May 22, 2024 • 57 mins
The 'Our Way' producers turn the tables on Paul and Skip and interview the hosts about their legendary careers. Skip looks back on his early life before becoming a hugely successful real estate developer and business visionary, and reflects on all the pranks he and Paul have pulled on one another. Paul recalls the unrequited high school crush that inspired “Diana,” the 1957 hit that transformed him from a small-town Canadian teen to an international pop star, the time he did battle with the US Customs office, and his relationship with Johnny Carson — including the night that the talk show legend fall afoul of the Mob…with disastrous results!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this
is Paul.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Anka and my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends
for decades and we've decided to let you in on
our late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends of us.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You're leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a sitting
president or two.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our Way.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hello everyone. My name's Jordan run Talk and one of
the producers of Our Way. Over the last few months,
we've had some amazing guests on this show, but some
of my favorite moments have been when the tapes weren't running.
I'm talking about the after hours phone chat, so the
pre show meetings when I hear the most amazing stories
from Paul and Skip, and I always thought it was
a shame that people don't get to hear them with me.
(01:22):
So today we're doing something a little different. We're turning
the tables on our hosts, Paul and Skip, and I'm
going to interview them. They are going to be guests
on their own show. What do you guys think you ready?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, not a problem. I'd like to get to know
Skip a little better. It's possible.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean that was kind of my first question. I
want to know how you guys first met.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I realized I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, I don't know precisely, Skip. Maybe you could throw
something on it to date, but I know it was
many years ago when you were working with brother Steve Winn.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah. Well, actually I've seen Paul. This is forty plus
years ago. He was performing at the Golden Nugget. I
was there to visit with Steve. I was just Steve
and I were his friends. We didn't have a business
relationship at that point. And Paul was performing at the
Golden Nugget and I went and saw the show and
it was just fantastic. I mean, the audience was just
(02:13):
he owned the audience. And then later, you know, the
next day, Steve said, what you do last night? I said,
you know, I want to see Paul ink and blah
blah blah, and he said, oh yeah, you said, he's
coming up here to the office, and Paul came up.
I actually didn't stay for you know, the time that
they were together, but you know, that's where I first
met him, was at the Golden Nugget. And then through
(02:34):
you know, through our mutual friendship with Steve Wynn, you know,
we wound up doing things together where the three of us,
you know, I mean, we've told stories about this on
a prior podcast, but you know, we flew to Monaco together,
we went to you know, we went all sorts of
places together, to Asia, you know, over to Macau, and
we were together, and you know, we started spending time together.
And ever since then, Paul is I've never had a brother,
(02:57):
but I've got one now and so certainly for the
last twenty five years, we've had this relationship where we're
always checking in at each other.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know, it's always cool when you meet somebody who's
different than the crowd, and you know, meeting Skip, you
very quickly realizes somebody special here. I don't mean in
the kind of whimsical way. And he and I clicked.
And I'm always very cautious anyway, because I'm not a
real trusting person. But after he was employed with Steve
(03:30):
and evolved into what he wanted to do. After that,
we remain friends. Maybe we became better friends because we
had more time and we had a much more away, said,
easier relationship. He was unfettered, and we've just been buddies
ever since. You know, you meet people like that and
you get to you know, what I think I said
(03:53):
on previous programs is that there's a lack of real
understanding and commitment to friendship. I think it's got to
be taught in schools. I think when you look at
in this modern society, these kids today have no idea
what a friend is. And it bothers me. You know,
I try to teach my son. But Skip and I
have beaten that in that we understand what friendship is.
(04:16):
And you know, Skip's got a lot of acquaintances and
a lot of friends, but we was that kind of
a love affair. You know, We've just known each other.
We've been pretty open and honest all the time, which
makes it work. We've never ever had a fight, and
I've told Skip the reason is that I know that
Skip is very very, very very smart, but I'm always
right and he's accepted that that's a concept of our friendship.
(04:41):
But we've had so much fun together. You know, we
laugh about a lot of things. We're very serious about
a lot of things because we we have a respect
for what's going on around us, what the world is
about people, et cetera. Because we know that, you know,
the human factor can be deadly. You know, man's inhumanity
to man is very unlike animals in the jungle who
(05:03):
are very kind to each other. So we share, we
share a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, I'll tell you when you know, you're a made
guy with this man. You know how like if you
had an encounter with Don Rickles, if he insulted you,
that's like a good thing. He loves you to be
insulted by Don Rickles. That's a big deal. So Paul
is one of the great practical jokers of all time.
And because of his you know, his singing ability. He
(05:28):
can change his voice, he can do things. I mean,
he can get you in ways that you you wouldn't
think that he could get you, but he can do it.
And when I started to become the victim, if you will,
of a couple of his practical jokes, That's when I
knew I was a maid guy. Even though I must
admit I fucking hate it. I fucking hate it. But
(05:49):
here's what I like. I like telling the story because
people love the story. Unfortunately. I'll just give you one example.
Edie and I, my wife and I. Edie and I
were at arrest.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is it Medealoe?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, I was at Medeo with two other couples. My
phone lights up that it's Paul, and of course, you know,
I take that call no matter where I am, no
matter what I'm doing. So I pick up the phone
and I said, hey, I'm out to dinner, you know,
which is code for I can't really talk right now.
And he said, oh, you're kiddy. Where are you? I said,
(06:24):
I'm at Medeo and he goes, what, I'm at Medeo?
I said, what are you talking about. I'm at Medeo.
He said, where are you? I said, I'm at the
far end, beyond the bar. There's a banquette. I'm over there.
And he goes, oh, I'm all the way in the
other end of the restaurant. He said, I'll come over
and say hello to you. He said, but I'm not
still not sure exactly where you are, so just wave,
(06:45):
just stand up and just wave for a second. Up.
So I stand up and I'm waving my arm and
at this point two waiters have come over to me
to see what it is that I need. And I'm
waving and I'm waving and I said, okay, you see me?
And he goes no. I said, what do you mean?
How do you not see me? He says, I'm short.
(07:06):
There's a lot of people here. I can't see over
these people. You just do me a favor. Stand up,
stand up to the left a little bit. So now
I move out of the bankhet I move out. I'm
out into the aisle and I'm waving my hand like this,
back and forth, back and forth. I said, you see me?
He goes no, see. I said, let me ask you
(07:26):
a question. How the fuck can you not see me?
Where are you? He said, I'm at home? I said,
what wait?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
What what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
You're no? No? Where are you here? At Midemo? Where
are you sitting? You're not listen to me? I'm home.
I'm at home.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, I think the uh. That was one of our
funny ones, but the best one. Unfortunately, it was Monte Carlo.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Let me set this one up. So Steve Wynn decides
that he'd like to have an F one race in
Las Vegas. Yeah, and he's building the Bellagio at the time,
and he wants the finish line to be under the
porkochhere of the Bolagio, which had about six lanes, I mean,
it was a big white space. So he's got this
whole thing in his head of how he's conceptualized this,
(08:14):
how it's going to work, and the whole thing. But
he's never been to an F one race, so he
wants to go to the F one in Monaco. So Paul, myself,
Bobby Baldwin, who at the time was the president of
the Mirage and who was a world champion poker player,
we get in Steve's plane and we fly to Monaco.
(08:34):
I'll segue to Paul. Let Paul tell the story.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So we arrive in Monaco and we know exactly what
we have to do, and we wind up down in
the pits with Bernie eccleston, who owned it at the time,
and we're enjoying and kind of think tanking how it's
going to work in Vegas, and we're sitting there blah blah,
blah blah blah. And we know that the schedule that
(08:57):
evolved out of the afternoon was that we got to
meet Prince Rene that night for a big cocktail party,
and everybody's all eased up to that because they're looking
forward to meeting the Prince. And we go back to
the hotel. So I'm sitting there and I've got some
time on my hands. You know, business is done back
home with the nine hour time drifence, and I'm frisky
and I've always lived with the fact that, you know,
(09:20):
humor is the final refuge of Sanitay, and I just
love having this kind of fun with people I like.
So anyway, I call up my baby boy here skip
and I said, mister Bronson, Yes, this is Peter Panzantos
over the I'm the lead point person, but Rener and
(09:42):
we know you are here with mister Steve Steve Wynn,
and we would like to have a private audience with
mister Vinn and with the Prince, just the two of them,
before the cocktail party at night. And we know that
you are the point person. Can you arrange the him
over here and we will send a car over and
(10:03):
get him here by six and he must be in
a tuxedo. He says, what he must be in a tuxedo?
He said, well, okay, but you understand that he's somewhat
impaired with you know, his eyesight. I mean, he can function,
But he said, I said, don't worry about that. We
(10:23):
have a department for impaired people to come in and
out of here all the time, from all over the world.
We will take care of him. He will see us vay,
he will be led that have him ready. So Skip
goes and he gets Steve his suite and he conveys
to him that he's got an audience with the Prince
(10:46):
and he's got to wear a tuxedo and blah blah
blah dah, and he's got to be there at this time,
and it's all arranged, and there was some questions Steve
had where Skip had to call the palace back to
really define what the pickup.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Was and try him a little bit more time.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
He can buy a little more time, so you take
it from here. Now. Skip calls the palace and here's
what happens. When he gets the palace.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I call, I asked for this gentleman that called me,
and they said, there's no one here by that name.
And I said, no, no, you're not listening. I'm with
Steve Win. Prince Regnier wants to have a private one
on one audience with him. It's been all arranged, but
I need to speak to the chief of staff to
get this. I've got a couple of things they have
(11:28):
to work out. He said, there is no such person.
He doesn't have a chief of staff. I don't know
what this is. We get crazy calls like this all
the time at the palace. Goodbye, well, hold on, hold on,
hold on. You're obviously not in the loop. You're not
in the loop. We've always worked this out. This whole
thing has been completely arranged. The guy says, this is ridiculous,
(11:54):
and the guy hangs up on me. So I don't
know what to do. And of course, first calling before
I do anything, I call Paul to tell him the
whole story. He doesn't know anything about this, right, and
I want to let him know that this happened. And
I went over to Steve's and Steve is you know.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So wait, no, wait, let me help you, honey. So
now I go to Steve's room because I know where
he's going to wind up, because He's told the guy,
you're not in the loop, and I know eventually he's
got to get over to Steve to convey whatever. So
I'm sitting there with Steve was on the phone with
Huff and Puff. That was his ex wife. He called
her Huff and Puff, and he's meanwhile, he's got me
(12:29):
looking in the closet for something black that looks like
a tuxedo. So I'm sitting there and Skip walks into
the room and he conveys to Steve to bring him
up to date. Da da da, And in calling back
the palace, Steve, I got some yoyo on the phone
and got nowhere with him. But don't worry. I told
(12:49):
the guy he wasn't in the loop. So everything's going
to be set. Da da dada. So I look at Skip,
I look at Steve, and I said, Skip, you're not
in love. There is no meeting. It's all bullshit. I
pulled the Bullini on you. We don't have to get
dressed and go to see the Prince. Steve starts laughing.
(13:12):
Skip looks at me with that sweet little pussy cat face.
It's okay, you'll be over in a couple hours, right,
So now, We're laughing all the way to the palace
where there's two hundred people have convened who've been invited
for this evening's cocktail party. And we're in line. They
keep everybody waiting in the courtyard, no matter who you are,
(13:35):
and we're still Steve is still laughing about what happened, right,
So finally they let us in and I'm elbowing Skip
along because he's now coming back to life with it.
And this guy walks, very elegant English, snobbed out dude,
and he walks by us and he tries to we
(13:58):
try to talk to him regarding what happen up in
that afternoon. Totally shit all over us as he walked by.
And then Steve says, well, I'm going to tell the
Prince about this. He'll get a kick out of it.
Remember that, Skip, And he goes over and begin and Steve,
who's better than Steve, right, he can talk an oak
tree into a beautiful pussy willow. So now he starts
(14:22):
talking to the Prince regarding the events of that afternoon,
and of course we're somewhere on the periphery watching and
Steve's the charmer of the world intelligence and he's talking
to the Prince, who is somewhat laughing, but he isn't
you know one of those Yeah, So I think he
got a kick out of it, and we just left
(14:44):
that party. We never got over it, but that was
one of my big home runs with my dear Skip what.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I still have PTSD over that one. But there's one
other thing that I was just inbellish it. You know,
if you've ever been to the White House and yes
you're going to meet the president, you wait in a line.
I remember when I first met Bill Clinton. As you
proceed through this line, there's a photographer there to take
the picture at the moment of impact. And the second
(15:13):
you shake hands with the president, it's a it's not
a shake, it's a pull. It's like, instead of shake,
you grab his hand, he pulls to get to the
next person. That was what was going on in Monte Carlo.
But Steve stopped and pitched a tent right in front
of the Prince, and I kept looking over my shoulder
(15:35):
at all these people waiting in line, like growling because
what are they doing? What's going on up there? What
the hell's going on up there?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Well, his daughter came over, don't you. Mar Caroline came
to me. She said, you have to tell him to
stop talking. I said, you go tell him. He's my friend.
I'm not gonna dumb to stop talking. Oh man, oh god,
we've had some fun there, skip we have.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We've done it.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
We've got miles of we We've done some traveling and doing.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
And I don't know you live on a hamster wheel.
I never was sounding like you're traveling. This is the
guy that goes out on tour, comes back and you think, wow,
Now he just wants to chill for a while. He'll
call me up and say, in two days, I'm going
to Hawaii. What when mean you going Hawaii? Yeah, I'm
going to Hawaii, flies to Hawaii, comes back. Now. I
(16:23):
know his tour doesn't start again for like another ten days.
So I figure, well, this is great. I'll go see
him up at the house because they'll just be hanging.
It'll call me and says he said to me, oh,
by the way, I'm going to Mexico. What when are
you going to Mexico? Tomorrow? Just Michelle, me, the kids,
We're all going down. We're going to go on Carlos
(16:43):
Slim's yacht for a few days, and what I mean,
anybody else this guy he doesn't have to recharge his battery,
just automatically recharges.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I guess you got to keep moving. Man, they throw
dirt on you. You know that. I love it, and hey,
I've been blessed with a great life, you know. But
living well is the best revenge. And I just keep moving.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
So my routine is barely simple, and that is you know,
I get up early, really early, go online, read all
the newspapers, look at my messages in the night before
this happens, like at five o'clock in the morning, and
then work from my office at home. And then later,
like at about nine o'clock, I go to my office
office in Beverly Hills alongside the Peninsula Hotel. And then
(17:28):
if I get a chance to look to run up
to my golf club and go on the drive me
range and hit some balls and just you know, maybe
play nine holes. You know this point, I played eighteen
holes only on weekends typically, and then I go home,
have dinner. We got more often than I have dinner
at home or go out a restaurant with friends. And
(17:48):
Paul knows we have a screening room and that's you know,
Saturday night, that's where everybody comes to see the movies
because somehow I got onto the Bellier circuit where I
get all the first run movies. But Paul's routine is
so different from mine because first of all, he still
has a relatively young son at home living with him.
But tell them, give him a little about your routine.
(18:09):
Tell them your what is your daily routine.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
We understand a routine, which is cool because we know
when not to call and when to call. And you know,
my thing is, you know, for years working let's say
Vegas with those guys the rat Pack, right you you
get locked into you know, go to bed two three
at night. By the time you did two shows and
then you hung out, your body starts getting geared for
(18:33):
that kind of life. Mind changed when we started having kids.
You know, my wife may she rest I had a
pretty good routine raising five girls and ultimately moving up
to Carmel, California, putting them with the nuns. Uh, you know,
trying to keep track of these kids. But when you're
a creative person, and I think both of you can
appreciate it because we're all in that kind of mold.
(18:56):
When the ideas come, you know, you got to go
with it because it's just not something I'm going to
sit down and do. So I'm so used to working
late at night when there is no distractions and I've
got to write. And when you're writing music and words
what have you, as you both know, you're sitting in
that capsule and you're waiting for it to happen. So
(19:18):
with that and raising Ethan, getting this young son of mine,
one hundred percent of the time, I changed my whole
life around and you know, got rid of my offices
and all the space and I literally moved everything into
a house where I could raise this boy. Right. And
on top of that, my schedule is when I have
to write. I can't really put a lot of substance
(19:41):
during the day because I got other things bothering me.
So I'm you know, I mean, I'll get my sleep
when I have to. When I'm on the road, I've
got to get eight hours, you know. When I'm home,
I'll work till two three in the morning. I've got
Todd who works with me, our engineer. We'll record till
two three in the morning. And the people that show
up to record with us. That's part of it. If
you look at a lot of artists, they like to
(20:02):
record at night. Your voice is open, no distractions, what
have you. So with that it averages out where when
Skip is sleeping, I'm up, so I'm not going to
call him, and I'm up to as I said, two
or three, but I'll sleep till maybe eleven to get
my rest from my voice, in my health. And then
I've got a routine of what I eat, how I eat.
(20:23):
You know, I've got certain little tricks that apply. I
drink lemon juice at night. I got a certain drink
made in the morning. I don't eat this, I don't
eat that, and it's worked. You know. This body's not
a fluke. So I'm pretty locked into because I know
what the results are. My latest is a seaweed tea.
When I was in Japan. Friend of mine who's got
(20:45):
the top restaurant over there, there's a farm outside of
Tokyo and it's the only farm. And if you know
the Japanese culture and realize from their fruit to everything,
they're on their game. They know what to do. Man,
it's amazing. And he gives everybody these three or four
chips of seaweed and your pour hot water when you're eating,
(21:06):
and it's great for digestion, great for the heart when
you read up and I won't bore you with it,
but if you read up the benefits of seaweed, you'll
find it really is beneficial, like green tea. So I
have these chips in bags shipped to me from this
firm that's the only farm that makes it for the restaurant,
and that's what I have. I'll drink it all day,
(21:27):
I'll drink it after a meal. So it's finding those
things that's helping me function to where when I've got
to go on stage where I've got to sing, the
body's working because I've seen too many people around me
from the rat pack to guys with the abuse that
you can do to your body that you can't function
and go on stage. And you know all of us
have seen that. You've seen performers that go on whacked
(21:49):
out whatever. So it's all of that kind of stuff
and that fits into the working order of skip an eye,
and you know, we kind of understand each other that way.
You know, it doesn't mean that we're not going to
get the full menu of what's happening all the time.
If it's catching up or whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
We're all over it.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
So you're back from well, you just got back from
the East Coast. Did you golf at all?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
It's so funny you brought that up. So I never
take typically a two week trip to New York. But
I'm on these three public company boards, and as it
lined up, and I had something to do with lining
it up this way, they met consecutively over a total
of two weeks. So I didn't have to fly to Miami.
I don't have to fly to Dallas. Everything was done
(22:46):
in one place. But it was two weeks is a
long time. I had a great time. Saw an amazing
show on Broadway, one of the best dramas I've seen,
called Patriots, just amazing, the story of the creation of
Vladimir Putin, if you will buy the Zla Girk who
essentially invented him. But that was great anyway, So I'm busy,
but I for whatever reason, I took my golf clubs
(23:09):
with me, had them packed up in a big, you know,
travel bag, probably weighs fifty pounds all in, and I
had it in my hotel room and I was sitting
with it in the hotel room for about five days,
and I'm thinking, I'm not going to play golf. I'll
send my clubs back. So I Federal Expressed my clubs back,
and you know usually you don't select next day, but
(23:31):
probably second day for something that size. So sent it
back second day. I get back to my club here
in LA and I said, we sent my clubs up
front to the pro shop and they said, we don't
have your clubs. I said, no, no, what do you
mean you don't have my clubs. You took your clubs.
I think you went to New York or something with them,
(23:52):
but we don't have your clubs. I said, that's impossible.
I sent them back here more than a week ago.
So cut to Aaron. Thankfully, you know, she can do anything,
find anything. We had the tracking number, so I said, well,
here's the tracking number. So she looks and it says
the clubs are still in New York. They're not even
(24:14):
in transit. I'm like what. So we called the hotel
and said, how did you not give the clubs to
Federal Express. They said no, no, Federal Express had them,
and they send us pictures of surveillance in the hotel
where you can see the Federal Express driver you see
my golf bag. You see him take the golf bag.
(24:35):
So we know the Federal Express has him. So I'm
pulling out every stunt. My friend Fred Purpaul is on
the board of Federal Express, so I called him. I
got him involved. Anyway, All of a sudden, it dawns
on me, Wait a second, I've got an air tag
on my golf bag, you know, an Apple air tag
where you can find things from your phone. So it
(24:57):
dawns on me yesterday, click on it, and the golf
clubs are somewhere on West thirty fourth Street, and it
looks like a residential building. So now I'm thinking somebody
stole my golf clubs. They're in somebody's apartment on West
thirty fourth Street. So then Erin, being Aaron, you know,
she looks and finds out that that address is actually
(25:20):
one of the Federal Express offices. So the end of
the stories, we call there and they can't find the clubs.
Now we said, wait a minute, wait a minute, you can't.
I can find them. I'm three thousand miles away. They're
in your warehouse, and I know where they are, and
you don't know where they are. So this one I'm
back and forth for I don't know anyway. I'm not
(25:41):
sure if it was you know, Fred Purpaul called. He
said to me, the chairman of the boards, I'll looking
for your clubs, no joke. So I don't know how
this happened, but today my golf clubs came back Hell
the next day Federal Express. The end of that long
winded story is these Apple air tags. They're worth their
weight and goal.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh I love them. I keep track all my luggage.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, especially you you're traveling all over the world.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
You know. The craziest thing happened to me is you
talk about luggage and loss. I was working in Canada
on TV show and at the culmination of the series
would end months later. Me, my orchestra, we all had
to get on flights. I had a plane at the time,
and we all had to get to la Let's say
(26:27):
it was a Tuesday, and get on a plane Wednesday
Wednesday to go to Hong Kong. Now I got to
move a band, me, et cetera. Back then I think
it was Western Skip You remember Western Airlines. Yeah, how
unreliable they were, et cetera. The short of it is,
all my guys get on a plane. All the luggage
(26:48):
in the music is coming to Vegas, where I lived
at the time. I land early on my plane. I
get to my house and I get a phone call
from my assistant and she said, Western is late again.
The boys and the luggage. I won't get here until
the evening. We don't think we can get the luggage
tomorrow because customs are now holding all the luggage. I said,
(27:10):
but we've got a plane, no more now Hong Kong.
We but they won't release it. I get in my
station wagon with one of my assistants and we drive
out to mccaren field and I go into this customs
area and there's a guy. Well, you know their attitude,
power driven, I said to the guy, I said, sir Bob,
we did the show and paul Anka and I've got
(27:31):
my music and my guy and I'm looking behind him
and there's a net over all the luggage and all
the music, this huge net. I said, By the way,
that's that's our stuff, our music. So I'm sorry I
can't help you. You have to come back tomorrow, I said,
We've got to be on an airplane. We need that. Sorry,
come back, don't bother me. I backed the station wagon
(27:52):
into this open area to where the net is. I
start loading all the luggage and the music into my
station wagon as much as I could hold. And this
guy's looking at you can't do that, you gots America.
I said, I'm doing it. I'm going to Hong Kong, right.
So I load up what I know I need and
(28:14):
I bring everything to my house. And now I think
I'm set to go to Hong Kong, and I start
unpacking stuff that I know I need. I unpacked this.
I get a phone call from my attorney the next morning.
He said, did you break into an area at the
(28:35):
customs out at Macaren and loaded? I said, yeah, I did.
I said, we're leaving, you know, on the night flight.
We got to get to Hong Kong. He said, well,
you're in trouble. He said, you'd better send that luggage back.
So I said, but he said, you better send it back.
You've got a shitload of trouble coming. So I unpacked
(28:55):
the stuff that I know we need, and I start
putting books in from my library to fill the bags
with what I think. Fade out, fade in. Now, I
got lawyers, I got the American government all over my ass.
You took this luggage, you were smuggling in drugs, you
were smuggling in a body. I mean, you wouldn't believe
(29:17):
that shit that were town at me. Now I'm in
Hong Kong with the stuff my lawyers are calling me.
I got the top guy in Vegas, I got a
guy in Washington. You smuggled a body, and you took
this anyway. It gets to the point where I now
have to go in front of the district attorney in
Las Vegas and I'm working at the Riviera Hotel and
(29:40):
he sits me down. He said, you know, I would
be much more severe and what you did. But I
know what you're about. He said. I used to be
a dishwasher at Caesar's Palace and you always came in
every time you do a show, through the kitchen to
get to the stage. You never went to the public areas,
(30:02):
and you were the only guy that would stop and
talk to us. And I was just earning nothing, trying
to get my way through through college, and you would
bring a CDs and you'd be so kind. He said,
I know that you're not the guy that they said
you are, and I'm going to fit you with a
twenty five thousand bubba and it was all over. And
(30:23):
this guy today is one of the top attorneys in
Las Vegas. Wow, you talk about luggage, Huh, that's crazy.
Is then a wild story? I was smuggling in a
body drugs. I mean, they throw everything at you, right.
