You want to say anything About your 80th birthday party A couple years ago I'm not 80

For all the women out there Who know me Paul Schaefer emceed it McCartney showed up Jimmy Buffett Everybody Father Guido Your friend Roger Waters

Everybody was there All the hedge fund guys Stevie Cole All the guys Daddy Logue Everybody was there Were you honored I had Jim

Walsh came there. Joe Walsh. Irving Azoff, Corn Capture, the big manager. Fish and all those big acts I played. And Dave Matthews Band. So what I did with Dave Matthews Band, they were playing Jones Beach. We're giving a...

We raised some money because they honored me at Jones Beach and the park. And we gave some money, Dave Matthews and myself and his manager, to a friend of ours who was a great agent who died of a rare, rare cancer at a young age. His name was Chip Hooper. And we just had the parks department in Jones Beach, building Jones Beach, a splash park for kids between the ages of three and seven. And it's all ready to go, and I'm going to go press the button two weeks from now, and we're going to dedicate that.

And that's because of whatever this guy meant to us. But there's not too many people who are too giving about doing things anymore. Well, congratulations on all the good things. The money you've raised for important causes. Well, not only that, but I think the shows that I'm with Live Nation now, I don't have the control I had before, and I don't like it. So I see things at the theater that I really want to have. I want to have screens, LED screens.

I can't have the screens they put there now. You can't see them in the daytime. It's terrible. And artists come in, and they come in with beautiful screens. You can see the show great because it's a big place. And the audience should have good visibility. You know, they're sitting up there. You're you can see the show great Because it's a big place And the audience should have Good visibility You know they're sitting up there They're entitled to see the show good

So we should give them A big screen so they can see it Especially when you're playing 14,000 people outside In arenas too Let the people see it properly So there's little things I'm always on top of

Trying to make the place look better Of course if the fan Doesn't have a good experience I feel upset Because I was a fan once You know I went to, I feel upset because I was a fan once. I went to see Lenny Bruce when I was a kid. It was a snowstorm.

It played at midnight at Carnegie Hall. 61. And I couldn't, oh wow, I couldn't get back to my mom's house in Queens. I forget how the hell

I got back. I must have walked through the tunnel or something over the 59th Street Bridge. But that was some night. I was born in that snowstorm. It was February 61.

Well, I had a shitty seat, and I said to myself, I'm never going to have a bad seat like this again. I'm always going to be the better seat than this. Good for you. And I thought the fans should have the best seat they could have. And at least if they don't, let them at least see and hear the show. Well, and you started the Jones Beach concerts for people that couldn't go on vacation, for people that couldn't afford to go to the Hamptons.

Central Park. Central Park, too. For the people, the minorities of this city who can't see live shows for free, the free shows and the dollar a ticket. I figured I wanted to make it cheaper than the movies. It was cheaper than a movie ticket. Movie ticket might have been $2. It's amazing that you could see the who in Led Zeppelin for a buck. Well, I was the people's promoter, you know, they used to say, the people's promoter.

I think Bill Graham gave me that name, people's promoter. What else? You got anything for this man, Gilbert? Oh. Oh, one last one. Did ZZ Top travel with livestock? Where'd you hear this? I was looking up the insane contract writers.

I saw it in an article about you, that you had to provide feed for the livestock. Is that bullshit? Yeah, sure. I know. What do I... I like this. He was just like Frankie Pantangeli there. Oh, yeah, sure.

Why not? Has Chaz Palminteri been on this show? Now I see he's got a restaurant. Not yet. Oh, here's something. We'll ask him. Don't show it to me now. The man's double parked.

When you... They stole my cars in Mexico already. something. We'll ask him. Go and show it to me now. The man's double parked. They stole my cars in Mexico already. They put out a freaking bus. A boat. I go back to these crooks. Rikers Island. They're all on a work release program. Oh my God. When you were a kid,

back with your family, you had a victory garden. Yeah. I heard. Yeah. Can you tell us what a victory garden was? Well, you plant the vegetables. Yeah.

You know, carrots and radishes and stuff like that. And this was during World War II. This was, yeah, my father, we lived at 4556 193rd Street. And there were attached houses. And Lou Lair, Monkeys is the Craziest People. Monkeys is the Craziest People. That's a memory. We were renting.

He owned this place, and we rented it from him. Monkeys is the Craziest People. You'd see him on the news when you see the two shows at the RKO Keys in Flushing and the guy birdie at the organ. They'd show a thing with monkeys that are the craziest people. And you'd show Lowell Thomas. This is Lowell Thomas. And they'd show some African

chicks with tits and bare breasts. Oh my God. As kids, we never saw women with bare breasts. And they'd show it to you at the theater with your mom and dad. You know, they're all naked bare-breasted chicks. And it was normal. That's what they'd walk around with. And we didn't know.

We thought that's the way everybody walks around. So when I got older, I went to there, and I wanted to see it, and they said, no way. I'm kidding about that. So what were you saying? What was the question? He answered it. He answered the victory card. You gave a better answer than the one.

