The Kevin Sheehan Show - Howard On His Hollywood Days

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Kevin with some running back talk to start and then it was part 2 of Tuesday's conversation with Howard Gutman on Howard's acting days in Hollywood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. The show today, a little bit different than usual because I'm on vacation. So if there was anything major that happened in sports yesterday, you're not going to hear it on the show today.

But I'm going to play for you the second part of my conversation from the show the other day with our good friend Howard Gutman. Howard, of course, the former ambassador to Belgium, longtime prominent attorney for Williams and Connolly. He hosts a radio show as I see it on WRVA Radio in Richmond, which you can listen to by downloading the Odyssey app. He is also on Twitter at the Howard Gutman. Howard told us the other day, Howard's had quite the adventurous life. Howard is, I love Howard because, and I have other friends like Howard, but he is one of these guys that just always feels like he belongs. Doesn't matter if he's got experience. He feels like, why not me?

And Howard is going to tell us today about a part of his life that we haven't heard about. And that was when Howard acted in television shows and in movies and became good friends with some of Hollywood's A-list actors. So that's coming up today. What he told us about the other day, and if you missed it, it's totally worth to listen, is Howard's years at Columbia as an undergrad in the late 70s, where he was going to class during the day and working at Studio 54. Yeah, that Studio 54 at night. You'll want to hear some of those stories from Howard from Tuesday's show.

Coming up, Howard's life as an actor in a few minutes. The show today is presented by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.com or MyBooky.orgie. Use my promo code Kevin D.C. to secure a first deposit bonus of up to $1,000. MyBooky has all of the NFL 2023 prop bets up. We've talked about some of those. The week one lines have updated. Washington's still a six-point favorite over the Cardinals on Sunday, September 10th. There is something about this game. I'm going to mention here in a moment. The biggest favorite in week one, the Ravens are nine and a half point favorites over the Texans. The Cardinals and the Texans, Washington and Baltimore's first week opponents, are projected to be the two worst teams in the league. Both Washington and Baltimore have those projected two worst teams in the league at home. Washington's a six-point favorite. Baltimore, a nine and a half.

point favorite over Houston in that opener. The season opener for the NFL, the Thursday night opener on September 7th, Kansas City is now less than seven. They are minus six and a half over the lions who people just love the lions for some reason. But I actually like the lions too. I think they should be a good football team this year. But what struck me in looking at the week one lines today is Washington and Arizona's over under total is 40. That is easily the lowest week one total in the NFL. The second lowest is 41 and a half, Tennessee and New Orleans. San Francisco and Pittsburgh also at 41.5. But the first over under number that I saw when these lines came out, I'm pretty sure it was like 41 and a half or 42 for Washington, Arizona.

It's now down to 40. So there isn't a lot of confidence in Vegas or among the early week one betters, sharp bettors anyway, in Washington and Arizona being able to put up a lot of points in that week one game. Speaking of football and Washington in particular, we talked the other day on Tuesday show about Mike Lombardi suggesting that the best fit for Dalvin Cook would be Washington. And I know we've had conversations about running backs recently. And my reaction the other day is what it's been recently to any suggestion that Washington is desperate for a running back. I just don't see it that way.

But it certainly seems like a lot of the NFL pundits believe Washington needs a back to go with that great wide receiver room, which, let's be clear, includes Terry McClureen, a clear-cut number-one wide receiver and certainly somewhere near the top 10 receivers in the game. Jahan Dotson, who I actually think has a chance to be their best receiver over the coming years. And then a lot of question marks, really. I mean, they've got two good ones, really good ones. I think two number ones on their team. I like their receiver room.

Their receiver room gets built up. Pundits around the league like the receiver room. It's interesting, though, it's not a deep receiver room that we know of for now. Curtis Samuel's more of, you know, a gadget guy. I like Curtis Samuel. I think he played well at times last year. And, you know, the surprise, according to Albert Breer anyway, during spring, which we didn't hear a lot of this for many of the beat reporters, was Diami Brown.

Diami Brown and Sam Hal having been teammates at North Carolina. But the running back room gets dumped on a lot. And after the conversation on the show the other day, a few of you sent me a link to pro football focus is running back unit rankings. So they ranked the running back units, one through 32. This happened about a week ago. For whatever reason, I thought we did this on the show when it came out. But maybe we didn't. because when I saw this, I did not recall Washington's running back unit being ranked 27th out of 32 teams.

It just seems too low 27th. And yet the numbers really don't back up the way I feel because they finish 29th per football outsider's DVOA metric in rush offense. Now, they did finish 12th in the traditional average rushing yards per. game number. They finished 12th. But, you know, I was looking at yards after contact numbers for Robinson Jr. and Antonio Gibson. And they're not overly impressive from last year. I would have thought that they would have been, especially Robinson Jr.'s numbers. It just seemed that a lot of the yards that they generated were on their own doing. The offensive line wasn't good. They couldn't throw the football down field very well. They couldn't stretch the field. They couldn't stretch the field.

to keep defenses honest, but Robinson Jr. finished 25th in the league in yards after contact. Now, he missed four to five games or whatever it was, so his number would have been in total yards after contact would have been higher. But his average number in yards after contact, 30th in the league, you know, and you start looking at the backs that are, you know, way up high on the list, Josh Jacobs, Derek Henry, Nick Chubb, Tony Pollard actually finished number one in the the league in rushing yards after contact as an average per rush. And so none of the numbers out there really back up the way I feel, which is their running back room is fine.

Brian Robinson Jr. has a chance to be a 1,400, 1,400 yard per season back if he averages 20 plus carries a game. Antonio Gibson is great in space. I also think he's great everywhere else. But I don't see a need for running back. But the numbers which the NFL pundits are looking at suggests that Washington could use an upgrade at running back. I'm not going to let the numbers convince me on this one.

I know what my eyes told me. My eyes told me that they've got two really good running backs. There are teams like Chicago and Pittsburgh with Najee Harris who are ranked in front of Washington. None of those two teams. Now, Chicago's got a quarterback that's a dynamic rusher, of course. But in terms of the running back units, Chicago and Pittsburgh's room isn't any better than Washington's. Anyway, interesting conversation about their running backs.

It just seems that everybody looking at Washington from the outside says they need a back. and I think many of us, maybe some of you disagree, look at Gibson and Robinson Jr. and say, no, we're fine with that. You certainly don't want to spend big money on a running back. You know, no offense to Dalvin Cook, who's great. He, you know, at times fumbles in big spots and has over the last two years, and by the way, he misses games. It's one of the reasons Minnesota's okay with moving on from him.

Now, he was expensive to keep and they had salary cap issues. But anyway, enough on the running backs. Let's get to Howard Gutman right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So you reached out to me the other day because you were listening to me try to convince Tommy to watch Silo, which did you continue? You said that you and your wife watched the first two episodes and that you really liked it. Are you? Oh, we continued.

We're continued. I would not like to have apples thrown in my grave, but we are watching. But I do it differently than the Sheehan household. I have the non-binger rule. There is the limit. You can watch one episode of a show per day, because otherwise, you know, it's eight hours later, and you haven't left the television. Yeah, that's happened.

Right. Yeah. So we're on, we finished episode five, and in four days I will be caught up, but one in morning. All right. So you said that, you know, you told me that there is somebody in that show Silo, one Tim Robbins, Andy Dufrain, Tim Robbins, that you know very well. And then we got into this conversation the other day. And your connection to so many different people in Hollywood, it's amazing.

So I guess maybe the place to start, because I don't necessarily have an order here, but tell everybody how you know Tim Robbins well. So I am the only, as far as I know, U.S. Ambassador, former U.S. Ambassador, who's a member of the Screen Actors Guild. And so I have, if you go to my IMDB, I have appeared in several movies, including with Tim. And the way it started was there was a terrible television show on HBO, done by George Clooney and Stephen Soderberg called Case Street.

I remember that. I remember that. It was terrible. It was terrible. But it was filmed in Washington, and George Clooney just loves Washington. If you have been successful as an actor forever, you want to be a politician. If you've been successful as a businessman, you want to become a politician. If you've been successful as an athlete, you want to become a politician.

George had had that. And so he ate up Washington. He just loved it, and George Clooney and Stephen Sauerberg decided they would do this project about the real Washington and bringing it to the stage. And they got James Carville and Mary Madeline and John Flannery, later of Madman, and a decent cast. And they were doing the showcase street. And the lead writer on it is now a dear friend of mine for decades named Henry. Bean. Henry I had originally met over a case. That's a whole other show about my representing a wrongly accused Brinks terrorist who did blow up the Capitol, but she was not a Brinks

terrorist named Susan Rosenberg. That for another day. But from that representation, I had made. That for another day. You'll just put that one to the side for another day. Okay, continue. Okay. So in that representation and getting Susan Rosenberg, off. I had been hired by Henry being a screenwriter because Susan Rosenberg, when she was in jail, had won a screenwriting award. I was hired by a rabbi, a screenwriter, and a congressman who knew the story of Susan Rosenberg and thought what was happening to was unfair, and I got to be friends with Henry. Henry then was picked by George Cunning and Soderberg to be the lead writer for Case Street, and Henry gave me a call and said, I'm doing this.

I need someone to advise on politics and law in Washington. I know no one better than you. Would you help us? Look, I'm litigating major cases 80 hours a week. Would I help George Clooney and Steven Saabberg advising on their show? This was not a hard question. So for the first five episodes, I'm on set advising them. When we went to the kickoff party, Michelle and I sat in the corner and we stared at George Clooney

in the side. Soderberg and John Flannery and all the actors, and we were, you know, we were in the far corner looking like, you know, oh my gosh. But by episode six, Soderberg's pretty comfortable with saying, this isn't right, ask Howard what to do it. And finally, he turns to me and says, enough telling us, can you do it? They needed someone to do the grand jury process, to be the defense attorney. I don't know how to act. I don't have time to learn how to act, but to be a lawyer in the grand jury process, that's pretty easy. So they then get the Screen Actors Guild to waive, and I wasn't admitted.

But once you have three appearances on screen and talking parts, you qualify for your Screen Actors Guild card. And so I've appeared in three of the last... Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Before you jump ahead here, I want to hear about this moment. When they turned to you and they said, stop, you know, telling us how it should work, we want you to act it out. What was your response? The one thing I've never been short on is your- His confidence? I said, sure. Why not?

Okay. So did it happen right then, or did they get you to make up? Or did they, did you have to read the script and memorize the lines? Like, what happened? Three days later, it was scripted out, but only. loosely. Yeah. And three days later, when we were filming, I had to be ready with my part of the,

well, actually, the first one I appeared before, the first one, I think I hold today the longest appearance of a voice over a, whatever, you, speaker box. We know where a lot of people are listening in the conference room, and they call me for advice. And the first one is all my voice, like Charlie's Angels when you hear, you know, Charlie's boss. But I probably had 10 minutes of talking on that show with Carville and Flannery and the like looking at this box of my voice coming out. And the next week I appeared, and I appeared on the last three episodes. And I basically argue with a prosecutor on the grand jury, and I prep them for their appearance. Look, to me, this is boring stuff, but

George Clooney and Steven Saubberg believe this was great television, so rent K Street, and you will see my appearance. What did you get paid to do that? I got Screen Actors Guild minimums. I think it's, I think it is either $75 a day or $120. When I did noise with Tim Roms, I think it was $125 a day. Because when I tell you, when I was up for. the U.S. Ambassadorship and going through my vetting. You get vetted forever, the FBI, the IRS. I got visited by two IRS agents who told me that they had a problem with my vetting for underreporting

income. Now, I'm a Williams and Connolly partner. Let's just say I made a lot of money as a Williams and Connolly partner. But you just get an end-of-year tax form. You know, you just give it to your accountant. There's no way to under-report. Right. but they had seen that I had been in the movie noise.

Oh, God, $125 you're going to get audited for. For five days. So we're talking about a seven-figure return, and they thought I'd left off $625. So I did the most thing I would never let a client do. I was indignant. While they're sitting in my office, their speakerphone was the word I couldn't think of.

I call my accountant, put them on the speakerphone, and say, Hal, I've got two IRS agents. They're vetting me for the ambassorship, and they say we didn't report the $625 I should have received at least from noise. And Hal said, do you remember that we figured out what it cost you every day? You go to New York to film noise, and you had net loss of money, and I asked you whether you wanted to take a deduction, and you said you wouldn't charge the American taxpayer,

because you were having fun filming a movie for five days with this cast, and so we left it off your return instead. And those two IRS agents slunk at my office like you can't imagine by this, I think it was $125 a day, and I was shuttling back and forth to New York to film it. So that's what I got probably with Kloaning. You didn't mention noise specifically. You've mentioned it in passing and talking about the IRS, agents and a couple of other references.

Noise for you with Tim Robbins. We're first with Kay Street. Right. From that, I earned my screen actor's skill card. Right. Once you have it, and if you have enough contacts, people are happy to kind of put you in so fast forward. Henry Bean actually was the writer-director on noise.

It starred Tim Robbins, William Hurt, Billy Baldwin, Richard Monaghan, who was married to Tom Brady and is on Blue Bloods, so a stellar cast. And Henry said, do you want to play Tim Robbins lawyer in Noise? Now, people should rent the movie Noise. Noise was the best movie ever made that virtually no one ever saw. And the way we know that is the second week on Wednesday, the L.A. Times comes out with on Wednesday, the must-see movie of the week, and they had picked noise as the must-see movie for that coming weekend, and we had already closed the prior weekend in L.A.

We weren't even in the theaters anymore. And so I played Tim Robbins' lawyer, and Tim and I, so that's after the Sadabergh K. me on K Street. So I get my screen actors' guild card from the three appearances and four appearances in K Street. You need three on-camera appearances with lines to qualify. Once you have your card, you can be put in anything. And so Henry had a lawyer in noise, and he put me in there. And so there I'm on set with all this cast. You know, you get your trailer and you get stand in for Mr. Gutman. You got a trailer? You get a trailer with your name on it, and you get, you know, when they block the shots,

there's some guy who's getting paid to stand there for me, so I don't have to go through the trouble standing while they block out the shots. Well, the rest of the people are Tim Roms, William Hurt and Billy Baldwin. They need one. Howard Gunman would have stood in for himself. But, yep, you get the whole kitten caboodle. I had that on Fame, my third movie as well. What was Fame?

Fame? You're talking about the musical? The remake of Fame in 2009, we'll get to that next. Like Irene Cara, Fame? It's the remake of the High School of Performing Arts, the movie Fame. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so in 2009 there was a remake. I was in that one playing the father of the kid who's the videographer.

I filmed it in, this is unbelievable, I filmed it in January 2009. Obama calls in February 2009 to ask me to become U.S. ambassador. You were Mr. Baczynski in that movie. There you go, the butcher. And when I got asked by my friend Tom Rosenberg from Lakeshore Productions, if I would be in fame, I said, Tom, there's no lawyer in same. I only know how to work, because remember, I don't know how to act. He said, no, there's a role for the father of a high schooler,

and the high schooler wants money, and the father tells him no. And I said, Tom, that role I can do. So that was with Kelsey Grammer. Yeah. And I had my trailer on that one, and I played the father of the high schooler in fame. So, but let's go back to Noise and Tim, because that's how we got to Silo. So in Noise, there is the cast. It's Tim Romm, it's Bridget Moynihan.

It's William Hurd and it's Billy Baldwin. What year? We're filming. Oh, boy, it was. 2007. It was, okay, 2007. So I left American in 2009 to move to Belgium in July. I filmed fame in January.

So to jump ahead to that one, I filmed fame in January. Obama calls me in February of 2009. I finally get vetted through June. I get sworn in, and I finally leave for the ambassorship in August of 2009. The movie opens worldwide fame in October of 2009. So there I am. arrived as the new U.S. ambassador in Belgium in August of 2009, and then coming to their theaters is this movie about the high school performing arts, and their new ambassador is playing

a butcher in the movie. The state parliament wasn't going to happen. I had done it beforehand. I couldn't control the release. So we turned it into a massive public relations event. I had one of the black young actresses and a gay male actors come to Belgium. I took them to Mullen Bake to the Muslim area where there's tension. We invited the community. All the papers came, and the community center in Mollemake, Belgium had all the young kids rehearse the theme song to fame. Now, remember, they're Francophones, and even speaking English.

Right. Their mothers came. all the kids had makeup on, and the Muslim community where there's tension in Belgium, they put on a performance of fame for me and then took Notary Norton, the actors from fame, and we had a grand time of it. So it worked out. I turned it into a public relations event. But we can go back to noise in 2007.

But wait a minute. On fame real quickly. So Kelsey Grammer and Babe Newark, both of whom were in cheers together. Yep, yep, was in that movie. And by the way, a very, I don't know what her role was. It just says, gorgeous blonde. Paulina Gretzky was in the movie. I got to admit, I missed that one.

I spent time with Kelsey Grammer and Natory Norton and Paul Iacono. Paul played my son, so all my scenes were with Paul. And Natori is still an actress. She's in, appears in a lot of things. and Paul is still clubbing or something in New York, but I played the father the butcher in the remake of fame. What kind of guy was Kelsey Grammer? He had a, I met a lot of these guys.

He had a sense of humor. He was approachable. He wasn't. George Clooney is a fabulous man. We're going to get to Clooney because you're your buddies with Clooney. But I'm just looking at the lineups because you've got to go deep into the cast because it's now, you know, 15 years ago, 16 years ago at some of these movies. So some of these people were young actors.

Now, I did see that this guy, Charles Dutton, who I remember from Rudy, I also remember him from another movie, but he was the Notre Dame Stadium, you know, head custodial guy who, Rudy, who hires Rudy early in that movie. he's in that movie. All right. So continue. So back to noise and Tim Robbins. Back to noise.

Yeah. So I have, Henry says, play Tim's lawyer. I help him a little with the script. I've got my own lines. I'm going to be filming with Tim. But I'm a Williamson Connolly partner,

you know, pretty boring day by day. I want to go spend time with William Hurt and Billy Baldwin and Bridget Moynihan. So I spend a lot of time on the set. And it's an interesting mix of people. Bridget Moynihan, who was married.

to Tom Brady and and now was on Blue Bloods. She sat in the corner with a book, had her face buried in the book, and had no time for anyone as far as I could tell. Billy Baldwin were filming on the streets of Manhattan.

If a skirt walked by, Billy Baldwin left the set and went to chat up the skirt. So that was, then there was William Hurt. Now, I have met lots of unusual people in my in my time I have met Afghan warlords I've been to Afghanistan twice

as U.S. ambassador I've met with Afghan warlords the strangest human being I've ever met in my entire life was William Hurd. Really? Strange how? I wouldn't tell it I wouldn't tell it if he hadn't if he's still around because but so you know I'm kind of looking forward to meeting William Hurd and he wasn't in my scenes I had I had filmed three or four days with Tim, but I was there on the day that he was filming. And so we're all in the actors area and the like, and he's not on set and the like. So I go up and all I said, Kevin,

all I said was, hi, Mr. Hurt, I'm Howard Gutman. I play Tim's lawyer. That was all I said. And then he turns and says, you're the real one, right? I didn't even know. what that meant. Start with, and I quickly figured out it meant the real lawyer. You're the real one, right? Two years. Two years. Even now I'm suffering.

And I thought, I then enter a 20-minute diatribe that I have almost no idea, like, I thought it must be he's practicing a soliloquy, he's playing a joke, because I have no idea, but he's yelling at me. and young, and I can finally tell maybe 10 minutes into this rant that he's talking about his experience with the lawyers in his divorce and his ex-wife. And he's just going on about the justice system. And I seem to represent it all because he knew that the guy who was playing Kim Robbins lawyer was a real lawyer. That's all he must have heard. And he was going to let off on.

And so finally, in this rant, I find out, I can tell that originally the wife got custody of the children. And it took him two years to get them back. But I'm finally looking for somewhere not to get punched, not to get light in this story. And he gets to the part where he gets custody finally. And I go, I finally get word. And I said, oh, so you ended up with custody of the children? And he goes, they're ruined. And people are looking, why is William Hurd screaming at this guy who had only said,

Hi, Mr. Hurt, I'm Howard Gutman, I play Tim's lawyer. So after this is over, I go to Henry Bean, and I say, Henry, I just had the oddest interchange with anyone ever had with William Hurt. And Henry turns and said, well, everyone knows he's nuts, but he's a great actor. Oh, my God. God. That was William Hurd. So in that crowd, Tim Robbins and I pitted off pretty well.

He had gone to Stuyveson High School, another, you know, Gift and Talented High School in New York that you take exams for. And I had gone to Bronx Science. We both had kids, my kids were, I don't know, six years, he had just gone through college or were going through college, and his were applying in that stage. He was still with Susan Sarandon at the time.

Right. I knew his politics would be left. I'm a Democrat, obviously, but I'm not the Susan Sarandon stage of the party, but he's obviously interested in issues. So we hit it off pretty well, and I spent the time. Then fast forward, and I'm U.S. ambassador in Belgium, and he has broken up with Susan Sarandon. She seems to do well for a serial, you know, dating younger, and he was coming to Belgium, for a performance in a small club in Antwerp, because his brother and he, for his fun,

had a little duet where they played, I think jazz music, and he had gotten booked in a club in Antwerp. So I met him when he came to Belgium and Antwerp. We went out to dinner and came over to the house and hung again. And every election, I've still got the email, every election, when I was, you know, fundraising of people, I'd hit him up if he wanted his support. You kind of got that contact with Hollywood. But, you know, the kind of guy like us, I'd love to have dinner in Antwerp if we were together in Antwerp.

And then, and so when I'm looking at silo and in comes Tim Roms, that led to the story. You know, so William Hurt, by the way, body heat with Kathleen Turner. if you're trying to picture William Hurd. He was also in broadcast news with Holly Hunter, among many good movies that he was in. But with respect to... So the Tim Robbins story, that's amazing, by the way, and it doesn't surprise me that these people,

and I'm saying this, obviously, not surprised. I don't want it to come off the wrong way, but that you end up being somebody that they reach out to hang out with because you are great company. in an incredible conversation. At any point during this, did you consider,

hmm, maybe Hollywood is my life. Maybe this lawyer thing is whatever. I got my own trailer. I'm now in multiple movies. Maybe I can become an actor. Kevin, the one problem was, if you're a Williamson Connolly, partner, I didn't have time to learn to act, nor do I have any talent whatsoever as far as I

could tell, and I certainly didn't have the looks. If you see, I can play a lawyer. On radio, I do a political commentary. That's kind of where I'm comfortable. It's great, again, it's great to visit the zoo. You don't want to get in the cage too long with them. But again, there are genuinely terrific people just, there can be a lot of the William Hurdard. experiences. Going back to Kay Street, I know he's gotten maligned by a lot of people. George Clooney is a

fabulous person. George Clooney is a wonderful person. So, when I got to Case Street, to the set of Case Street, I'm a Washington lawyer, there's all these stars and actors, you go get your lunch on the catering trucks,

and I would take my tray, and I'd shoot away from the people. I'm not going to go slip next to Soderberg, and CUNY and start shooting the breeze. So I'm sitting away. And then Clooney gets his tray at the truck. And I see he passes Flannery

and he passes Soberg. And he's looking. And I realize he's headed over to me. And he sits down for lunch. And it's because he wanted to talk about politics. He wanted to talk about Washington. He didn't want to talk about the

nonsense of L.A. So we had great conversations. George Cooney is the first person ever to tell me about Barack Obama. The first time I ever heard the name, I was at the time kicking the tires with Mark Warner. Most people don't realize Mark Warner ran for president, but there's that period the two years before you announce you're running for president, where the people are doing now, you know, DeSantis did or Christy did, where you go around the country and dig up your support. Mark has been a friend since his first day of law school in 1977. And in 2005 and 2006, Mark and I helped second Mark going around the country running for president

and what was everyone assumed would be Hillary Clinton's in 2008. And we had the proposition that her support was 3,000 miles wide and an eighth of an inch deep. And if somebody could break it by changing the election from about the past and the Clinton name to the future, it could be Mark. And so for 16 months, we had traveled the country while I worked at Williams-Economy and while I audition for this nonsense on the presidential stuff. So, when he comes to see me and says, so who do you think is going to be in 2008? And I'm telling him all about Mark Warner, this U.S. senator.

And he starts telling me about a state senator in Illinois, not a federal, not a U.S. senator named Barack Obama. member thinking, what a knucklehead Hollywood guy. He doesn't know the difference between a state senator who obviously can't run for president and a U.S. center. I'm telling him about Mark Warner. George Clooney had the sense. So then Barack immediately ran for the Senate, one two years later, obviously one for president.

But George Clooney had told about that he was interested in it. Now, Cooney's father, who worked for, I think, the American Movie Channel, Clooney's father was running for Congress in Kentucky, or he lived in Cincinnati, was running in Kentucky. He lived in Kentucky was running in Cincinnati. And Clooney could not really help him much there because that was conservative world. But we're on set. I said, get to me, and I said, if you'd like, you know, I've done a bunch of political fundraising. I'd be delighted to throw a fundraiser for your dad.

And Clooney could not have been more thankful and says, you know, he and his mom will come. So in Bethesda, Maryland, if you're having George Clooney come to your house, right? This is the easiest fundraising ever to do in the world. You just kind of say, for a thousand bucks, come to George Cooney's dad, and nobody would necessarily want to support a Cincinnati congressional race, but George will be there. This is my most successful fundraiser ever.

What was that ahead? A thousand bucks. A thousand bucks. That's sold out quickly. That sold out quickly. You didn't really, you just said, you just call them George Clooney's father, right? Right. I have to say Nick Clooney.

So, I mean, we're having George Clooney come to our house and everybody we know is coming. And Michelle turns to me like 10 minutes before they get there and says, you know, if I'm ever going to cheat on you, it'll be with George Clooney. So I'm not that worried. They ring the doorbell. There's Nick Cooney, George's mom, George, standing on my stoop. But he was filming Suriana at the time, so we could time it by whenever Suriana was made. And he had gained 15 pounds and grown a beard. So Michelle turns and says, don't worry, you're safe.

But he couldn't have been nicer. He couldn't have been more gracious. My son, Chase, you know, the kids are all. and he couldn't have been more lovely. And so he's feeling so warm. It's such a successful fundraiser. We've just finished shooting at Case Street and it's gone so well. So genuinely, he turns to Michelle and says,

you know, you guys need to join me at Lake Como this summer at my villain Lake Como. And Michelle and I are like, well, thank you. That's really lovely. Right. And to make me feel better and to be heard of him. No, no, no. Everybody comes. Brad and Jen, and I realize. Howard and Michelle.

I mean, that's what he's telling Brad and Jen. He was like, look, Howard and Michelle are going to be there. Please come. Come, hang out with us in Lake Como. So we thanked him very much, but it just didn't comfort us that it would be all the regular folks, George, Brad and Jen, Howard Michelle. But really a lovely guy. And even now, again, I don't know when I spoke.

him last. He has a right-hand man named Grant Heslov, who he's done everything with. And I think I sent Grant the script that I was working on now. I did send Grant. We talked. I don't know if I talked to George, but again, it's the kind of thing where if you had something to say, a lovely man. All right. More coming up with Howard right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Obviously, you didn't consider this because, first of all, the pay wasn't great as a bit actor. But once you got your sag card, you could have become a character actor. I mean, look at, you know, there are plenty of examples of you're knocking your looks, but you're a hell of a lot better looking than Steve Bouchemmy, who's had quite a career.

you know, you had obviously carved out a little bit of a niche there for a few years, and I bet if you had stuck with it, let's just pretend for a moment, hypothetically, that you did not have, you know, that your legal expertise was at a small, you know, boutique law firm that didn't have a lot of clients, and you were thinking about getting out of that business to begin with. And if you had pursued this, you could have had a career as kind of a company. character actor. I always dislike the word career.

So what do I do now? I've got a weekly radio show and political commentary show. Okay. I am still working L.A. I've written a treatment and a pilot of a television series that I'm doing with Grand Viam Mark Johnson, the producers of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Wait, you're doing what? You're doing what with Mark Johnson?

I wrote a treatment and a pilot. it. And we are, we right now have a Green Actors Guild strike, a rider strike, so we can do nothing. But I have written, I have written draft 11. They have edited draft 11, and we are now getting ready to pitch, except you can't pitch anything during the rider's strike. So I haven't given it up. I still do all my consulting. I do boring stuff most of them, dreading an offshore wind and marine plastics for major companies and consulting, but I still do the radio, I still do, and I still, I haven't given up the interest in television. I just thought, you know, I could write one of these.

So I've got a show that we've done 11 drafts with Grand Ville, Mark and his people, Tom, and Jess there, and we were supposed to pitch, but there's no pitching in Hollywood right now the writer's strike. So hopefully in a year I'll have a TV series coming on. But you're not, you can't tell us what the treatment is or what the show's about. But you're pitching it to Mark Johnson,

the producer of Breaking Bad and Butter Coulson. I've been doing it with Mark in development. So I sent the treatment to Mark Johnson at the start of COVID, thinking that would be three months. He loved it. I didn't know how to ride a

pilot. So we made a list of who we should interview as writers, the writers from Homeland, the writers from a bunch, but we never got back to that world. So in the interim, while we were waiting to be able to start meeting with writers and the like, I called Henry Bean and said, what do you write a script on? And he told me the software. I bought it. I read the directions, and you know me, I wrote a first draft of a horrendous pilot. Henry said, don't quit your day job. A couple of drafts that Henry reviewed, and I finally sent it to Mark Johnson,

and his team gave me a bunch of comments. We're now two and a half years and 12 drafts later, and we've got a pilot. I know, but you can't tell us what the pilot is or what the series is about. I'll give you the name, so if you hear it, you'll know it's called Khalil. K-H-A-L-I-L-L. K-H-A-L-L-L. It's a Washington. diplomatic, international,

L.A., New York kind of power kind of show. We believe it that. I don't want to give it away. I'm not going to ask you to go away. My God, I mean, Tim Robbins, George Clooney, Billy Baldwin,

William Hurt, the weirdest person you've ever met in your life. All of these, I mean, Steve Rebell and Ian Schreger for crying out loud. Mark Johnson, I mean, everybody's a breaking bad fan, I think, and Better Calls, a fan. What else have I not asked you that would be interesting? Kevin, for your listeners, the best people I know, my closest friends, it's never about fame.

It's not about their fortune. You meet great people and bad people and everything. My best friends, you know, are, they're no different than anyone, Sometimes they're more flawed, but you just learn and try to move on and enjoy it. But believe me, the stargazing in California back to wear off, it's just a lot of fun to tell stories when it's over. Stories that are so much fun to listen to. That was from Tuesday's show.

I held that part back for today because the first part, which if you haven't listened to, you should go back and listen to Tuesday show where Howard talks about his days working at Studio 54 in the late 70s when he was a student undergrad at Columbia. Howard's been such a great help to us in recent years with all of the investigations, the sale, and it's so appreciated by me. And I know a lot of you as well. I'm sure the next time we have Howard on, there will be another. story that we haven't heard. That'll be fun to listen to. All right. That is it for the week.

I'm away for a few days and I will be back late next week. Take care.