You know your.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Career, you know is an independent contractor, you know, and
I know you had We've talked before about odd jobs
and whatever, but you ever in your life have a
salaried job. Ever?
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Well, when I was a kid, I worked as a waiter,
go salaried. I worked as a caddie, salaried. But skip,
you have to understand, I was writing music at fourteen.
I left at fourteen to go to New York because
I collected super wrappers, because I wanted to get to
New York. That's a whole other story, Campbell's soup. When
I get home, I had jobs, you know. I worked
in restaurants, I was the caddy, I had a paper route.
(31:14):
But after that, from age fifteen on, I was in
Hello Dreamland, show business.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That was it. You've always worked for yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Always? And then I had you know, managers, but I've
never had real partners. Other than Irfeld.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
My first job on salary. I was sixteen years old.
My mother marched me down to the local supermarket called
the Popular Supermarket, told me to give me a job.
And you know, probably the lowest scale job in the
supermarket is facing the shelves. I don't know if you
know what that means. But somebody comes along. Let's say,
(31:52):
there's you know, heinz ketchup, So somebody takes a bottle.
Another person comes along, they take a bottle. Now it's
it's hard to see the ketchup. So the job facing
the shelves meant that you would take whatever was on
that shelf and bring it forward, So you'd have to
walk down the aisle, do every aisle in the supermarket,
one after another, and then start over again. The same
(32:14):
way they say. You know, when they paint the George
Washington Bridge, by the time they finished, it's time, you know,
to paint it again. You know, I got to start over.
So you're constantly doing that and facing the shelves. It's
the worst job. And I have to tell you my
friend Larry David's wife Ashley, who I'm totally crazy about,
this is one of her favorite stories. So when I
(32:35):
was doing this job. It was so mindless and it
was so boring. And you know, this is before the
days of you know, being able to put buds in
your ear and listen to music or look at a smartphone.
This was just the most tedious, boring job. And back
in the day, food wasn't sealed. Like if you wanted
(32:56):
to buy a bottle of ketchup, you just open it
right up. You know. Now everything's got one of the
you know, incredible seals on it, and then something even
below the seal. But then you just open things up.
You know, it's just very simple. So one of my
things that I would do when I was bored is
I would take a toothpick, go over to the peanut
butter aisle, take a jar of peanut butter, take the
(33:18):
top off, and with the toothpick right fuck you in
the peanut butter, and then screw the cap back on,
put it back on the shelf. And I can't tell
you how many times I'd be working in the store
facing the shelves and I'd look toward the manager's desk
and this irate and irate woman would be there folding
(33:38):
a jar of peanut butter. Pointing with her index finger
like like, look at this, look at this, look at this.
And I was about fifty yards away watching this. And
the manager, his name was Tom Wassel. He would glare
at me. He couldn't ever catch me doing it, but
he knew that I had to be the guy that
put it. He would just look over whoever the person
(34:00):
who was talking to, look over their shoulder. If he
could spot me and give me a look, that would
just kill because he knew you, son of a bitch,
I know you that's doing this. But the greatest joy
was not writing fuck you in the peanut butter. The
greatest joy was the thought of some person that gets
home from the grocery store. They unpack all this stuff whatever.
(34:22):
One of their kids says, Mommy, can I get a
peanut butter jelly sandwich. She'd take the lid off the
peanut butter and said that, I can't explain to you
that I was making a dollar twenty five an hour. Yeah,
I had to join the Amalgamated meat Cutters and butcher
Workmen of North Americay. Had he gives them part yea Yeah,
you had to give them part of your dollar and
(34:44):
a quarter an hour. Yeah, yeah, but the joy that
I used to get out of doing this with those
jars of peanut butter, it was just, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
It was My only experience was the Campbell soup thing,
you know, at fourteen or fifteen, when I heard about
New York and how to get there. We didn't have
any money, you know. And when I read in the
paper IgA Campbell soup contest forty kids from Canada, whoever
collects the most wrappers gets to go to New York.
(35:12):
I'm down. So I go down to this guy Abraham,
who owned the place down on Somerset, and I said,
can I have a job. I want to pack the
bags and I was clocking all the women who come
through when I pack it with Campbell soup. And then
I'd go over to the island look at the Campbell
soup to see what I could rip off in the
pack and put the ones in the But I was
collecting Campbell soup and I was going to these homes
(35:34):
with these women. But anyway, I won, right, I won
for my district, and next thing you know, I'm going
to New York. They gave us a box lunch which
was warp by the time we got to New York,
watered down pickles and shit, and we get to New
York and I'm staying at the y Sloanhouse. The Sloanhouse,
the way I'm saying, that was my first introduction. I'd
(35:55):
never seen anything like New York. And on Canada there
was no high rises and that was it through Campbell
Super Rappers at IgA.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
How old were you when you wrote Diana, you were?
How old?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Fifteen ish? Fourteen to fifteen? I went down on Easter vacation,
recorded it in May. I was fifteen. By the time
I turned sixteen, I was on Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
So is it based on a real experience?
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Oh well, I wish there was an experience. She had
nothing to do with me.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
When you say I'm so young and you're so old?
There you go, how old were you? And how old
was this victim? Here? You?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
No, No, I was a victim. She was loving it.
So here I am at fifteen? Yeah, I had a
crush on this girl, Diana, who's three years older. Really attractive.
But you have to go back to the fifties when
sexuality and that whole social thing was you know, if
you're too short if you're too old, if you're too.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
And at that age, that's a big gap, three years big.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah. So she wanted nothing to do with me. Nothing.
So I sit down and I'm playing piano now because
I got thrown out a shorthand, and I'm taking piano
lessons because I'm really a huge fan of music. And
I start, you know, I started because I won three
awards in school for my short stories, and everybody say, ah,
you're a writer. So my dad gets me a gig
(37:21):
at the Ottawa Citizen as a cub reporter. But at
home and with my piano lessons, I'm writing songs. So
I start, I'm so young, you're so old. This is
my darling I've been told because everybody kept telling me
she's too old and you're too young, and nothing's going
to happen. Not Shakespeare, just kid with a feeling and
wrote with what I saw, and you become what you see.
(37:41):
And I wrote it. I didn't know, and then you know,
when I left home with that and a few songs
in my pocket, I get to New York in front
of all the suits and it becomes a hit. I
go back to Ottawa and there's parades and all that
stuff going on. Now She's looking at me like I'm
Troy Donahue, right, I'd already traveled and done, and I said,
(38:04):
this ain't gonna work anymore, honey words, I'm over it.
And nothing ever came of it.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
That was it. That was it.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
But I thank you for the inspiration.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
And I love when you still start your show when
you come in from the back of the audience to
walk toward the stage and you start seeing Diana and
people just go wild. They go wild, And then I
could do I could do your act. I've seen it
enough times. I like when you say, okay, I had
to get that out of the way.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I love you madly, but I'd love to see you
try it once.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I know. Adie always says to me when she's nervous,
and if we're a private plane or a helicopter and
there's turbulence and she gets nervous, really scared. I always
look over and say, listen, I guarantee you I can
get this plane on the ground. Of course, I don't
tell her that I can get it on the ground
at one piece. I can just get it on the ground.
(38:54):
But the same way I could do your act. You know,
I could never do your act.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I was telling Michelle the other day because we flew
fifteen hours from Asia back home fifteen hours now, I said,
you know what, when I think when I was fifteen
years old and I'm on those prop planes going to Asia,
I don't know how the hell I did it. Those
props took so long and so many stops, and I'm
(39:20):
on there with Jerry Lee Lewis, who hated me. I
was this kid, very successful and he was crazy, so
down there with Buddy Hard but we would sit on
these prop planes skip. I don't know how the hell
I did it. And then when somebody said maybe close
to nineteen sixty where they got these jet engines, I'm
I ain't getting on that. What do you mean a
jet engine? No? Fuck, what is a jetit? I was
(39:42):
scared to death to get on a jet.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
We talked about this on the Mark Burnett podcast. But
when he and I were on a plane and forty
one thousand feet a private jet and lost an engine,
it wasn't dicey, but it was you know, you can't
help but think, you know. And Mark looked over me.
He said, are we going to die? And I said yes,
but not today.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
You know, years ago with the Beatles thing hit, and
I'm traveling all over the world and enjoying all of
that stuff. I'd hit every country and the Beatles hit,
and you know, I'm evolving as a writer. And I
decided to move to Italy part time because I loved
Italy and I wanted to record an Italian and I
wanted to give back to Germany. Were recorded in German
and French, and I go to Italy and I used
(40:41):
to fly from New York t w A all the
way over for my stay in Italy, and I got
to know them so well. They invite me up to
the cockpit and I'd sit there wa with these pilots
that you know that'd sit in the chair you were allowed.
Back then, there was none of this terrorist shit. I'll
never fear. One day, we're landing in Rome and that's
(41:02):
a t w A good land your room and a
latitude sixty five or two three thirty thousand feet and
the ground. Go back to the pilots. I'm sitting there here,
that's all right over there. And then make a left
turn of the longer two to six or two okay,
right now with a five or seven or two three,
(41:23):
But you gave it the same coordinance to the PanAm
plant coming in from the north. What's what's going on?
And the ground goes, that's all right, lookout. I'll never
forget that. That's all right, lookout, said there's a ship.
What do you mean?
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Lookout?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
You know it was so different back then, you know,
you didn't have all this great stuff in the cockpit.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Now, speaking of technology, I love a great app. If
somebody tells you about new apps. But there are two
apps I was going to mention you and the Jordan.
Jordan's get a kick out of it too. Don't know
if you're familiar with this search engine called Perplexity. It's
an app that you must download on your phone. If
you're searching for something in Google, you know, you just
(42:07):
type it in the box and Google spits out an answer.
Perplexity gives you so much detail. If I typed in
who is Paul Anka? Not only will it tell me
you know anything that's on Wikipedia, it'll show pictures of you,
it'll talk, it'll show your tour schedule, it'll show Oh,
the depth that it goes to is extraordinary. So that's Perplexity.
(42:29):
The other one people who are using AI apps and
chat GPT is you know, always been one of them,
but now there's an app called chat GPT four. I
was at a board meeting in New York this past week,
and I chair the Nominating Governance Committee. So I was
(42:51):
thinking at this meeting, the meeting prior, the people that
gave reports, like on the Compensation Committee, Nominating Governance Committee,
the committee, it was taking them too long. Their reports
were too long. So I typed into chat gpt, what's
a good way to get people on boards to give
(43:11):
reports that are not very lengthy? Fifteen seconds it's spit
out literally five or seven pages with ideas of how
to motivate people to summarize and talk about strategy and
list and then a letter. It wrote a letter that
you could write to each person that's on the committee.
(43:32):
The letter was in there on chat GPT four. This
is I mean, no one is going to replace songwriters
like you. I mean, everybody knows you as a performer,
but you know, I think of you is obviously much
more than that, and being such a prolific songwriter, but
you're going to be able to write songs using AI.
(43:52):
That is just going to be I mean now they
can the way I talked to at the very beginning
of this podcast about you in the way you can
disguise your voice. It can replicate your voice. You can
have something you just just give it a little snippet
of your voice, and it can take your voice and
sing my way in your voice, not in Paul's voice,
(44:15):
in my voice, and it actually sounds like I'm singing
the song. So I mean, I think you know we're
getting into a place because Paul keeps talking about the
changes in the way things were, in the way things are,
and you know how extraordinary it's been. This stuff is
next level.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Man, that's right. AI is the future.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
And obviously we know about the applications Jordan in health
and healthcare and you know all you know how pharmaceuticals
will be created. I know all that, But just in
the arts, in entertainment, the things that they're already doing.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
That's right, just over a lot of people out of work.
You know, it's between the AI and the aliens. You
know my rap on that, but indigenous to what you
were talking about. You know, one of my special moments
is when I hear from my friend Warren Buffett and
I don't like to drop names. But he called me
a while back. He said, Bill Gates is here with
(45:10):
me and he's showing me this. Gee. What was that
first machine? That's something? Gee? He said. I asked the
machine to give me four different versions of my way,
and it spit it out in one minute. I said, really, Warren,
He said yeah, And I knew then that day when
he told me what was coming down the road. It
(45:31):
was amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
And how long ago was that?
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Two years ago?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Really?
Speaker 1 (45:37):
I guess Gates was hip to it and took it
to Warren and he was showing Warren what it could do.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
You know, you use it, Jordan, you use any ai
or too much.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
The thing that I'm most fascinated by with it is
the voice cloning. There's versions of you know, okay, you
can hear Paul McCartney sing an Amy Winehouse song or
a Stevie Wonder song. And there's this whole little cottage
industry of people on YouTube that are using the voice
cloning software to have Frank Sinatra singer, Michael Jackson song
or something like that. And it's it's interesting to me.
(46:10):
I mean, I the ethics of it are a whole
other question but just purely from curiosity. I think it's
interesting in the way that early hip hop samplers were
interesting too. I think that, you know, there's a way
to make it artful, but I know that the ethics
around it are pretty dubious at times.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, it's going to be an experience for a lot
of people that are not expecting. Yeah, deadly.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
The rights issues. You know, I've learned a lot on
this podcast about rights issues because we've had people like
Michael bubleon and he wants to sing you know, White Christmas,
and he didn't write it, he doesn't own it. And
it turns out that iHeart has to pay a fee.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
That's what our world's about. Skip, I've got b M
I or as gap. I mean, basically, what is every
time a song is used in any fashion, whether it's
on radio or CDs, when they were sold, et cetera,
et cetera, you've got to pay the publisher and the writers.
The curious thing is, and for years we've been fighting it,
the artist never gets paid. Every time you'd hear let's say,
(47:15):
White Christmas Bing Crosby the publisher Berlin, but not Bing
Crosby would get paid. Singers don't get paid every time
it's played.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
But how do you know here's my question. When we
did this with Buble, he's saying, like less than one
verse of something that's right? So how many words do
you have to use? Six to be then said to
say you have to pay for that right.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
It's like if you're stealing a song, they're going to
watch you to six notes. But if you've got more
than two or three bars, four bars which goes by quickly,
you've got to pay a license.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
I've got you under my skin making me sweat, Paul,
we pay put a big sens or bleep over all that.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
How did they But how do they determine the amount
that is paid?
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Well, the societies, if you will, have these rate sheets,
whether it's Aska or BMI, and they monitor everybody, you know,
certain lounges or public places, radio ets. They've got to
write out what they're using and they sit there and
there's a formula as to how much you get predicated
on words place. You know, when I had the Tonight
(48:30):
Show theme, for instance, nobody expected you know, when I
gave Johnny Carson half of it, you remember, got thrown off.
They didn't want me blah blah blah. And they put
the Tonight Show theme on our theme right, and they
only played it for fifteen seconds. There was a formula
for every television show as to how much you would
(48:52):
get paid for the theme, and we started getting X amount.
But nobody knew at that time, because even Johnny said
to me, Oh, I'm gonna do this for a couple
of years, and you know, till I find something else.
What thirty years later, what was the number this song
starts earning. It's like a slot machine into year four
(49:13):
or five, six, seven, eight. Well, the society bm I,
what have you? They're going, what the fuck? That's too
much money. They go in, they reassess it, and they
changed the formula so we'd make less money. I mean
that's okay, okay, I put kids through college. Johnny did
very well. But the game was it's beyond what we
(49:33):
think it should be worth because they're monitoring every television show,
they're monitoring every radio station as to what's played and
how you get paid.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
What are your memories of Johnny?
Speaker 2 (49:43):
How did you first get tight with him?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Where shall I start? First of all, Johnny Carson was
probably the best to this day. He was the guy,
There's no question about it. I met him early in
the sixties when he was just finding his way, you know,
he had somewhat of a career. And I was doing
a television show in London and I wanted a comedy relief.
(50:06):
I said, send me some kinescopes back then, send me
kinescope a bunch of comics. And I sat there in
London with Granada, who were producing at Granada TV, and
I start looking at a bunch of comics. Well, this
one comes on where this guy is glush, drinks all night,
but he's got to get up at six in the morning.
He's got a kiddie show. He's got to be there
at seven. These kids are all like what seven six,
(50:28):
screaming kids. But he come in hungover every night. And
it was Johnny doing this bit that after drinking and
barely getting out of bed he had to go hear
these kids and he's doing old Well. I thought it
was very funny. You'd have to see it, I said,
that guy. So Johnny comes over does the show. I
you know, I meet him, nice guy, but quiet. And
(50:49):
I go back to New York when I was finished,
and I run into him on fifty seventh Street in
a building. Hey, John, I have been a fine what
are you up to? I'm going to do this show,
you know, take it for a year or two, blah
blah blah, which I explained to you. And one thing
leads to another to where he wants a new theme
on the show, and you know that story. But through
the following years, not the easiest guy to get to know.
(51:14):
I think Seinfeld just did a whole rap on him
with somebody tearing them apart, which I'm not going to
endorse it this part, but tough to get to know.
You started hearing stories of you know, drinking too much,
and you know, some guys can drink and hold it
and some guys become warriors, you know. And now I'm
hearing you know, Sunny Warburn he owned the Jets, for instance,
(51:35):
and we all knew each other back then, Joe name
of it. Johnny shows up for whatever reason, maybe he
needed Sonny for some business though, and Johnny had been
drinking and starts fighting with the Jets football team, who
tower over everybody. Right, So it gets to the point
where they locked Johnny outside of the terrace for about
an hour until he can cool off. So it all
(51:57):
started back then, not the easiest to get to know,
and the stuff out there publicly that, you know, counterbalance
who he was and how great he was at his work.
You know. The one that I did hear that I
was just amazed at was you know, Frank created Jillie's.
Frank Sinatra created Jillie's restaurant and bar for Jillie, who
(52:19):
was his right hand, right hand, and left hand and
foot whatever he had to deal with people with. But
he was Frank's guy, and he had this bar. It
was the popular place. Well, Johnny wanted to get tight
with Frank and Frank didn't care. But after work he
and McMahon would go over to Julie's bar and on
one night, and Johnny was a drummer and wherever he
(52:41):
could he played, had Buddy rich on all the time,
but he played at home. He was a drummer, so
he'd go over there and try and sit in with
the trio that was there. But on one night he
gets there and he was lit, and he started like
grabbing the asses of these chicks at the bar and
flirting with him. What have you, blah blah blah. So
what he didn't know then was on Friday nights the
(53:02):
boys would have their side dishes there their girlfriends, mistresses
on Saturday, the wives. So now it's a Friday night
and he's carrying on with them and they're over there
drinking in the guy's notes. Anyway, they go over and
they take them, they throw them down a flight of stairs,
must have been three or four stairs down to the bathrooms,
(53:22):
and they go down. They start beating the shit out
of them. Johnny Carson, somebody's doing They're killing Johnny Carson.
Jillie had to go down stop them, you know, straighten
them out whatever. But you hear those stories, and you
know that was way back when we didn't want to
believe it. And you know, the whole drinking issue was
(53:43):
an issue with Johnny. But as I say, the best
at what he did and smart and a loner in
a sense, you know, So you know, I didn't really
get to know him. I was younger and I didn't
walk in those circles, you know. But hey, he did
what he did and he was the best at I'd
like to leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
And we wound up with the themes on which is great.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, Dad, At the silly, quick little fifteen seconds, and
here it is on our show.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Jordan. You've heard everything from me writing in the peanut
butter jars to Paul how we first met Johnny Cars
and everything in between. But if we pretty much covered
the landscape, I.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Think we might have to do a part two of
these one of these days.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
But I had a blast. Thank you so much, guys.
It's always fun to be with you.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Paul.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
We're blessed to have the best producer in the podcast world.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Jordan. There ain't no us I tell you that. How
we locked into a first time, it's like he's a blessing,
our maiden voyage and finding Jordan. We are so blessed.
Talk to you anytime you want, Jordan, anytime you want.
And we got more to our story, you know that.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
And by the way, and the story is still evolving. Yeah,
it's not just the old story. You know. There's going
to be another news story next week. I can guarantee
you that we got new stories, all right.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
Every time we call somebody that we want on, they
give us a left turn look out. We're learning a
lot from this, yeah, but we're getting great responses, Jordan,
you know, thanks to you and the team effort. We're
getting great feedback. I'm loving it.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
You guys are teaching us all about friendship and what
it means to be a good friend. And I think
that's the thing I'm the most excited to share with
people too, is that you know, between the two of
you and the friends that you have on it's really
cool to see.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
So I thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Well, you know my feeling about friendship that's paramount, you know,
and loyalty.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
This is a masterclass.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
So we've got a couple of great guests coming up,
so we're looking forward to doing it.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Yeah, we're not going to say anything. We got them.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Look Out.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Ronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
It was engineered by Todd Carlum and Graham Gibson, mixed
and mastered by the wonderful Mary Dude.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this
is Paul.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Anka and my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends
for decades and we've decided to let you in on
our late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends of us.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You're leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a sitting
president or two.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our Way.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hello everyone. My name's Jordan run Talk and one of
the producers of Our Way. Over the last few months,
we've had some amazing guests on this show, but some
of my favorite moments have been when the tapes weren't running.
I'm talking about the after hours phone chat, so the
pre show meetings when I hear the most amazing stories
from Paul and Skip, and I always thought it was
a shame that people don't get to hear them with me.
(01:22):
So today we're doing something a little different. We're turning
the tables on our hosts, Paul and Skip, and I'm
going to interview them. They are going to be guests
on their own show. What do you guys think you ready?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, not a problem. I'd like to get to know
Skip a little better. It's possible.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean that was kind of my first question. I
want to know how you guys first met.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I realized I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, I don't know precisely, Skip. Maybe you could throw
something on it to date, but I know it was
many years ago when you were working with brother Steve Winn.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah. Well, actually I've seen Paul. This is forty plus
years ago. He was performing at the Golden Nugget. I
was there to visit with Steve. I was just Steve
and I were his friends. We didn't have a business
relationship at that point. And Paul was performing at the
Golden Nugget and I went and saw the show and
it was just fantastic. I mean, the audience was just
(02:13):
he owned the audience. And then later, you know, the
next day, Steve said, what you do last night? I said,
you know, I want to see Paul ink and blah
blah blah, and he said, oh yeah, you said, he's
coming up here to the office, and Paul came up.
I actually didn't stay for you know, the time that
they were together, but you know, that's where I first
met him, was at the Golden Nugget. And then through
(02:34):
you know, through our mutual friendship with Steve Wynn, you know,
we wound up doing things together where the three of us,
you know, I mean, we've told stories about this on
a prior podcast, but you know, we flew to Monaco together,
we went to you know, we went all sorts of
places together, to Asia, you know, over to Macau, and
we were together, and you know, we started spending time together.
And ever since then, Paul is I've never had a brother,
(02:57):
but I've got one now and so certainly for the
last twenty five years, we've had this relationship where we're
always checking in at each other.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know, it's always cool when you meet somebody who's
different than the crowd, and you know, meeting Skip, you
very quickly realizes somebody special here. I don't mean in
the kind of whimsical way. And he and I clicked.
And I'm always very cautious anyway, because I'm not a
real trusting person. But after he was employed with Steve
(03:30):
and evolved into what he wanted to do. After that,
we remain friends. Maybe we became better friends because we
had more time and we had a much more away, said,
easier relationship. He was unfettered, and we've just been buddies
ever since. You know, you meet people like that and
you get to you know, what I think I said
(03:53):
on previous programs is that there's a lack of real
understanding and commitment to friendship. I think it's got to
be taught in schools. I think when you look at
in this modern society, these kids today have no idea
what a friend is. And it bothers me. You know,
I try to teach my son. But Skip and I
have beaten that in that we understand what friendship is.
(04:16):
And you know, Skip's got a lot of acquaintances and
a lot of friends, but we was that kind of
a love affair. You know, We've just known each other.
We've been pretty open and honest all the time, which
makes it work. We've never ever had a fight, and
I've told Skip the reason is that I know that
Skip is very very, very very smart, but I'm always
right and he's accepted that that's a concept of our friendship.
(04:41):
But we've had so much fun together. You know, we
laugh about a lot of things. We're very serious about
a lot of things because we we have a respect
for what's going on around us, what the world is
about people, et cetera. Because we know that, you know,
the human factor can be deadly. You know, man's inhumanity
to man is very unlike animals in the jungle who
(05:03):
are very kind to each other. So we share, we
share a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, I'll tell you when you know, you're a made
guy with this man. You know how like if you
had an encounter with Don Rickles, if he insulted you,
that's like a good thing. He loves you to be
insulted by Don Rickles. That's a big deal. So Paul
is one of the great practical jokers of all time.
And because of his you know, his singing ability. He
(05:28):
can change his voice, he can do things. I mean,
he can get you in ways that you you wouldn't
think that he could get you, but he can do it.
And when I started to become the victim, if you will,
of a couple of his practical jokes, That's when I
knew I was a maid guy. Even though I must
admit I fucking hate it. I fucking hate it. But
(05:49):
here's what I like. I like telling the story because
people love the story. Unfortunately. I'll just give you one example.
Edie and I, my wife and I. Edie and I
were at arrest.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is it Medealoe?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, I was at Medeo with two other couples. My
phone lights up that it's Paul, and of course, you know,
I take that call no matter where I am, no
matter what I'm doing. So I pick up the phone
and I said, hey, I'm out to dinner, you know,
which is code for I can't really talk right now.
And he said, oh, you're kiddy. Where are you? I said,
(06:24):
I'm at Medeo and he goes, what, I'm at Medeo?
I said, what are you talking about. I'm at Medeo.
He said, where are you? I said, I'm at the
far end, beyond the bar. There's a banquette. I'm over there.
And he goes, oh, I'm all the way in the
other end of the restaurant. He said, I'll come over
and say hello to you. He said, but I'm not
still not sure exactly where you are, so just wave,
(06:45):
just stand up and just wave for a second. Up.
So I stand up and I'm waving my arm and
at this point two waiters have come over to me
to see what it is that I need. And I'm
waving and I'm waving and I said, okay, you see me?
And he goes no. I said, what do you mean?
How do you not see me? He says, I'm short.
(07:06):
There's a lot of people here. I can't see over
these people. You just do me a favor. Stand up,
stand up to the left a little bit. So now
I move out of the bankhet I move out. I'm
out into the aisle and I'm waving my hand like this,
back and forth, back and forth. I said, you see me?
He goes no, see. I said, let me ask you
(07:26):
a question. How the fuck can you not see me?
Where are you? He said, I'm at home? I said,
what wait?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
What what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
You're no? No? Where are you here? At Midemo? Where
are you sitting? You're not listen to me? I'm home.
I'm at home.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, I think the uh. That was one of our
funny ones, but the best one. Unfortunately, it was Monte Carlo.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Let me set this one up. So Steve Wynn decides
that he'd like to have an F one race in
Las Vegas. Yeah, and he's building the Bellagio at the time,
and he wants the finish line to be under the
porkochhere of the Bolagio, which had about six lanes, I mean,
it was a big white space. So he's got this
whole thing in his head of how he's conceptualized this,
(08:14):
how it's going to work, and the whole thing. But
he's never been to an F one race, so he
wants to go to the F one in Monaco. So Paul, myself,
Bobby Baldwin, who at the time was the president of
the Mirage and who was a world champion poker player,
we get in Steve's plane and we fly to Monaco.
(08:34):
I'll segue to Paul. Let Paul tell the story.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So we arrive in Monaco and we know exactly what
we have to do, and we wind up down in
the pits with Bernie eccleston, who owned it at the time,
and we're enjoying and kind of think tanking how it's
going to work in Vegas, and we're sitting there blah blah,
blah blah blah. And we know that the schedule that
(08:57):
evolved out of the afternoon was that we got to
meet Prince Rene that night for a big cocktail party,
and everybody's all eased up to that because they're looking
forward to meeting the Prince. And we go back to
the hotel. So I'm sitting there and I've got some
time on my hands. You know, business is done back
home with the nine hour time drifence, and I'm frisky
and I've always lived with the fact that, you know,
(09:20):
humor is the final refuge of Sanitay, and I just
love having this kind of fun with people I like.
So anyway, I call up my baby boy here skip
and I said, mister Bronson, Yes, this is Peter Panzantos
over the I'm the lead point person, but Rener and
(09:42):
we know you are here with mister Steve Steve Wynn,
and we would like to have a private audience with
mister Vinn and with the Prince, just the two of them,
before the cocktail party at night. And we know that
you are the point person. Can you arrange the him
over here and we will send a car over and
(10:03):
get him here by six and he must be in
a tuxedo. He says, what he must be in a tuxedo?
He said, well, okay, but you understand that he's somewhat
impaired with you know, his eyesight. I mean, he can function,
But he said, I said, don't worry about that. We
(10:23):
have a department for impaired people to come in and
out of here all the time, from all over the world.
We will take care of him. He will see us vay,
he will be led that have him ready. So Skip
goes and he gets Steve his suite and he conveys
to him that he's got an audience with the Prince
(10:46):
and he's got to wear a tuxedo and blah blah
blah dah, and he's got to be there at this time,
and it's all arranged, and there was some questions Steve
had where Skip had to call the palace back to
really define what the pickup.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Was and try him a little bit more time.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
He can buy a little more time, so you take
it from here. Now. Skip calls the palace and here's
what happens. When he gets the palace.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I call, I asked for this gentleman that called me,
and they said, there's no one here by that name.
And I said, no, no, you're not listening. I'm with
Steve Win. Prince Regnier wants to have a private one
on one audience with him. It's been all arranged, but
I need to speak to the chief of staff to
get this. I've got a couple of things they have
(11:28):
to work out. He said, there is no such person.
He doesn't have a chief of staff. I don't know
what this is. We get crazy calls like this all
the time at the palace. Goodbye, well, hold on, hold on,
hold on. You're obviously not in the loop. You're not
in the loop. We've always worked this out. This whole
thing has been completely arranged. The guy says, this is ridiculous,
(11:54):
and the guy hangs up on me. So I don't
know what to do. And of course, first calling before
I do anything, I call Paul to tell him the
whole story. He doesn't know anything about this, right, and
I want to let him know that this happened. And
I went over to Steve's and Steve is you know.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So wait, no, wait, let me help you, honey. So
now I go to Steve's room because I know where
he's going to wind up, because He's told the guy,
you're not in the loop, and I know eventually he's
got to get over to Steve to convey whatever. So
I'm sitting there with Steve was on the phone with
Huff and Puff. That was his ex wife. He called
her Huff and Puff, and he's meanwhile, he's got me
(12:29):
looking in the closet for something black that looks like
a tuxedo. So I'm sitting there and Skip walks into
the room and he conveys to Steve to bring him
up to date. Da da da, And in calling back
the palace, Steve, I got some yoyo on the phone
and got nowhere with him. But don't worry. I told
(12:49):
the guy he wasn't in the loop. So everything's going
to be set. Da da dada. So I look at Skip,
I look at Steve, and I said, Skip, you're not
in love. There is no meeting. It's all bullshit. I
pulled the Bullini on you. We don't have to get
dressed and go to see the Prince. Steve starts laughing.
(13:12):
Skip looks at me with that sweet little pussy cat face.
It's okay, you'll be over in a couple hours, right,
So now, We're laughing all the way to the palace
where there's two hundred people have convened who've been invited
for this evening's cocktail party. And we're in line. They
keep everybody waiting in the courtyard, no matter who you are,
(13:35):
and we're still Steve is still laughing about what happened, right,
So finally they let us in and I'm elbowing Skip
along because he's now coming back to life with it.
And this guy walks, very elegant English, snobbed out dude,
and he walks by us and he tries to we
(13:58):
try to talk to him regarding what happen up in
that afternoon. Totally shit all over us as he walked by.
And then Steve says, well, I'm going to tell the
Prince about this. He'll get a kick out of it.
Remember that, Skip, And he goes over and begin and Steve,
who's better than Steve, right, he can talk an oak
tree into a beautiful pussy willow. So now he starts
(14:22):
talking to the Prince regarding the events of that afternoon,
and of course we're somewhere on the periphery watching and
Steve's the charmer of the world intelligence and he's talking
to the Prince, who is somewhat laughing, but he isn't
you know one of those Yeah, So I think he
got a kick out of it, and we just left
(14:44):
that party. We never got over it, but that was
one of my big home runs with my dear Skip what.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I still have PTSD over that one. But there's one
other thing that I was just inbellish it. You know,
if you've ever been to the White House and yes
you're going to meet the president, you wait in a line.
I remember when I first met Bill Clinton. As you
proceed through this line, there's a photographer there to take
the picture at the moment of impact. And the second
(15:13):
you shake hands with the president, it's a it's not
a shake, it's a pull. It's like, instead of shake,
you grab his hand, he pulls to get to the
next person. That was what was going on in Monte Carlo.
But Steve stopped and pitched a tent right in front
of the Prince, and I kept looking over my shoulder
(15:35):
at all these people waiting in line, like growling because
what are they doing? What's going on up there? What
the hell's going on up there?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Well, his daughter came over, don't you. Mar Caroline came
to me. She said, you have to tell him to
stop talking. I said, you go tell him. He's my friend.
I'm not gonna dumb to stop talking. Oh man, oh god,
we've had some fun there, skip we have.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We've done it.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
We've got miles of we We've done some traveling and doing.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
And I don't know you live on a hamster wheel.