I didn't tell you the one on my mother's birthday every year, on Mother's Day, my father would give her flowers. I'd sell them the next day to Vivian Barber Miller on the block. I'd sell used flowers. I sold everything. Ron, you're a genius. Everything is so shit. All right, let me get out of here. There's a man here, a special guest here, came to say hello to you.

Do you recognize that man on the couch? Oh, my God. Hey, Bruce. Oh, my God. Bruce Valanche is here. Oh, look at him. How many more chins than a Chinese phone book. And anything you want to plug?

Yeah, the Dylan shows. You want to plug and promote anything? I'm not ready to sell those yet. Okay. I got to plug some crap we're dying with. I don't know. No, we're okay. You plug your future memoir.

No, well, Paul Simon, we love him. We're doing Paul's final shows, which are great. He's retiring. He's going to go to Maui, so he says. And I play people my age. You know, Eric Clapton, those guys, Roger Wood, all the guys. You did the Cream Reunion. There's so much we could talk about we didn't get to.

The greatest stuff. These guys are so lovely to me. And you know what? They take care of me. Even if I was not in my show and I had to go someplace else, they'd say, Billy Joel, 100 shows. 100 shows on July 18th. This guy takes care of me no matter what.

Even though he made the deal directly with the garden. Where do you find friends like this? It's pretty amazing. I'm glad to have these guys. You treat people nice. You be nice. You don't ask for anything. And lots of them are really nice.

Some of them don't give a damn, but it's okay. I don't ask for anything. I'm okay. Good health. That's the main thing. Yeah. There's so much we didn't get to,, but it's okay. I don't ask for anything. I'm okay. Good health, that's the main thing. Yeah. There's so much we didn't get to, Ron.

Come back and play with us again. We'll have a moment of silence. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast, and we've been talking to the legendary,

nearly dead, Ron Delsner. Great Ron Delsner great Ron Delsner Ron thanks for for the parking thing thanks for the slip I want all of those notes I'll give you the cards

one I gotta be a pain in the ass not that I wasn't before if you could do an ID for us I'm gonna make you do an old an old Alan Freed style

cousin Brucey style station ID I'm Ron Delsner we just lost Dan Ingram by the way. You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast.

You say that. He's staring. How can I remember all that shit? You got it right there? I'll write it down. I'm listening. You're listening to

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Podcast. Colossal. Amazing Colossal Podcast. ACP. Give me your freaking teleprompters. Hang on, I'll give it to you.

Yeah, I'll write it down for you. I can't find my way home at night. It's my show. I don't remember the title. And I don't remember my co-host's name half the time. Yeah, he doesn't. So why don't we do this like we did today? Do it at Town Hall.

We'll do it someplace like Woody Allen used to do every night until he was fondling his daughter. The pub or something like that. Michael's pub. What was that about? Michael's pub. Yeah, what was that about? They fired him from the Carla Hotel.

You want to do this live somewhere in front of an audience. So just like this. What do you think David Steinberg does? Why? He interviews friends and makes a fortune in Canada. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it. Yes, okay.

Can you promote it? Yeah, we will. All right, you in Canada. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it. Yes, okay. Can you promote it? Yeah, we will. All right, you're on. You know, we do it. I got the Catholic church place down. I tell you, you're going to love it. You walk in, there's a picture of Jesus there and everything. Gilbert.

Gilbert will burst into flames. It's the Bishop Fulton Sheen thing. 200 seats. Bishop Sheen. Wait a minute. It's great. 200 seats. I had Jack.

What's the guy? Jay, the card guy Ricky Jay Ricky Jay there yes Nora Jones Regina Spector wow

it's fully you can tape by the way full television you can tape everything there they have bedrooms you can stay there it's built

and Cardinal what's his name at the O'Rourke or something who's the guy there you got me Patrick St. Patrick's... There you got me. St. Patrick's Cathedral.

There you got me. He's a great guy. I'm a fallen Christian. He knows about the place because I saw him at this Rayos place. A benefit we give one another. All right, so we'll do a live one with some other people and you'll promote it. We'll do it there and we'll pack the place. We'll charge you a hundred bucks a ticket. Okay.

We'll get Donald Fagan. What do you say, Gil? I'll do it. Donald Fagan. I'm in. By the way, Tom Schiller's still around. You know Tom Schiller? I know Tom very well.

Crazy motherfucker. He's terrible. I love Tom. So we have been talking to Ron Delsner, the legendary Ron Delsner. Thank you, and I'm listening. If you're listening now, you're listening to the amazing, colossal podcast of Gilbert Gottfried. And who are you? You didn't identify yourself.

Oh, I'm Ron Delsner. I'm Goldie Hawn. Now try it again. Hey, I'm Ron Delsner. You're listening to the amazing, colossal podcast of Gilbert Gottfried. Ron Delsa signing off. Motherfucker. Beautiful.

Great. Great. Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Berterosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach.

Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance.