The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 377: Peter Tilden—Sitting in a Puddle of Tilden

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

The writer, producer, and veteran radio broadcaster drops by to regale us with stories from the entertainment trenches, explains why he created the podcast Really? no, REALLY? with his BFF Jason Alexander and how that's affected their relationship, and expounds on what makes great advertising great. RIP Dexter.

Many years ago, nay, decades, I was driving through Los Angeles visiting my friend Chuck, who's looking at me right now through the computer. And as I was driving, I was listening to the radio and who popped onto my radio, but the aforementioned Chuck, confessing to the world his problems with erectile dysfunction. It's so shocking. I was playing a character. Yes, you were. But, you know, I've known you forever, and suddenly this voice I know is coming out of my radio.

And look, I've asked Chuck to cue up the ad that nearly caused me to drive off the road. This episode, by the way, is number 377. It's called Sitting in a Pool of Tilden. I'll explain that at a moment. But Chuck, if you'd be so kind, just to share with the world what I heard 20-some years ago driving down the 405. Hit me. Valentine's Day used to make me sick. CART, gift, fine. Sex, check, please. Couldn't do it. Couldn't get a wreck, not consistently.

If that's you, you know the embarrassment, the guilt. I won't do the pills because, you know, I enjoy hearing and seeing. This year, Valentine's Day, sweet. Thank you. Oh, damn it. I'll beep that out. I bet you will. Yeah, because the last thing we need is problems from the sponsor of these ads. We mean no disrespect. It's just that, my goodness, The stuff we used to do, brother, to earn a buck. I mean, the voiceovers, the things, I think of all the political ads I did and all of the things you did.

But that one, I'd forgotten it, but how many of those did you do? Ah, dozens, dozens. And they were all written and directed and produced by our guest today, Peter Tilden. Oh, man. You know, people say to me now all the time, how do you find the guests for your podcast? What is the process? Do you have a booker? Ha!

You're looking at them. No, we don't. We try and find people who have written great books, I think you should read, or produce great documentaries. I think you should watch every now and then a celebrity. But sometimes our favorite guests just turn out to be one degree of separation. And the guy, Peter Tilden, who wrote the spots that nearly made me drive off the road when I heard my friend read them, is still in the game. In fact, he's partners with a guy named Jason Alexander. who many of you know is George Costanza.

So when Chuck and I were talking about erectile dysfunction the other day and the fact that neither one of us suffer from it in real life, I was reminded of these old ads and Chuck was like, hey, this guy Peter Tilden who wrote these ads, he could probably hook us up with Jason Alexander. And I said, great, get Jason. And Chuck, being a crackerjack producer, made some calls and learned that Jason simply wasn't available.

But Peter Tilden was. You bet. And as it turns out, man, this guy is super interesting. Very, very interesting. And he's been in the game forever, man. He has done, he's been in broadcasting for, I don't want to embarrass him by saying how many years. But you guys have some things in common with your histories as well. You know some of the same people.

You've worked with some of the same people. We've worked on some of the same shows, albeit in different places. Evening Magazine, this guy did years ago in Philly. And, of course, I did it in San Francisco. Anyway, I think it's a super worthwhile conversation because what you're going to hear are two people deep, deep, deep into their careers. Three, really, because Chuck won't shut up in the middle of this thing. He goes on and on too. There's a lot of triangulating and there's a lot of, I think, pretty interesting observations on the state of Hollywood today.

Peter is on the inside. He's been there. He's done that. And at some point, his exact words are, I was sitting in a pool of Tilden. That of course became the title, and now you know virtually everything I know. It's episode 377. And it gets started right after this. Shameless plug!

Long before she was Peggy Rowe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you.

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sugar cubes ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirits.com. Soon may the noble men come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. Peter Tilden, awfully nice to you to come by. Appreciate it.

I'm thrilled. Now, are you overstating it? I mean, where does thrilled actually live on the hierarchy of promotion? You know what? You already called me. Actually, you know what? I am thrilled. I am thrilled because I'm a fan of yours. I've watched you do stuff for years.

Some of it, you didn't even know you didn't want me to watch, but I watched it anyway. So it's, yeah, I'm a little flattered. Well, you know what? Okay, well, let me take a little air out of that tire for you. Because the idea was Chuck comes in and he's like, hey, I think we can get Jason Alexander. I'm like, well, call him. you know, Pound's saying I'm out of here.

And Chuck, even they told me not to touch the mic, I'm moving it up and down and yanking it. Do whatever you want. God. So Peter and Jason Alexander, of course, George Costanza from Seinfeld. They have a podcast that's called Really No Really. We're going to talk about that. But I really wanted to talk to you because not unlike my erstwhile fake producer. You have been friends with this guy, this Jason Alexander guy, for like most of your life.

So I'm really interested to hear from somebody else who is working in close proximity with a friend. Or is your best friend? Is he an acquaintance? Like, tell me about your relationship. I don't want to. Too painful? This was on the list of not approved topics. Oh, wasn't really?

No, it wasn't. I'm kidding. My new ceramics. We'll get there. We'll get there. Jason, the joke with Jason, I've known Jason since the second year of Seinfeld. And when we started this podcast, we had needs. I didn't want to do a podcast. I did radio. I left radio after like a long career.

How many years? And it was no, so friggin' long. Come on, give me a number. Decades? 27 years, 37 years. And I left and everybody's going to do a, my kids, do a podcast, do a podcast. And I go, I had a million and a half people listening, well, I'm going to be like a kid in feet pajamas, talking to who. I don't want to do a podcast.

And they kept hocking me and hocking me to do it. And I came up with the idea, pitched to Jason. He liked it. We sold it. And it's a way to hang with him. But when we sold it, I said, so the brand has to, to be two best friends looking for answers to whatever questions there. And he, so every time we would do an interview, he goes, well, top five, top three, top two,

you just moved up. So it hurts him to say that, but I think we're pretty, we're right there. We may be best friends. So essentially, I mean, just to say the same thing in a slightly different way, you had a relationship with a buddy for decades back and you thought this, it probably is monetizable, right? I mean, we can probably actually sit down behind microphones and do the same. same stuff we do over lunch. And I'm assuming you've had more than a few lunches with Jason.

Yeah. No. Yes and no. I said, if we can sell this, I'll do it. If there's no money, I'm not, are you out of your mind? I can just, let's just eat. And no, it's not, because what I wanted to do was like an idiot. I thought there's a niche out there of information with a little bit of humor.

Because they're either informational shows or comedy shows. Didn't want to do a comedy show. I wanted to do something about informational with, humor. Yeah. So I didn't realize I'd be doing all the heavy lifting. I didn't realize I'd be booking the guest, finding, doing whatever. So it's not like sitting down at lunch, Chuck.

There's venom and there's also annoyance and there's animosity. And it all shows in the podcast. Well, this is eerily familiar. This sounds very, very familiar. Oh, there you and Chuck have a similar relationship where there's guilt. Sure. Right. Projection.

Oh, I'm going to be. Onwee, Malays, resentment. So let me ask you question. Sure. What symptoms, medicinal. with Chuck show, if you said, you know, I just don't want to do it anymore. Oh, well, in no particular order. Look at his face.

They're starting now. Well, denial. We'd come right out of the day with denial. So to the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the spectrum. That's right. So, I mean, Ross really would talk about what it was grief, bargaining, denial, anger. And never get to acceptance. Depression and eventually acceptance, right?

No, Chuck would never get to accept this. He'd be keying your cars. You go denial, and then he'd go into a kind of a pouting mode that would be, I think, clinically. Clinically, it would be kind of passive-aggressive. Look at your face. You like talking about this a little bit. You like lifting the hood up.

Chuck and I... Chuck, you're hearing this? You're hearing it? He loves nothing more than dressing me down. That's his favorite thing to do. It's not my favorite thing to do, but I think it's important for my own self-actualization. It is important. I see it.

We're actually having a breakthrough early on. Think about how many arguments you've had with Jason. in the decades. Oh man. Dude. How about the week? Fine. Fine.

But what I'm getting at is friendships are precious. And I don't know about you, but I mean, all seriousness, you know, the older you get, the more important the old friends become, right? And so a shorthand develops along with all of these other things that in a new relationship might be considered the kiss of death. Why would you hang out with somebody who was passive, aggressive, and defensive and skeptical of all things that you say. You know, you wouldn't. You have to get to the point where those qualities actually become, let's call them, um, adjacent to endearing. You're right. You're right. It's interesting

because one of the episodes we're doing is with a bridesmaid who you hire, which is funny and interesting stories and all that stuff. But it's also, why would you need to hire a bridesmaid? And part of that is a lot of people don't have, yeah. And I didn't realize since COVID, people are pruning friends. In other words, I haven't seen you in a while. I used to hang out with you. I used to do stuff with you, but you know what? I used to do it because we were close at work or whatever. So they're pruning for it. And it started in the 70s. You can relate to this in 70s. There were all these clubs. Yeah. Rotary club, bowling club, they're gone. We don't do that stuff anymore. So that started it. And then COVID just kind of put a nail in it where people are looking at it going,

you know what, I'm going to whittle this down a bit. Do you think that happened in part because of bad geography or laziness? Or, like, why would someone shed a friend? You know, honestly, no joking. I think it goes deep. I think it's multi-level. But I think part of it is what you said in a way. Isolation doesn't mean your loneliness necessarily.

I like being isolated at times. And I think people were surprised by the isolation that, for some people, it was like, okay, I'm digging this a bit. Yeah. But I think, to your point, that person, I liked them at that point, but looking at it now, a lot of work, a little bit of aggravation. and, you know, it's Friday night you're calling to pizza. Yeah, I don't think I wonder. How many times have you done that? Or you've lied instead of thinking I got COVID.

Well, I've used the, I think I got COVID thing, two, three thousand times. Yeah, I'm not sure, but I tell you. Not sure, but I just want to protect you. But then it's protecting you, so it's, you're out. But something else happened during the lockdowns, and I completely agree and relate to that. That happened in my life. But on an equal and opposite plane, because we were isolated, I suddenly took a weird borderline unhealthy interest in my neighbors,

who I had by and large ignored. That's hilarious. Right? And so suddenly, like, we're in a bubble. So these people I see all the time. It's like, you know, we're walking around. We're picking up our requisite dog crap. Right.

And I was like, hey, you know what? Why don't you come over? We'll sit outside six feet apart, have a beer, and get to know each other. And swap COVID. And swap COVID, of course. Wow. I guess I'm just looking for a silver lining at the end of this horror show, but I've got half a dozen relationships with people who are actually within half a mile of where I live. You know what, Chuck? Honestly, I did.

I'm Mike, by the way. I mean, Mike. I thought he was talking to me. He looked sort of in this direction. He's still not sure. It was a ricochet, actually. Please, Jason, go on with your story. Oh. By the way, how about it?

We're all going to be there in 10 weeks anyway. I don't remember my name. I said to my wife the other day, you know, because I'm forgetting names so much, I said, if I say, who's the little guy? Big hat, Sundays, huge crowd.

She goes, Pope, I go, just hit me with a brick. At that point, hit me with a brick and take me out because I'm beyond repair at that point. But the neighbor thing, it's face-to-face. When you do Zoom,

so I did a lot of Zoom interviews during COVID, where I would do Manascalco, and I would do this one and do it to groups. I couldn't see the thousand people watching, but all these speakers' bureaus needed somebody.

who could do it, who could interview, move it along. I did a ton of them. I did Jim Gaffigan twice. And I liked him, and it was great. And it was fun, and I feel like I don't have a relationship with Jim Gaffirgan. Right. And you're watching yourself as much as you're watching them, just because that's the way it works.

So there's a disconnect. The funniest thing is, with this back-to-work thing, I think I read that Zoom is making their employees come back to work. Oh, that's funny. Oh, that's interesting. You should check that out. I'm only, I'm almost thinking that it's that I got that right, that Zoom said, hey, guys, this isn't work.

You should be back in the office. So that's why the neighbors, they're there. Yeah. You get a sense of... But they've always been there. Yeah, but now there's a desperation. There's a different thing. You're craving that.

But I think of it like, you know, isn't it interesting how more arranged marriages outlast the traditional kind, right? It's something like, I don't know. Is that true? Oh, yeah. I got a good friend who was arranged. He's Albanian. His wife came from Albania.

met her on their engagement day, and they have three beautiful children been together for 20-some years. I know him before. So if he cheats, does he have to have somebody else arranged that? I mean, is that just the psyche? Is that how you work? It's got a whole team. An arranged person is, hey, I want to step out. Who do I call? My point is, I wonder if maybe part of our dysfunction as a species has to do with the fact that, you know, you've got 330 million people in this country. You can be friends with any of them. But that's a big palette. And they're spruce. spread out and you're never going to meet all of them if somebody were to tell you, look, you can only be friends with the people within a quarter mile of where you live.

Well, suddenly, you would be both more discriminating and more circumspect because you would want to meet them all. Yeah, but like an arranged marriage, you're already in a neighborhood with people who probably are similarly income level, education level, you know what I mean? So there's already that. You've already cut through that. So there already may be commonalities that are quickly accepted. Because you can talk to somebody about something, whereas if you need somebody at a bar, you go, he's no idea what I'm saying.

So that, and how many of those are sustained that you really like are those people? Well, a shocking number. Like lockdowns ended, and we could have all gone back to the prior life, but now we're kind of used to each other. And so there are little routines that are built in to the month. Friday's here, Tuesdays there. And do you ever feel like now you're obligated to that? Well, you know. Has it become that yet?

Has it become that yet? I mean, what's that? Has it become that yet? No. I wasn't saying that jokingly. I asked Jason a lot. Am I the same? Because I'm more hair trigger.

Am I more tan? Like, how do I come? Because I want to know. Because I'm sitting in my second bedroom doing podcasting for how long now. I don't know how I'm coming off. Am I what I used to be? Did COVID change me? I'm fascinated to find out how I've changed.

Well, look, we are desperate for feedback. We're desperate to know how we're doing, right? So as a broadcaster, you must hate it, but surely you know about Arbitron. Surely you look at Nielsen. Surely you know about like. So, I mean, all of that is just the mechanics of feedback in our industry. But we're also desperate for feedback from our friends and from our lovers and from, blah, blah, blah. But I want to know.

I want to know if I've become more of an asshole. I don't know about you, but getting older. A couple things have happened. It's like dumb stuff. Like the sock goes on running goes, son of it. I'm cursing about that. The towel falls. is I'm becoming my grandfather.

I'm definitely becoming my grandfather. I don't know why. And it's bugging me. I got to tell you this. Tell me if this has happened either, you guys. I'm walking through the airport not a week ago. I'm a little late. I'm approaching the gate.

I'm pulling my carry-on, and I've got my knapsack on top of it, right? Like everybody does. Well, the knapsack falls off, and I'm holding it and pulling the thing at the same time. So it rolls and twists in my hand, and it's heavy. And this has happened so many times, and it's always annoyed me.

But on this particular day, I spun around and I kicked my carry on as hard as I could. And I said some really impolite words in my outside voice. I snapped, Peter. I snapped. I get it. I totally get it. And I don't know if that's an age thing or if it's a societal thing at point, as we're frustrated with other stuff.

But I'm really attuned to that. Because I always tell my kids, you know what? We do a lot of charity. You do a lot of charity. I do it because I need to be loved, I guess. and I do it because I feel on my schmuck if I don't. But I always say to my kids, if somebody cuts you off and you give them the finger, it's going to accelerate to death.

But watch what happens if you go, it's okay, and smile. It diffuses it instantly. Totally. Instantly. Okay. And it's so easy to do, but it's easy to do. And I know it sounds saccharine and all, but I really don't want to become that answer.

I don't want to go down that route. Yeah. Get off the long guy. So to be able to like reset the table in your mind, you know, back to the airport, that same journey, I'm on a plane, sitting next to a guy who's wearing a mask, and he offers me a mask. And he said, would you like to put this on?

And I said, thanks, no, but I'm good. And inside immediately, there was this collision of ideas. How dare you? What's wrong with you? Why don't you live your life and let me live mine? I mean, you've got to be kidding me. And then he takes the mask he offered me, and he puts it over the mask he's already wearing. now he's doubled up.

Good thinking. Sitting next to a guy with two masks on. And I'm going to be sitting next to him for about five hours. So I need to have some level of back to Kubler-Ross. Am I going to be angry, depressed? I'm going to be in denial about all this stuff? You know, and then I thought, what if he's sick? What if he's got...

There you go. What if he feels like there's something going on in his throat? And he just wants to protect the people around him. like that. He feels you're so toxic. I need to mask. But you're right. Hey, it's a dirty jobs guy.

Maybe you want to wrap yourself in bubble pat. But you know what? That's the other thing. Everybody, you find out, I talk to everybody. I don't know if you're like that. My wife cracks up because every restaurant we go to, they know me. Because a waitress comes up, something comes up, goes having a good day a bed.

Is it a rush? I travel through cultural time and space by talking to people. It's fun. I guess I grew up in a European home where kids should be seen but not heard. So I was stifled for so many years. I love doing that. And you watch people light up when you ask them about stuff because they don't get to be heard often.

But I always tell my kids the same thing. Everybody's carrying a 50-pound bag of cement. Everybody. Has a kid with cancer? Has a friend who's not? Has something going on if you go one level below. So for you to go there, because I'm not that evolved, I would probably have gone the whole flight going,

son of it. I would have probably found another mask. I would ask the flight time for another mask. Give one more three. Let's triple it. Let's go for the third. Why take chances? I hear two.

Yeah, dude. you know these filtration systems. Let's go back to the lunch you mentioned you had with Jason after, was it the first episode of the first season of Seinfeld? The beginning of the second season, as I recall. And the reason I'm asking you is because you've been in this business for a very long time with respect. And I'm guessing that you don't know anybody who hit it that hard and that amazing. I don't know how many other friends you have. Unfortunately, I know a bunch of friends who are huge. Do you really? And I'm like the radio guy going, wow, that's really fun to watch. Who's bigger than Jason Alexander? In a different way, like Billy Bob Thornton won an Oscar. Yeah, he's big. You know, that's pretty big. You know what a podcast with? Amazing guy. No, he won't return. I'm kidding. The other person that I'm close with, but he's quiet about it and doesn't do stuff much now is Homer Simpson, Dan Castellanetti. It's like my kid's godfather. He's terrific. And he's wonderful and lovely. But low-key,

low down and doesn't kind of go out there and publicize it. But I mean, how many years? Oh, my God. It was the longest running sitcom. So he and Deb became really close friends, but it's in a different way. But I want to talk about the lunch where, I don't know if this happened at lunch, but when you realize you might have a tiger by the tail, right? I mean, it's super interesting.

And when you're watching that happen for your friend, that's super interesting, too. I think. Yeah, it was, it's weird because I don't look at Jason as that guy. It's really weird at all. It doesn't because he's such a good guy. And I liked him because of who he is and not because of that. We also came up with two TV shows together that weren't that. We've been through the war together.

I was an intensive care and almost died. He's gone through stuff, family stuff, kid stuff. So that's, even when I turn it on now, I'm changing channels when I see him, I love it. Nobody plays annoyed, funnier than that human being, okay? But I don't see him as that because he's not that. The thing that hit me about how big it was, because I've done sitcoms before you've been on set, was Seinfeld when it took off, I went to the set. And I've never seen craft services.

All my shows have, they have like a red licorice thing, a bowl of a king of licorice, a donut. A zagnot. And then something else. And you're asking for, can I have maybe a piece of bread? Seinfeld, the table went, you couldn't see the end of it. There were clouds. And they had anything anybody wanted to eat at all was there.

Croc pots, roasting, things, sushi. Because it doesn't matter when you're that. And the other part of that was watching them work. They were having such a good time. Yeah. And once something hits like that, man, the audience, everybody's having a good time. When did they know? Jason tells it that it was during the, I may get this wrong and people going to yell at me

who are signful fans, but it was a masturbation episode, which was the contest. The contest. And Jason said it was the first time where you could actually see numbers going up. They could see numbers going up during the episode because people were calling people and saying, you've got to check this out. and boom, and then it went. But Larry, case until the fire,

left three times, quit three times. And for the reason, and I got it, and I wish I would have thought to say this. The network, you've had this too, the network notes, sure, okay, and I've had two networks

and a studio giving me notes, so you've got nine people contradicting each other and telling me what to do, and meanwhile, I'm looking on my phone to see if I can buy a gun without a waiting period

for myself to blow myself. But what Larry said, which was really interesting. He said, I'm quitting, And they'd say, why? And he said, because I can't do, if you want a person to do that, what you're saying, hire that person. What I do is this. Right. How do you fight that? I can't do that. That's changing, though, isn't it? Aren't the suits, as it were, getting less and less involved?

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But you and Jason are doing your own podcast. Mike and I are doing this podcast. It's like so many people are on their own nowadays and sort of cutting the chord to the studio or the network. You had a life you talked about it before of getting notes from people. I had 52 different program directors and one was good. Right. And you'd have to sit and listen. And as you get older, instead of getting crazy and cursing and going nuts, I at least became an adult and go, they're hearing out of the car speaker while they're driving and doing, why are they hearing it that way? Maybe there is something valid there. 10% 20. So I go, let me use it. Right. Instead of negated. Yeah. But still, when you have a hitching,

show like that? See, I looked at notes as a form of focus group and I had always thought of a focus group as the lowest form of science, right? A terrific way to get rid of all the bad ideas and all the great ideas. Just the squishy middle is left. When you get notes from one person might be a lifesaver. You get notes from nine. There's simply no way, right? You're going to put it all together into some unholy bull you base and distill it down into something. Right. And what do you do with that? I mean, how do you even think about it?

It chips away also, like the Seinfelds of the world, the shows that are most successful are usually close to being a singular voice. You know what I mean? That wasn't interrupted because it made them laugh. One guy wants it, you know how you have the table where you're doing it? Would go, hey, stop doing what you're doing. Let's get back to work. And the guy next to me go, no, this is, that's, we should be the show, not what we're

going to get back to because everybody goes back into that moment. of here's what a sitcom is and here's. But to Chuck's question, I don't know what this looks like anymore because a lot of these shows are eight and ten episodes now. Yeah. And actors, or six,

I don't know what that looks like, what that feels like, what the pay is like, what the networks are like. Well, look how long it took for Seinfeld to find its rhythm. Right.

It was roundly considered sort of a failure in season one. It was the lowest testing sitcom and NBC history, which tells you about your focus groups in testing. Don't ever go, Have you ever watched one of your shows be tested?

No. I have heard the stories. We had a show called Bob Patterson that I came up with, which was a motivational speaker. Who couldn't motivate its family? That was you? That was me and Jason. And I wanted to do that area so big. I wanted to do that so badly.

So I got Jason on board. We had a great pilot, thank God, written with Mike Markowitz, who's a genius. And we went to the testing. And I had some great lines in there. I had some really funny stuff in there, stuff I loved. and we had one scene which was almost an embarrassment a woman, I hate to say,

the water girl coming in and the line was, look at those jugs. I don't even know how it made it into the pilot because I'm so embarrassed and the people in the room who were kind of with the dial, the meter going up and down,

when she walked in and at that line, they pinned it to the right. Like that was the thing they liked the most. And I said to Jason, I don't know that I can continue. I gotta get out of here.

I can't breathe. I submit for your consideration married with children. I mean, but married with children, that made the Fox network. Yeah. Did you ever go to those tapings? I never went to one. Dude, I got it.

First of all, because they pushed the envelope. Second of you've gone to a taping of a sitcom. Oh, yeah. How far back does the audience sit? Let's see. I was in one with Tim Allen, and they were up maybe 30 feet. It's bleachers, but it's a way. It's a way, it's a way.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Married with children, you're sitting, you're almost in the set. It's like a theater. You're right there. You're right. You're two seconds and inches from them. Were you drinking and eating? Go for it.

I mean, they wanted that thing to be a party. It was the Golden Globes. It was insane because they wanted to break the wall. They wanted to do different stuff. The audience to be involved. So you hear that. There's hooting. There's yelling.

There's all kinds of crap going on there. The audience was right there, right on top of them. And that's when the Simpsons started. That made Fox Network, married the children and Simpson. You know, I heard a story once. Tim Allen, he ran a really tight. ship on Last Man Standing. Like they would, you know, I went through the week of rehearsals and stuff. I played his younger brother and the night we shot it. I mean, we were done, I think,

before like 9.30. Like, you know, I mean, they really shot it like a play. And a couple people just pulled me aside later and said, you have to appreciate how unusual this is. And they told me a story about friends and how it was not uncommon to be there at two in the morning. still writing new lines, still trying just, and I just can't imagine just the soul deck. I've worked on shows that have been there until one, two, in the morning. It's really hard because it's diminishing. And I said to my wife, not that I don't like the process,

or wasn't thrilled. I mean, I'm from Philly, from Aroham in Philly. I never thought I'd be out here. So all of the stuff, even the worst of it, I still can't believe I got to be part of. You watch TV as a kid, and you fantasize about this, and then you're there driving into the Universal Studios lot, and the hair's going back up the back of your neck

and I cannot believe I'm here. But what I saw with the writing, it becomes diminishing returns. And I said to Moria, if I're doing it for years, what I'm doing is trying to do jokes and guessing what's in the showrunner's head, not what I think is funny. And I don't even know half the stuff

they're pitching the room they're laughing about. I really don't know what they're talking about. Yeah. And then I'd watch the sitcom and go, oh, it's not that funny. But in the room, there's politics going on, people laughing at other people's jokes that are close and they're not laughing.

All of that stuff, which is fine. the industry. But I just couldn't do it anymore where I'm trying to guess what he thinks is funny, which is his right, the showrunner. So that's when I went out and sold, we did Bob Patterson, and then we did the thing called Hit the Road, which was right before COVID, which I always thought it would be fascinating because they did country music for a bunch of years. And the country artist, Jamie O'Neill, always used to tell me that her family, it was a family band. And they would be just off the stage, two inches from the curtain going, you will suck you, you know, and then in two seconds, it's a man.

America is it and then they go back to fighting and I thought what a great thing that is being trapped with your family on a bus and you know too much about sex drugs and rock and roll that your kids are doing Yeah, exactly and then by the way we did it and then COVID yeah Yeah, and the first thing I did after the lockdowns was a show called Road Trip R-O-W-E-D because I'm terribly clever that way But yeah, I mean how funny to suddenly be in that space where I was so desperate to do something I didn't care what it was I think we did the first Zoom show in prime time about three weeks into the lockdown. Wow. It wasn't very good. But it was as good as it could be.

It was me interviewing crabboat captains, you know, up in the very seat. Okay, can I ask you a question about that? I love reality television because, again, how you, like, I could see me going in and selling Dr. Pimple Popper. Sure. What? It sold? I can draw a line, by the way, from an episode of Dirty Jobs to that show.

but go ahead because well your series you did a series like that with four shoes to love where you went to the whole six degrees so i got it but i watched the crab thing and i go wow these guys are killing themselves but the crew with the camera that's why we got an adventure cameraman on because we had i said forget him you're running backwards in the waves you're going to die what is that like for the crew did they draw like bad straws to get that assignment on we didn't know early on what it was. I was trying to sell dirty jobs and they didn't want it. It was a talk show and a sewer essentially. That was the accusation. Oh, that was wonderful. Guilty as charge. I said, yeah, it is. But they said, we've got this thing up off the Pribil off islands and the Bering Strait that might be

interesting. They showed me the footage and we went up and basically it might have been a dock. It might have been a series. It might have been a limited series. We didn't know what we were shooting. So I'm working like part Stone Phillips, part Greenhorn, you know, and the crew that was up there, honestly, they just didn't, it's difficult enough to film a frenetic scene. Right. Like that. But put it in 30-foot swells with sleet coming in sideways. And you got cameramen doing full planks in mid-air, hitting the ground like a, I mean, shocking. It was shockingly chaotic and violent and the only way to shoot it

was for everybody to go wide and shoot everything. And then locked down some go pros on some relatively stable things. And not that pick up the stuff that dangerous. Wow. Because I watched that. A, not to knock it, but it kind of looks like the same show every week. Because it's like it is the same. And after 10 episodes,

why am I still watching this? Because I want to see the win. I want to see, it's like the joke that the community used to do when I was growing up where the guy used sit at home on Sundays and watch a fishing show and yell, Ma, we caught one. It's part of it is that. It's the win. You can share the human drama

that we brought the crowds back and we made a half a million bucks and we figured it out. We beat nature. Let me take it maybe, tell me if I'm wrong, but for me, you can't script the Bering Sea. Right. Right. And we were entering a time when every single thing in reality TV was going to be focus grouped. It was going to be weighed in measures. And every showrunner was going to look at this thing called reality

through the lens of a sitcom producer. Right. Because that's really what they wanted to be. Right, right, right. And so, you know, suddenly reality became the opposite of reality. But you can't script the Bering Sea. So just when you think you got your story arcs figured out and your main characters are galvanized

and you think you know what's going to happen with the season, a freaking boat sinks and six men die. And you go, oh, we're not in charge. of this thing, aren't we? The viewers can sense that and they crave it, not death, they crave authenticity. No, it's real. Reality shows, ought to be real. Nobody talks like sitcom, set up jokes, set up jokes. All of a sudden reality shows came out and they went, okay, this is how I talk, this is how people talk, it feels real. But I got to ask you, as you were talking about that, I wonder about you, because you did dirty jobs, you did that. You did a lot of stuff. I interviewed

William Macy recently and he said as an actor when you're in your 20s you take roles because they could change the world and be something in your 40s you do it because it's interesting and it can pay and then when you get into your 50s and 60s you say well i have to get wet so to you you're a really talented guy i've seen you do a lot of different stuff and i really am a fan of your work it's not easy okay but i was wondering about getting wet did you ever want to just do a show and you go I just want to host a show. I want to be Johnny Carson. I want to be this.

And I don't want to have to be in a sewer. I don't want to have to be in a crab boat. Why the hell did I get myself into this world where I can sell shows that are this or this adjacent, but they don't see me as part of this? Because you do other stuff too. I did for 15 years, I guess. I mean, game shows, talk shows, sitcoms, Pilots. Evening magazine.

QVC. QVC. I did. I mean, a lot. Close to 300 jobs before Dirty Jobs here. Wow. But, I mean, the short answer is I fancied myself a pretty facile host. Like, I could create the illusion of competence in short burst.

I could hit the X. I could memorize the information on a plaque at Gettysburg, and then I could look at the camera, and I could spit it back out as though I actually knew that before I showed up. And that's basically what I was paid to do. That and narrate. Yeah, but I'm watching you do this. And the way you do it and the relatability factor and the every man factor is really, a lot of people can't do that.

Well, I was 42, and I realized that I had an okay career. I still kind of liked being a host, but Dirty Jobs didn't need a host. It needed a guest. It needed an avatar. And once I realized, oh, it's a big Johnny Carson lesson. He was very generous with his guests because he knew he'd be back the next day.

And Buddy Hack, it would be off doing... What John would say is, in Carson's line, because I studied that, too, was it doesn't matter if you get the laugh, I get the left, they're going to say Southern Carson. That's it. That's exactly right. And I can't say that that occurred to me that cogently. But at some point in the sewer in San Francisco,

when the rat jumped off my shoulder, landed in my crotch, and sent me leaping skyward only to knock myself nearly unconscious and fall face first in a river of crap, somewhere in the middle of that my asthma was the realization that this is kind of funny and we're learning things. And it doesn't matter if the joke is, On me. In fact, it's better that it's on me and not that guy, right? That was a weird thing to sort of realize relatively late in my career and once I realized it once I realized it, Peter.

You got a brand. Oh, yeah. And like back to Dr. Pimple Popper. I can't prove this, but we were in a tannery and we were preparing hides that had been recently removed from deer and we were scrubs. And we were scraping the fat off of the inside of the hide, and I came across a sebaceous cyst. It's very common on the inside of the skin of deer. It's about the size of a quarter and stood up maybe half an inch. And it looked like it was filled with the kind of contagion that you neither wanted to see in or sniff. So you had to show it. You had to squeeze it out. It wasn't just that, Chuck. It was, we made a meal of this thing. I'm not saying we ate it. Thank God. I'm saying we spent roughly nine minutes setting up a shot. We had just got a high-speed camera. We had the macro setting. I aimed this thing. I squeezed this thing. And that hot, disappointing toothpaste-like custard that came flying out of that was played back multiple times. With the appropriate music under it,

And who knew that in this country are many millions of people who really enjoy that? But you knew instinctively. I was just trying to fill it out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. If we go back even further to QVC, because I understand that you got fired a couple of times. And the word has it you were showing dolls and you had a nun doll, was it? I did have a nun doll, yeah. And you did things.

I won't say you today what you did. Wait, man, you're the guest, dude. So go easy. I know your instinct is to ask probing questions. No, but I just... If you don't want me to follow the story where it's taking me, I think you're fascinated. Follow the story, by all means.

All right. But don't say, Mike, tell me another amusing story. No, but it's, you took over. A QVC, you weren't just selling stuff because on some level, it's the guy who knows that that thing needs to be popped. Sure. You're at QVC going, you know what?

This is chugging along, but you know what? I see opportunity. Oh, yeah. And you did. But not everybody does that. Not everybody gets that. It's revisionist history, Peter. Looking back, I can tell you now,

that everything worth knowing, every useful skill in my stupid little toolbox in this crazy industry, I learned at QVC. I didn't know it at the time. All I knew at the time was it was two in the morning, and I had to talk for eight minutes at a time about an item that was brought to me by a product coordinator that I had never seen before. I didn't even know that they were real. The health team infrared pain reliever, the AMCOR negative ion generator. I don't see this? I don't know. Don't you happy everybody listening to the guest, that the guest had had this story brought it. Because it's fascinating. It's how people become who they are and have an awareness. Well, look, let's do a shameless pivot and get back to Joan Rivers.

Since you invoked her name, you know, the two, three dozen listeners we have at this point on a regular basis, we'll probably know the story. But Joan saved my career. I mean, she hired me after my third firing. And I don't want to drag you through all the details of that, but I want to know why she mattered to you and what she did or said that might have changed the trajectory of your own misspentry. You get who she was. I was very lucky. She came on my show early on and we hit it off. Radio show. Radio show. Melissa was with her and she said, so what about it? And it just so happened. I lived two blocks away from them. Okay. So she started calling me to go out to dinner and we have a Chinese restaurant we live.

And every week, she would Sunday night. Maybe we do Chinese. Then she wanted me work on fashion police and work with those stuff. And I didn't want to do that. It's too busy,

doing Ray, whatever. But she said, please, come. I said, well, I don't want to be hired by then I don't want to write the show. Can we just do it? I'll do it if it's just you and me. So I go over every Wednesday morning and sit in the floor in a bedroom

and write jokes, make her laugh and just play. Oh, my God. Which was like the most magical thing. But what you learn about Joan is, everybody saw Jonas' this character. Yeah. We were actually launching

a dog dog food when she died because I wanted to get her off the road a bit. Wait, wait, wait, launching a dog food when she died. A friend of mine had owned a major brand, had sold it, was not allowed to go back in the business anymore, and I was fascinated in doing something with Joan, and she loved dogs. Sorry, your friend was not allowed to go back in the dog food business? No, no, no, because after your bar, he had a five-year... Oh, I said. Yeah, well, you're not allowed to do it. It wasn't for like... No, no, no, no, he did great stuff. What were the circumstances? So I said to John, we should do it.

We developed it. We had an order for a lot of money, and then she died. So it was heartbreaking because we did vacations together. What I learned from her, because she wasn't that person that you saw that big. Everybody loved her. Fashion police was young people. QVC was middle-aged, and the Carson crowd was older, and she bridged all of that. She was fearless, but what she taught me was she flew in every Wednesday, Chuck, Red Eye.

Mike. Mike, I'm sorry. We've been talking to the line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been talking a lot and I got to let go. I do have to let go. Chuck, you're dead to me. I'm going to rip my clothes.

Like what Neil Diamond did in the movie, the guy singer. Good reference. So, deep cut. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For the one person who went, wow, he made a Neil Diamond Jewish ripping your clothing reference.

It was only matter of time. Chuck's dead. But what happened? He's done. I don't even know he's sitting over there. D do, do, do, do do do do. Dumb. I love stories like this.

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don't take a chance on a foreign ranch. Get good ranchers now. E-Haul! So she would fly in every week, get off the plane, write with me, right with the writers. I would watch her eyes start to close,

and she'd break herself up, like it's 12 o'clock. Get up at three, go to hair makeup, shoot fashion police, get on a plane and go back, and I never, in years and years,

heard or complain or mentioned. Jet lag, she wouldn't complain. And if I said, hey, I think I got the flu. Give it to me, sweetheart, because I can lose some weight. She didn't want complaining. She didn't want her. She just worked harder than anybody I've ever met more focused than anybody I ever met

and cared about every fan. We would pull out of a gig. She would take everything from the dressing room and give it to people. Right. Everything that wasn't nailed down. That's great. And we'd be in the car and it's pouring rain. And we pull out and there's 20 fans standing in the pouring rain.

And she says, hold on, stop. Get out with the umbrella and stand with everything. one, I'm giving them a QVC bracelet, do something, and say, if they're waiting for me. And she meant it, then I'm there for them. She was so that person and helped a lot of people. But her work ethic, I never saw anybody work so hard to make it look so easy. I'm so glad to hear you say that, not because I doubted it, but because I hadn't thought about it. I mean, 25 years after I met Joan, we launched the work ethic scholarship program.

You know, I talk a lot about dirty jobers. I talk a lot about the people who have inspired that endeavor, including my mom and dad and my grandfather. But yeah, you're right, man. Joan Rivers was always there early. She always stayed late. She was a very generous performer. She was funny.

She made my bosses extraordinarily uncomfortable. There was no delay on QVC. There was no seven-second magical thing. It was Joan without a net. and nobody, nobody there had seen that level of uncertainty and ribaldness. I mean, it just, and she reined it in, obviously. She knew what she, she was so smart. You know what she said?

So there were a couple points in her life. QVC was one of the low points because the show went away. I don't want to get too much into that, but she said, everybody told her you're selling chachas. Yeah. Don't do it. It's horrible. Red carpet. You're going to be on the red carpet.

because you're not a star interviewing stars. And Joan would say, am I like to occur? Well, say whatever. Say, screw it. Within a short period of time, the red carpet became a thing. She got paid a fortune to do it, that multi-year contract for her and Melissa, because she figured out the work that had to go in

to doing that making of thing. UVC, I'm going to sell Chochas. It's going to kill my career. Over a billion dollars later, it didn't kill her career, and it opened her up to the heartland. Everybody who watched QVC loved her. So she had a whole other audience,

and they got that she would bring my wife stuff all the time I watch. You know, this is the same movement as a thing because I made sure that she was that focused on making that good. So she didn't phone in anything. She was on top of the product. She was in top of sales.

She was in top of everything she did, and she did it with such gusto and care. When we would go out to dinner to the Chinese restaurant, here's Joan Rivers, the big star, and everybody in the restaurant would go, whatever. She'd sit across with my son, Robert. Are you getting contacts, whatever?

She didn't talk about herself ever. She wanted to know everybody else's thing. What's the good book? What should I know about this? What should I know about this person? How about that? She wanted to stay current and she was magic. She was for me, it's really hard.

I still miss her and it's been years. Oh, man. Because she was so magic. I went to her Christmas party when she was on Fifth Avenue. The house, that place. That place. Oh, my God. It was like a church.

It was such an enormous old brown. So it was magnificent. and I told my mother I was going to go over to Joan Rivers for Christmas. She's like, oh, that's amazing. What are you taking her? What kind of gift? I'm like, God, I haven't thought about it. What am I going to bring Joe?

And she's, I'll make cookies. My mother baked a bunch of cookies and gave them to me. We go up in that elevator, and I come out, and there's Joan looking like just the, you know, the queen. And everybody's there. Barry Diller's there, Diane Von Furstenberg, all the swells. And Joan walks up, she says, I'm so glad you made it. And I said, honestly, I wouldn't miss it. And I said, my mom, my mom made you some chocolate chip cookies.

And I swear, she took them and she looked at me. And without a hint of pretense or humor or irony, she just said, that is so kind. And like a tear in her eye. She cared. And she walked him over and put him by a menorah. And I was just like, if my mom could see this. I mean, it is hard. I can't listen to the phone message.

I tell him on the machine. You're kidding. It's still hard to look at her. She was so special. She was such an amazing. It's old school. That whole generation of entertainers, performers, who worked that hard, who were gracious, who understood the crowd and worked so hard for the right joke.

She would say, I'm going on the night show or whatever. I need two heavies and one light, meaning two that people will talk about the next day. Not funny. Yeah. Two that people will talk about the next day. talk about and we can't, she can't settle. So she's working it, working it, working, because she has to deliver every time. She's amazing. One Sunday. Yeah. Prime time. About 7 o'clock. I was called in to fill in. That's the only time I ever saw prime time.

It's like 7.30 in the evening. Maybe there are a million people watching. The phones are busy. And I'm standing there just trying, you know, for once, trying not to get fired. I'm trying to do a good job. But I was called in sort of last minute and I looked like an unmade bed. And I know this because Joan just walked onto the set in the middle of a pitch, and she said, you look like an unmade bed. And I said, you look amazing. And she came over, she straightened my tie. And she said, I don't look amazing.

And I said, actually, you do. And she said, please, honey, one more facelift, and I'm going to have a goatee. Yeah. That's a good joke. And no one knew where to look. No one knew what to say. Oh, my God.

And she just walked off. And like her hair was in curlers. Like she was getting ready for her thing. But that's, she's vain, but not vain. She's, she acts as she doesn't care and she's Eddie, but she cares. Peter, I have a question about Joan. I'm really busy with the. Oh, with Mike.

I'm Chuck to. I hear a voice. I hear a voice from where? You're dead to me. From heaven. Did you not see me rip a perfectly good hoodie? I'm coming to you from heaven. Yes, sir.

I've heard people say that the marvelous Mrs. Maisel is based upon her. Is that true? I've heard, you know, I don't know, because I've been on there. I'm sure part of it is just because of what, it was a time. She was around Lenny Bruce. I mean, Borshelt. Yeah, the whole thing is her.

And it's kind of that rhythm, but I don't know, could be Tody Fields. Yeah, right. It could be, who else? There were a couple women at that time, but yes,

I like to think it was, there's another one out with Dean Smart that kills me because there are moments that feel like, that remind me of moments where she plays a comedian and she's got

kind of a writer that she's adopted that goes on the road with her. If only we have. If you watch that, Mike, you'll see, you'll get a feel for that.

It will, you'll, because it's really heartfelt. And there's a bit of anger there and there's a bit of her attitude there. And Gene Smart does it really well. How did all this happen to you? Like, did you start radio? Did you start TV? I'm a kid in Philadelphia who doesn't know what I want to be.

But kids should be, you know, seen and not heard. I had no idea. I did all these, like you dropped, sold industrial strapping, you know, and driving around all the Jersey and New York giving these guys, if you don't know what industrial strapping is, you take a giant palette, you get the FMC, a member, machine and you pull it tight and it's bans that go around the thing and you give it to the plant form and you come back two weeks later and it's broken and it happens every plant you go and you

say your boss how come and they say because the other company is giving the guy Christmas presents and stuff so just keep doing it and I went see you later. I worked in the factory where I told you before the Frank Sheeran was the Irishman was my union representative so that was a bit of a rough place what was the movie that really was it was the Irishman was the Irishman yeah Frank Shearin yeah Not like the real frank, but so I worked, I did that, did a lot of other jobs, didn't know what I wanted to be. I was just listless. I didn't have a mentor. I didn't know what to do. Went to college, studied physiology, tried this, tried that. And then I just gravitated toward a job at a radio station. So somebody got me a job at a radio station.

And I'm in sales. And I'm driving around and I'm working my ass off. And I go to a flight school and go up in the plane, come down, and I actually sold them a schedule on this radio station. Why I find 92 in Philadelphia and when it came back my general manager said I can't believe that you saw that And that's when I found out after three months that every other person had a list that they were given of ad agencies and accounts to survive and I basically said what the hell and I wanted to quit and they said no And they gave me a raise and what happened accidentally was I would go I never felt creative or smart But I would go to an advertiser and go you know your ads really suck We should do this

And they go, well, can you write it? And I go, yeah, and I produce it. And it became kind of known. And then I go, well, Philly's small. They use the same voiceover guy all the time. So you write something good, but it's the same nine people. New York is a train right away. I go to New York and hire, I don't know if you know, I mean, big actors to do voiceover

so they could sell, and you know voiceover. It really matters who's doing it. So all of a sudden, I'm getting the Amtrak. I did urban outfitters. I did Yamaha. And I'm getting kind of known. So you're writing copy. I'm writing, and then producing, I started an agency.

Now I'm doing media buying. I hired a person to do media buying. I hired a guy to do store display, you know, to work with me who did department stores change their displays. Oh yeah. So that was a big job. That's a fascinating business, by the way. Fascinating business. And Bill Hollander, who was an older guy, came into my business.

So I had all these people working with me and it grew. And then I started doing stuff for radio, imaging radio. And I used G. Gordon Liddy and, oh God, who was Tip O'Neill for WBMW, which was launching in Washington. Washington, D.C. It was going to be cool music. And I had, what's the name, Tip O'Neill on the steps of the Capitol with his pant legs rolled up with a boom box saying, the Hill is alive with the sound of music. Wow. And I had G. Gordon Liddy looking at the camera, and it went from black to slowly unassasing. There's a conspiracy to keep you from hearing good music. And that took off. And then they needed, believe it or not, they needed a host for the morning

show for a week or two because they had a lag before they could start. What year were you in now? God, I don't even remember. God, because I came out. Yeah, probably around there. Because that's when I started QVC. There you go. Which is just miles from where you were working. I was in Westchester, Pennsylvania.

Westchester, Pennsylvania, I know really well. I know the call center. I know exactly where you were. You knew King of Prussia and all that. So I ended up on the radio with Richard Belzer. I never wanted to do radio. I never thought about radio. And if I said to my parents, unlike, I think your parents were supportive,

my parents were, don't be stupid. I don't think you're good looking enough. So I'm on the radio. For radio. You're not good looking enough for radio? That one was not smart. No, that one was not smart. Okay.

So they could define. They could be specific. So I did that. And then from there, I started doing commercials and other stuff. And then I was called by a radio station out here to come out and do radio, morning drive. I figured I'll come out.

I'll take the trip. It's never going to happen. I was going through the divorce. It was a tough time. And they wanted me. And I held my, you know, uprooted everything, did it. The family came out with me.

It was a tough time because they ended up going back, and I would go back every week to see my kids. It was horrible. But I got to experience that for a year. It was a tough time because the guy who was my boss didn't hire me, corporate hired me. So you're on the air now. I'm on the air now doing morning drive at KLSX in Los Angeles.

Yeah, don't gloss over that because I want to like when you go from writing copy, producing copy, ad sales and so forth, and now all of them is a very different dynamic. It's just you in the microphone. And I didn't know it and had never done it. And they weren't going to help me because he didn't like that. was there. Okay. So it was rough. However, I guess I did funny enough stuff or enough stuff that I started meeting. Everybody wanted to come on from the Richard Lewis. Every comedian came on. Every actor, every musician, I would see, and I knew nobody growing up. I'd never seen a celebrity, you know? I was

excited when John Lennon came to, just was in Philly. I didn't necessarily. Sure. And Graham Nash would come on and I'd say, oh my God. And he would say, yeah, I'd drive my kid to school and listen to you. And I'm thinking, Graham Nash lives near the Gelson's at Haven? Wait, I thought he lived in the mountains with Johnny So you start meeting people, and it becomes a thing. It ended. I thought I'm going back to Philly. And KABC called, the talk station, said, we think we'd like you on here.

And I said, well, okay, not knowing again what that was, I just went and did it. And looking back, I don't know how I had the balls to do it. Well, you didn't know any better. And you're sitting there. And I've got to tell you, I don't know if this ever happened to you. So I'm on ABC. And I was doing weekends.

And I have in the actress Imogene Koka. from younger people know her from vacation. She's the grandmother who is strapped to the roof. And George Green, the general manager of the station, who's like the godfather station. He runs the whole deal. Comes in while I'm sitting with Imaging Koker to read the paper because he was there.

He came on weekends. It was like his house, okay? And this one, they were number one station in America. This was, if you remember, at Ken Minnion, all these stars were there. Yeah, Ken Minnors. And I'm on, and I'm just starting, and Imogene Koke is there, and I go,

God, you worked with Milton Burrow. That must have been... No, not... But with, oh my God, who's the crazy... Sid Caesar. Sid Caesar, thank you. Sid Caesar, that must have been insane. No, it was pretty much...

Yeah, but it was live TV. You must have had stuff happen to you. It was really not. Was Sid a crazy man? Very nice to me. And I've asked now 80 questions and it's three minutes after the hour. And I got an hour.

I'm now sitting in a puddle of Tilden. I mean, it's just so bad and I'm going, I don't know. So now I'm telling stories it to her about, you know, I have a grandmother, the symbol of you. That was the worst day of radio for me. I thought I was, that was it. I'm dead.

George is sitting behind the paper. I'm getting fired. And Imogene Koka basically has finished a four-hour interview in eight minutes. So I want to kill him, put her on the top of the car. We finish, she leaves, and I know I'm getting fired. And George puts down the paper and says, who was that again? He wasn't paying any attention. He was reading.

Couldn't care less. Could care less. But I learned a valuable lesson. Be so prepared. that if the guest dies doesn't show up, whatever, don't rely on callers, don't rely on anything else. Be prepared for the worst every time you open the mic because it's a good chance it could happen again.

So, wow. So this would have been, see, my, I listened to a lot of Howard Stern. As did I, as did I. Early morning, that was, what was the? In Washington, it was WJ, was that, J. No, no, in Philly. On Philly, W. YSP. Was it YSP?

Was it YSP? A hundred, I know, because. I put all my clients on there, and I did Howard's campaign. They had no money for the campaign. And Ken Stevens, who ran the station, said, would you do the ad for Howard? And I said, so here's what I need. I just need, will he record something? No.

Will he shoot something? No. How much money do you have, a dollar? So I said, okay, here's what I got. So what listeners saw when they saw the ad I did for no money was they saw a grandmother's type table with a doily, an old-fashioned radio, a Tiffany lamp, and you heard Howard to doing something outrated's voice. But on the table was a bowl, a fish ball,

with a fish, ostensibly, way too large for that bowl. So it's like almost bent in half. And because a ball reflects bigger, it looked really big. So now Howard's voice is coming out of the radio. This fish is going,

you know, the mouth is moving, and you're going, I don't know what I'm looking at. And it's Howard Stern, not for everybody, whatever. And it costs nothing. PETA complained. We got written up. It became this huge thing.

Meanwhile, I took the fit, the fish was in there for a minute and a half. You know what I mean? He lived a great longer than... You couldn't get better press. And then straight down the toilet.

It was hilarious. It was so funny, but I had no, I had to work to get something to show. You couldn't get better press than an angry PETA though. You know, an animal lover. As a matter of fact,

when you started this interview, when it come full circle, not that I want to end it because I'm doing it. But I did tell Chuck when I came in, I have a dog, I was 18. And right before I got here, we'd find out, we realize it's time.

So we're scheduling him being put down, and I can't even... Yeah, so thank you for this, because it got me out of that, but my head for that, so thank you. Jesus, whiz. What's the dog's name? Dexter. Because when we adopted him, he was Tex, I didn't want to adopt him, Terrier, because he was too lethargic.

It was like a giant quailout, and I thought to my wife, something's wrong here. So we passed, but then something called to me, and we saw him again, and I said, he's unusual. He's really laid back. I hope he's not something wrong. with him. We take him to my house. We opened the front door and this dog that was almost paralyzed. He hardly moved. He was like a, when you go to see, in Australia, when you go see what,

what are they called the animals that aren't moving, it's not a panda. Yeah, all of us. Sloth. A sloth. Yeah, like a sloth. Ah, the three-two-sloth, yes. I opened the door. He runs into the living room, jumps on the dining room table, goes downstairs, out the door, runs around the pool to the middle of the pole cover, sinks, and I got to dive in. He's been home for a minute and it never stopped after him. He was faking it. He was totally faking it. And I love it. I mean... It's classic terrier. Yeah. See that? See that little shmuck right there? Yeah. That's... I've had three terriers, dude. They just... They have attitudes.

Nothing but character. Nothing but character. I took him to training so he wouldn't pull in the leash or didn't matter what you do. He would always test you. And I look at him and dude, really? We're going to do this again and eventually he'd go, all right, give up and go fine. But next time, I'm pulling again because I can. Isn't that crazy the way we love our dogs, man? insane because they're also, I don't know about you, but I don't know how many old dogs you've had to get it to put down, but I take him out and every time I take him out now, I go, dude, how did we get? Because it's your life too. How did we get here? How did the time pass so quickly?

What freaks me out is like, I go away for a week. I was away for seven weeks. You go away for a month, you're way for seven months. A day is seven days. It's just so, so cruel and yet such a gift. Oh man. He's, I said to my wife. There's not, you know, I'm not going to go crazy with it. I'm out of my mind. So thank you. And I didn't mean to throw down. But it was so powerful.

It's just, I'm looking at him today thinking, dude, wow, we're coming to the end of the road. Do do, do, do, do do do. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure. But if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like Skills USA, making a real difference. on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students

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That's skills, USA.org slash Mike. I'm talking skills, U.S. skills, U.S. skills. USA I don't know who came up with the best friend. I mean, man's best friend. I wonder who really thought to categorize canines that way. But it was brilliant. I mean, how many comedians, I mean, Seinfeld, right?

It's just an unlimited amount of dogs. The best one was the comedian who did again, who did Weekend Update way, way back and died last year. Norm McDonald. The special Hitler's Donald. Did you ever see that? No, remind me. So the whole special is called Hitler's dog.

But you've got to just watch the end because at the end is when he actually talks about Hitler's dog and he says, you know what? Dogs are, they're unbelievable. They're unconditionally. They love you. Like Hitler's dog. Hitler's dog's home going, oh my God, is he not great?

He's going to be home and we're going to play the ball? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, my God. Himler, you're great, but I mean, you're not. You're no, Hitler. He is the best? Is he not the best?

Is he not the best? Hyman, what are you said? Yeah, it's Hitler, right? He's the best. Oh my God, the way he scratches. And he just goes on to Hitler's dog. Yeah. Hitler's dog doesn't care.

He doesn't care. He doesn't know. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. And even if he knew, I don't care. King Frederick the second of Prussia, apparently, is where that comes from in 1786. Wow. Oh, interesting.

So Frederick of Prussia and you invoked to Hitler just 200 years later. Here we go. Best friend. Coincidence? I don't think so. I don't think anyone's laughing at that child. No, definitely not. Hey, how long have we been talking?

Because I got a million more questions. Over an hour. All right. But I love, I'm loving this. Like I said, you gave me a gift because I am a fan, and I have a lot of questions too, but you really got me out of that headspace. I was really driving here. I said to my wife, how am I getting the Senate to the office and doing this?

Seriously, when you pulled into the parking lot and you stepped out of the car, I go, hey, how you do it? I go to give him a hug. He's not good. Yeah, I was, you know, which is funny. We're just doing a show on happiness. And the funny thing is, the British commandant, I think Bill Bailey said, with Americans, they go, how are you? Awesome! I'm awesome! I'm doing, oh my God, I'm awesome. And he goes, that's insane. In Britain, the best you'll get is, I guess, okay, because the assumption is we thought

it was going to be much worse. But it's never good. You're never going to get, things are great in Britain, you know? We had Phil, Keegan, Kogan. Kogan. Yeah, I know. Tell him he spells his name wrong. Amazing race. Yeah. He did a show back in New Zealand called, That's Fairly Interesting. Yeah. Oh my God. Which I just love. That's fairly interesting. You're right.

Talk about managing expectations. That's fairly interesting. That's fairly interesting. That's fairly interesting. Yeah, that's fairly interesting. Right. That's terrific. Everything. That says it.

But what you just did, dude, I mean, honestly, people who are trying to figure out how to put a good face on it almost always botch it up. Because listeners know, you know from your career in broadcasting. If you feel bad that you're going to lose your dog, you should share that with your listeners. Which is why I brought it up here because everybody's universal. Everybody gets it. Everybody understands it and sometimes it helps people or whatever.

And again, I was blind. I knew it's coming. Doesn't matter. What's horrible is my wife today. She had given me this other stuff of when do you know? How do you know? Because I'm trying to be, we got paper down everywhere and he's pooping, but we can't go out.

One of us has to be home because if he poops and steps in it tracks it everywhere. It's that and he lies in his urine, whatever. And you're denying him, but he's eating and he's doing this stuff. so it's all okay. And she gave me this thing today, written by a veterinarian that was, I've seen others that are not good, that this gave the symptoms of Alzheimer's and a dog

and said it's not okay for the dog or you, and I'm reading it, and I am crying because I'm going, oh my God, this is real, we're there. And my wife read it and said, we're there, we've got to do this, it's not right. And she is tough, and I'm watching her when I'm leaving, and I'm going, wow, wow, this sucks.

I don't want to lose another friend, especially this guy. So thank you. Well, look, I mean, I don't know if it's a comfort, but I don't know if anybody who loved their dog more publicly than Dana Perino loved her last dog. Right. When they had to put him down, I knew that would be awful. And coincidentally, two days later, I'm sitting across from her being interviewed. And I've always liked Dana.

And afterwards, I said, hey, I just wanted to say, you know, like everybody else, heard about your dog. And you know what she said? She said, look, I really miss him and I really love him, but I grew up on a farm. And what my dad told me was real simple. There is no excuse, zero excuse, to be in the presence of an animal that's in pain. You do not have the right to bear that kind of witness. She's right. And she said it with a level of certainty that, honestly, I kind of took some weird,

foreshadowed comfort in it. I know this is true. We all know it's true. Yes, but when you have to finally, we're there. That pointed out, you know what? You're there.

Don't drag this out for him and don't hold on to it because of you. But woofda. I didn't realize it was going to be. I forgot because our last one, one died in sleep, which was great. Yeah.

I mean, she went great and it was great. The other one, the other terrier lived again to be like 19, bit everybody, wherever, and we had to put that dog down. But this is horrible. It's just horrible. Yeah, so.

Well, look, in the history of awkward pivots, and I know you've had a lot of, I know you spent a lot of time in broadcasting. But if we could just... It's the KCK, some dead dog. Moving up and not you to the countdown. I don't want to do a dead dog intro again. Damn, he was a dead dog intro. I'd just like to spend the last couple of minutes on erectile dysfunction. You know what?

It's the only way to go out, right? I think so. It's the only way to go out. It's the natural progression from what we were talking about. I think we're here, and I'm sure I'll make some reference to this in the preamble, which will record after you leave so you don't cast judgment upon us. But you, with all of your considerable copywriting skills, crafted together a couple of spots that Chuck read,

we won't mention the name of the company. He played a character. He played a character. Sorry? You'll bleep that out, because you don't even get close to identify me. Okay. This is Peter Tilden saying, disavow. Right.

You know, yeah. Okay. So we don't want to get sued. We don't want to make trouble. But you got to put yourself in my place for a moment, right? This is 15 years ago. Oh, longer. Longer.

I'm out here. 25, maybe. Driving along. Probably after I was working on a game show back then and crashing on his sofa. Oh. Yeah. And driving there. So you were here while that was happening.

Oh, sure. Sure. As I'm driving to my buddy's house, I'm listening to him talk with great passion. Well, you know, so what's funny about that, and I'm probably going to zap the comedy out of this for you, but what's interesting is when I did. But that's why you're here. And the Joan work ethic and that. So these guys that I knew had the account.

And they said, you're really creative, and we trust you to, we really need your help to make this thing work, okay, to get clients. So I said, like an idiot, well, then I got to listen to hundreds of phone calls of people calling in to talk. Because I got to kind of break the code of what, because everybody jokes about, everybody thinks they know what it is, everybody. But I want to hear what it is. I want to hear what motivates people to actually pull the trigger and go to a place or find a medication or whatever. And what I realized after listening to hundreds of these calls was, and I see you do this too as a person, you go deeper. You like, you peel the onion a bit to find out. I mean, you're asking me stuff that's...

Find this in. Lansett in slow motion. Right. So I'm listening to and I go, you know what? I got to create a guy because I can't find a guy. And whoever a guy doesn't want to talk about it because it's embarrassing. But I got to find a guy who will talk about what they won't talk about. So I created a character who would say I'm on vacation.

I'm going to sleep before my wife because I don't want to. her to ask me to perform because I can't do this anymore and it's got a wedge between us and it's bigger than the sex thing it's a relationship sure and it's me and I'm setting myself up for this so we I did all those scenarios and it worked because the people hearing it I wasn't going directly to hey if you want to get a there's a lot of levels to you know build the wall there's a lot of levels to all the stuff we talk about so it was intriguing to me to peel that onion back and find out what it was how many ways guys would be destroyed Because they couldn't do that and how it impacted the relationship and how anger came out of that and I wouldn't go home. I'm hanging with the guys. I couldn't tell my wife why.

Dreading Valentine's Day. Yeah, yeah. Dreading anything that led to intimacy. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to have to perform and I'm going to fail. And you're not sucking the comedy out of it, but it probably sounds like pretty weak tea in 2024 because every second ad is either Cialis or Lovietro or Viagra. Are they still doing that? You can't swing a dead cat without hitting some. Love the reference. Some certain shaped bill. My dog's dying and he says, you can't swim. He didn't say dead dog. He said, it's a Craig.

or a Caddner or Terry. A dead sloth. They also don't have a tail. It's docked so you can't swing them. But are they still that? It's still that much. Oh, it's prevalent. I mean.

Oh, now it's generic because. Of course. Now it's generic. Now everyone is out there saying, why would you spend $20 bucks a tablet when you can get her for eight sets? Yeah. From India and not know if it's crushed

elephant hooves, but who cares. Look, it either works or it doesn't, Peter. Yeah, but you don't care when you have it. When it has a seven-inch hair in the tablet. On Valentine's Day, I don't care. You keep pulling the hair out of your mouth. By the way, ate on Willie Nelson's bus. The first bite I took of a Danish had like a 14-inch hair,

and I knew it wasn't mine. I kept pulling it. You know, you ever see the comedians who pull, the magicians who pulled the string out of their mouth? It was me for 10 minutes going, oh, my God, what did I just swallow? This is the worst. Cherry, I still can't eat cherry.

The worst cruller ever. Cannot eat Cherry Danish to this day. Willie, I think, not mine. Oh, I think it is, Willie. It's got roots in it from 1952. I can see, 48. I just pulled 36 out of my mouth. Oh, good.

Then when you were in a highwayman. And I think I'm a little high from just coming into contact with it. And by the way, I floss two teeth on the way out. It's yours. It's yours. It's the idea that you conjured up the root on the end of the hair. This is the problem. It's not like a hair fell out.

No, it was rootless. It was cold. So you have a follicle, you have that little number. It gives you a little bit. The secret ingredient is Willie, is Willie. And it was lustrous. Oh, my God. We didn't even talk about evening magazine.

Let's do it. Unless you're in a rush. You're done with me. You're done with me. No, it's not, look, I'll talk to be somewhere. Chuck has something? He actually has to be somewhere. I got to be somewhere, but look, they can wait.

Wait, wait. What kind of thing do you do? Well, you wouldn't believe the meeting I had this afternoon. I can't even get into it. Give me an area. Animal vegetable mineral. Give me what? Wow.

No. Oh, that you can't do. You can't stuff that jeopardizes my career, but I can't tell you where I was. I haven't even had a chance to process it. Now I have to go to a dog about it. You're pitching something new? No, no, pitching anything. Lawsuit?

I'm being pitched something. Okay. Isn't that the worst? Oh, my God. Isn't that the worst? It is just, you know what? In advertising, this is worth a detour. I'm sorry.

But when people call to say, look, we have an idea. and we'd like to get on the phone with you. We'd like to just, you know, the Zoom, and they got the PowerPoint and the whole thing and the whole thing, and you're just sitting there. It's going to take a half hour. You're in a hostage situation. You're in a hostage situation, and you know three minutes in,

this dog don't not. It doesn't make any sense. It's not proprietary. Somebody can knock it off. It's uncheaply. The slides you're about it. But they won't send it to you. They won't just send it to you in the mail so you can read it.

You may steal the idea. You don't want to show it to somebody. God forbid you should show it to somebody. So he's going to tell it to you over a cocktail. Wow. Yeah, because, like, I can't remember it long enough to steal it. Also, if you want to be real honest about that, there's another level to that. You know, it's having done advertising forever.

Somebody in that room promised and has currency by saying, I've got my grove. Mike Roe's going to do it. They have a win. They've sold it upstream already. Yes, their win is that you showed up. So there, somebody's having Danish with Willie Nelson's hair not in it saying, hey, guys, did I not get my groin? Not my fault. We didn't close it.

It was up to you, but I got Mike Roe. I'm a winner. Am I right? And you know who in that room? One or two people said, I can get Mike. row. I do. I do. I understand. And then you've got to make up a reason. You can't tell them the real reason. It's like the... Just play him this. It's like the farmer in his best overalls with the bouquet of wildflowers

shows up, knocking on the door, you're right, just to, you know, to take the girl out. Got the hair slicked back, everything. Best shot. Best shot. And she's just, she ain't going. No way. You know, and so you have to tell him right there standing on the porch. The sun going down on the flowers and the whole thing. It's just, it's not necessary. Well, it's funny. I really came here today because I have a only thing I came today. I just want to run something by you no quick. Yes, because we're looking for a

you know, what's his name? I'll leave the light on for you and I thought, I got the guy. Tom, you're not going to believe this. I think if I get on his podcast, he'll be guilty enough. I can get him to a meeting and I can be the guy going, I got Mike Rowe for that thing, right? Stan Richards did that campaign. Richard's group. 35 years ago. And I got to tell you something as an advertising

guy and loving it. It's like Radio a circus. I don't know how you feel about, I love, I'm passionate about the things I do. Yeah. Advertising, good advertising for me is amazing. That is one of the best ads because Jonathan Tish, they own the regency and stuff like that. One day said to me, you know what, all we're selling, he said, you know what I know when a family goes out, I hope he doesn't mind me telling us, we put a picture of milk and four chocolate chip cookies in the room. So when they come back, the kid goes nuts, has milk and cookies. And next time they go to New York, they say, I want to go that hotel with the milk and cookies, because we're all just selling.

four walls with the bed. We're all just selling four walls. So to have that voice saying, I'll leave the light on for you. A, the affect, right away, the voice made you feel good. Number two, it made you feel down home and implied so much stuff without having to say it. It was so that, the way it cut through, was so brilliant. And it ran forever. It's one of my favorite ads ever.

Mine too. It's in my top five. What else is in your top five? Ads? God, that's a really hard one. God, there's so many. That's what Chuck said 20 years ago. Oh, yeah.

Oh, ow. I don't, you know what? It's a hard one to remember because... Let me give you one. You know, like the Super Bowl, this year, Schwarzenegger doing the insurance thing and not being able to pronounce it was really funny. Very funny. Because it was an easy premise, and they used him well, and he played it really real well.

He played it well, but it's not going to last. It's going to come and it's going to go. It was a thing. I think it's going to be very, very tough to top this buds for you. I was just going to say, before you said it, I was going to blow it up the Kleisels. because it's emotional right away. There's history there. It takes you go, God, look what we were,

look who we are, look where we can't. It says so much. But it's a reward. As soon as the door opens, you see that. We're just saying, thanks, man. It's just a beer. It's for you. Yeah.

Thank you. Smart. That's great. And I think maybe, I mean, for me, the most ingenious was Avis. When Avis came out with, we're number two. We try harder. We have to.

It's brilliant. Yeah, because they were number 27 when they did it. Wow. And they became number two about four months later. They never beat Hertz, but they went all the way to number two. I didn't know because I never went that deep on that. But I remember, as soon as you said, Avis, I remember we're number two. We try harder.

We have to. You're number 27, dude. You have no shot. What do you mean you try harder? Well, now we're number two, so suck it. I look at all that. It's like species, spicy meat, like. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, for Tom, you know, for the old stuff that were really funny. Alka-Seltzer. The woman who said, where's the meat? Where's the beef? Lara Barton. Lara, Wendy. Again, but the difference was, just like the difference today, there was not eight million things coming at you.

Yeah. You had three networks, and you had an ad campaign where they could spend a fortune and really get share of mine by running it a lot. Today, to get share of mine in this fragmented culture, it's almost impossible. Well, everybody's shooting with a shotgun. Yeah. Then you had a rifle. Yeah.

Well, what I used to do with clients in Philly, speaking of Howard, who became one of my best friends, was a place that had opened called Worldwide Stereo. And he had not a lot of budget. And I said, so what you do is, I know everybody's on 22 spots a week and all that. You're going to run three spots a week in Howard, but you're going to run them at the same time. You're going to sponsor this 11 o'clock thing. So at least over 20 weeks, everybody who listens at the 11 o'clock hour, you loan them. And then if that works, we'll try the 9 o'clock hour.

It worked. People thought he was running more than he would because we weren't all over. And we just kept reinforcing and reinforcing. And his business grew with Howard. And Howard made him and a lot of other people because the advertising was so effective. But you've got to kind of cut through. I don't know how you do that today. I don't either because, Chuck, you'll appreciate this since we're running long.

But I miss well-written, long copy. I mean, I miss it. I say I miss it like I lived through it. I don't know that I did. But have you seen, there's an old ad for a car called The Jordan. And it was inspired by a guy on a train riding through Wyoming. And coming up next to him. at a full gallop is a cowgirl and her cowboy hats behind her head and her blonde hair is snapping in the breeze

and she's just riding keeping up with the train and looking at him and he sits down and he writes copy for an ad called the Jordan and it's somewhere west of laramie that's what it's called wow you got it read it uh i don't think i have the whole thing i just have the summary of it no that's too bad because this would be a chance to redeem yourself for all that ED stuff you did. Not that you need redemption. You know what I would do? It was very good.

Rather than any ED stuff, I would look up the whole thing. Can I just tell you, though, that the ED commercials, I remember that like you, I heard them on the radio too when I was driving, and I heard DJs talking about it.

Yeah, they were good, dude. I mean, honestly, they were fun. I mean, creatively, they were smart and they cut through. But you know who I like, so forgetting TV ads, and I don't know if you know this, but Bert, the guy from Radio Ranch,

who used to do all of those ads. Yeah. Like he'd be a kid, but he'd have an. all the voice going, mommy, I don't know. They were brilliant. Everything he did was brilliant. And I wanted to be that. So I would deconstruct those and understand that you got to get the attention. I don't think David Hall will mind. The one program director that I had that knows stuff said, you've got to do three things when you open your mouth, no matter what you're doing. On radio,

on this, you've got to be relevant, you've got to be entertaining, and you've got to be information. If you can do all three, you hit the target. And it's like, it's true. So even in a radio commercial, You can cheat it by casting the right person. Sure. But my God, those commercials, the Radio Ranch commercials, were as good as it gets. I laughed at every, it didn't matter what it was for. That's interesting. So relevant, entertaining.

Entertaining. And informative. Yeah. Those are the ones that stand the test at times. Those are every show you did. Think of every show you did. Well, that's John Hendricks. That's the guy who founded Discovery saying, look, I have one job.

I mean, he had a gazillion. But really, I have one job, satisfy curiosity. That's what my program will aim to do. Maybe a good ad will do that, too. You know? What time is it, Chuck? It's time to go. All right, man.

Hey, come back. Let's talk Evening Magazine. I really did. And thank you for saving me. You really, you think I'm, I can't overstate that enough. I was, I just found out right before I came here was when it hit. So, thank. And I was looking forward to meeting you anyway.

I'm going to raise a glass with the people I'm about to join to Dexter. I know how much outsized real estate those little bastards can occupy. I still dream about chubby. You still dream about chubby. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. Because you spent the amount of time, and again, it's like a Beatles song. You remember all the touch points. I remember all the stuff. I remember all the stuff I went through bad. I remember all the deaths. I remember going through Jones stuff. I remember going through all this with Dexter. He was there for all this. Yeah. Greatest Beatles song of all time. Boy, that's really hard because I'm such a fan. God Almighty. Let me think for second. Greatest Beatle song of all time. Take your time. We're only coming up on two hours.

I don't know. Kyle, it comes together jumps out of my mind, but I don't know why. Because I'm such a Beatle fan and I got to meet McCartney. I got to meet my two favorite bands and embarrass myself both times. Pink Floyd and McCartney. Wow. Yeah. You have time? Two seconds? Yeah, yeah, sure. So my friend Mark Brickman does... He's your friend. All right. This is your idea. This is your idea. Where do you have to be? I could see her all night. No, because the hair was specially done tonight.

So Pink Floyd, my friend, does all of their show. And I grew up with Mark. So Mark says, you want to go see them? I reconnect with Mark out here. He said, you want to see him? My wife says, never seen him. We fly to a Mile High Stadium. He says, go to this hotel and meet you downstairs.

I didn't know I'm riding the bus with Bing Floyd to the stadium. And my wife's going, why don't you talk to David? I said, shut up. Shut up. He said, God. So they're on stage. They're playing. We go to the middle of the stadium and sit down to watch.

And if you've ever been to a Pink Floyd concert, every area is filled with speakers. So you can see it's a rotos sound. It's around you. And in the middle of money, rehearsal of money, they stop. And what I hear out of every speaker is,

excuse me, from David Gilmore, we don't like anybody watching our show. And I just kind of turn, and I realized my high stadium, which is probably 68,000 seats, there's nobody except I was sitting there. So now he's standing with the band,

not playing. And I have to run, walk with my wife, like, we were just leaving. I want to kill myself. I want to. wanted to kill myself. It felt like it took days to get behind the stage. In a minute we got behind the stage, here, boom, bum, boom, boom. Now I got to ride the bus back with him. I'm thinking,

cover my, don't, don't let him. McCartney, I got to meet McCartney. He's my idol. There's nobody like McCartney. And my wife goes, you must know somebody. He's getting a star capital. I go, Eric Garcetti is a counselor. I know Eric. I call Eric. He says, I'm giving him the, okay, come. So I bring my son. And I'm mingling with Kenny G. and all these people trying to get close. They don't know me, but I'm talking them, because the guards. Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're mingling with Kenny G. On your way to eat. No, they're sitting there.

They're artists that are like in a VIP area, and I go up to everyone like, ha, ha, boy, you like Danish, right? I'm just bullshitting so that the guard doesn't throw me out, even though I'm allowed to be there. I'll show you the photos. I'm in his sunglasses. He's standing in front of me. I'm going to pass out.

The thing ends, and I'm following Eric. We go down a carpet, we go up a thing. Next thing, I'm in a little room with a sofa, TV, at a little bar, and we're standing there. McCartney comes in with his wife and his son. and they're over there. Not that far from me. And I go, wow, this room's going to fill up soon.

No, it's not. You walked into his private dressing room. So now the armpit, I'm sitting and tilted sweat again, going, oh, now my face is going to be in every backstage flyer saying, do not let him in, do not on there. And I'm trying, I'm going to make the move. What am I going to say? What am I going to do?

I'm dead. I'm dead. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And somebody, thankfully, he says, Paul, we're ready for you. And I guess photos or whatever. And he looks at me in the way and goes, hey, we can speak later, figuring I must be somebody.

Must be somebody, yeah. I'm now soaking. I'm like soaking, soaking wet. A puddle of Tilden sweat, was it? Puddle of Tilden Sweat. So there's my two,

my two idols. Not loud near either. Have you been to the sphere yet? I have not. Have you? I have. And? Amazing.

Amazing. Is it distracting or is it overpowering? Does it help the music, hurt the music? Oh, it helps everything. Yeah. It makes it more of it. You saw you two?

Yeah. Yeah. Look, you look like it's a religious experience. It's that big. Well, I'll tell you, More than anything was the realization that you work hard, your whole career, you go to concerts, the ideas get as close as you can. The closer you get, the more of a connection you have and good for you.

I was sitting up in like the high 300s. He was in the 400s, I guess. And I was like, this is great. It's perfect. It's backwards. So what's interesting is Mark Brickman, that guy, who's brilliant at does Pink Floyd show, built the L.A. Philharmonic Dome and took it on tour. And he said, my whole goal, because Mark is a genius when it comes to him.

the lighting to the Empire State Building. And he's won a word for his stuff. He said, I wanted it to get dark enough, that I could make the audience move, that I could feel like they were going into it, but it never got dark enough. That's the sphere, right? They can do stuff like movement. You think the whole thing is splitting over your head. You see helicopters coming into it.

These are thousands, hundreds of thousands of pixels. And God knows how many screens all seamlessly integrated with a bunch of AI that our brains are simply too old. And it's so clear. It's, the visuals are stunning. This is the thing that got me. You're like looking at Bono and he's like a tiny speck on this little square down there. Right. But he's up here as well. And you can, he's the size of a building, right, on the side of the wall. And it's all in sync. I don't know how, you know, you, you just did for me. You did, so Jason and I celebrate birthdays. So he said your birthday's coming up soon. Oh, yeah. Where do you want to go? And he's, we were trying to figure, somewhere weird and funny, whatever. I think that's it. I think I got to go see that.

I can't imagine Jason Alexander being, and I'm just going to blow the sunshine, I can't imagine him being a more entertaining guest than you were in the last. How long is it, Chuck? Was it four hours now? It's four and a half. Honestly, the time flew by. It feels like five, five and a half, six hours. No, really, thank you, sincerely for coming by.

I said I was flattered when I started. I really mean it. Well, I appreciate it if I can return the favor. No, really. Jason's a huge fan. Really, no, really. Really, no, really. Really, no, really?

Really, no. Wait, Van I, you do it? eyes, yeah, really, no, really. He's not coming in. Jason said, it's the sequel. Not really. Jason is very particular about who comes on. You were one of the first names he mentioned, but you noticed we didn't call you for a year. Well, look, I'm standing by. I get down here once a month. We'll do it. Yeah. I'd be honest.

Chuck, thank you for reconnecting. Oh, it's so great. By the way, Chuck was so much fun to work with too and so talented and pulled that off. Thank you. Those were the days prior to the bitter, broken Klaus Meyer we have today. Just say goodbye. See next week, folks. Peter Tilden. Oh, the podcast is called Really No Really. Yes, it is. Available everywhere, whether you want it or not.

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