I never was sounding like you're traveling. This is the
guy that goes out on tour, comes back and you think, wow,
Now he just wants to chill for a while. He'll
call me up and say, in two days, I'm going
to Hawaii. What when mean you going Hawaii? Yeah, I'm
going to Hawaii, flies to Hawaii, comes back. Now. I
(16:23):
know his tour doesn't start again for like another ten days.
So I figure, well, this is great. I'll go see
him up at the house because they'll just be hanging.
It'll call me and says he said to me, oh,
by the way, I'm going to Mexico. What when are
you going to Mexico? Tomorrow? Just Michelle, me, the kids,
We're all going down. We're going to go on Carlos
(16:43):
Slim's yacht for a few days, and what I mean,
anybody else this guy he doesn't have to recharge his battery,
just automatically recharges.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I guess you got to keep moving. Man, they throw
dirt on you. You know that. I love it, and hey,
I've been blessed with a great life, you know. But
living well is the best revenge. And I just keep moving.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
So my routine is barely simple, and that is you know,
I get up early, really early, go online, read all
the newspapers, look at my messages in the night before
this happens, like at five o'clock in the morning, and
then work from my office at home. And then later,
like at about nine o'clock, I go to my office
office in Beverly Hills alongside the Peninsula Hotel. And then
(17:28):
if I get a chance to look to run up
to my golf club and go on the drive me
range and hit some balls and just you know, maybe
play nine holes. You know this point, I played eighteen
holes only on weekends typically, and then I go home,
have dinner. We got more often than I have dinner
at home or go out a restaurant with friends. And
(17:48):
Paul knows we have a screening room and that's you know,
Saturday night, that's where everybody comes to see the movies
because somehow I got onto the Bellier circuit where I
get all the first run movies. But Paul's routine is
so different from mine because first of all, he still
has a relatively young son at home living with him.
But tell them, give him a little about your routine.
(18:09):
Tell them your what is your daily routine.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
We understand a routine, which is cool because we know
when not to call and when to call. And you know,
my thing is, you know, for years working let's say
Vegas with those guys the rat Pack, right you you
get locked into you know, go to bed two three
at night. By the time you did two shows and
then you hung out, your body starts getting geared for
(18:33):
that kind of life. Mind changed when we started having kids.
You know, my wife may she rest I had a
pretty good routine raising five girls and ultimately moving up
to Carmel, California, putting them with the nuns. Uh, you know,
trying to keep track of these kids. But when you're
a creative person, and I think both of you can
appreciate it because we're all in that kind of mold.
(18:56):
When the ideas come, you know, you got to go
with it because it's just not something I'm going to
sit down and do. So I'm so used to working
late at night when there is no distractions and I've
got to write. And when you're writing music and words
what have you, as you both know, you're sitting in
that capsule and you're waiting for it to happen. So
(19:18):
with that and raising Ethan, getting this young son of mine,
one hundred percent of the time, I changed my whole
life around and you know, got rid of my offices
and all the space and I literally moved everything into
a house where I could raise this boy. Right. And
on top of that, my schedule is when I have
to write. I can't really put a lot of substance
(19:41):
during the day because I got other things bothering me.
So I'm you know, I mean, I'll get my sleep
when I have to. When I'm on the road, I've
got to get eight hours, you know. When I'm home,
I'll work till two three in the morning. I've got
Todd who works with me, our engineer. We'll record till
two three in the morning. And the people that show
up to record with us. That's part of it. If
you look at a lot of artists, they like to
(20:02):
record at night. Your voice is open, no distractions, what
have you. So with that it averages out where when
Skip is sleeping, I'm up, so I'm not going to
call him, and I'm up to as I said, two
or three, but I'll sleep till maybe eleven to get
my rest from my voice, in my health. And then
I've got a routine of what I eat, how I eat.
(20:23):
You know, I've got certain little tricks that apply. I
drink lemon juice at night. I got a certain drink
made in the morning. I don't eat this, I don't
eat that, and it's worked. You know. This body's not
a fluke. So I'm pretty locked into because I know
what the results are. My latest is a seaweed tea.
When I was in Japan. Friend of mine who's got
(20:45):
the top restaurant over there, there's a farm outside of
Tokyo and it's the only farm. And if you know
the Japanese culture and realize from their fruit to everything,
they're on their game. They know what to do. Man,
it's amazing. And he gives everybody these three or four
chips of seaweed and your pour hot water when you're eating,
(21:06):
and it's great for digestion, great for the heart when
you read up and I won't bore you with it,
but if you read up the benefits of seaweed, you'll
find it really is beneficial, like green tea. So I
have these chips in bags shipped to me from this
firm that's the only farm that makes it for the restaurant,
and that's what I have. I'll drink it all day,
(21:27):
I'll drink it after a meal. So it's finding those
things that's helping me function to where when I've got
to go on stage where I've got to sing, the
body's working because I've seen too many people around me
from the rat pack to guys with the abuse that
you can do to your body that you can't function
and go on stage. And you know all of us
have seen that. You've seen performers that go on whacked
(21:49):
out whatever. So it's all of that kind of stuff
and that fits into the working order of skip an eye,
and you know, we kind of understand each other that way.
You know, it doesn't mean that we're not going to
get the full menu of what's happening all the time.
If it's catching up or whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
We're all over it.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
So you're back from well, you just got back from
the East Coast. Did you golf at all?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
It's so funny you brought that up. So I never
take typically a two week trip to New York. But
I'm on these three public company boards, and as it
lined up, and I had something to do with lining
it up this way, they met consecutively over a total
of two weeks. So I didn't have to fly to Miami.
I don't have to fly to Dallas. Everything was done
(22:46):
in one place. But it was two weeks is a
long time. I had a great time. Saw an amazing
show on Broadway, one of the best dramas I've seen,
called Patriots, just amazing, the story of the creation of
Vladimir Putin, if you will buy the Zla Girk who
essentially invented him. But that was great anyway, So I'm busy,
but I for whatever reason, I took my golf clubs
(23:09):
with me, had them packed up in a big, you know,
travel bag, probably weighs fifty pounds all in, and I
had it in my hotel room and I was sitting
with it in the hotel room for about five days,
and I'm thinking, I'm not going to play golf. I'll
send my clubs back. So I Federal Expressed my clubs back,
and you know usually you don't select next day, but
(23:31):
probably second day for something that size. So sent it
back second day. I get back to my club here
in LA and I said, we sent my clubs up
front to the pro shop and they said, we don't
have your clubs. I said, no, no, what do you
mean you don't have my clubs. You took your clubs.
I think you went to New York or something with them,
(23:52):
but we don't have your clubs. I said, that's impossible.
I sent them back here more than a week ago.
So cut to Aaron. Thankfully, you know, she can do anything,
find anything. We had the tracking number, so I said, well,
here's the tracking number. So she looks and it says
the clubs are still in New York. They're not even
(24:14):
in transit. I'm like what. So we called the hotel
and said, how did you not give the clubs to
Federal Express. They said no, no, Federal Express had them,
and they send us pictures of surveillance in the hotel
where you can see the Federal Express driver you see
my golf bag. You see him take the golf bag.
(24:35):
So we know the Federal Express has him. So I'm
pulling out every stunt. My friend Fred Purpaul is on
the board of Federal Express, so I called him. I
got him involved. Anyway, All of a sudden, it dawns
on me, Wait a second, I've got an air tag
on my golf bag, you know, an Apple air tag
where you can find things from your phone. So it
(24:57):
dawns on me yesterday, click on it, and the golf
clubs are somewhere on West thirty fourth Street, and it
looks like a residential building. So now I'm thinking somebody
stole my golf clubs. They're in somebody's apartment on West
thirty fourth Street. So then Erin, being Aaron, you know,
she looks and finds out that that address is actually
(25:20):
one of the Federal Express offices. So the end of
the stories, we call there and they can't find the clubs.
Now we said, wait a minute, wait a minute, you can't.
I can find them. I'm three thousand miles away. They're
in your warehouse, and I know where they are, and
you don't know where they are. So this one I'm
back and forth for I don't know anyway. I'm not
(25:41):
sure if it was you know, Fred Purpaul called. He
said to me, the chairman of the boards, I'll looking
for your clubs, no joke. So I don't know how
this happened, but today my golf clubs came back Hell
the next day Federal Express. The end of that long
winded story is these Apple air tags. They're worth their
weight and goal.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh I love them. I keep track all my luggage.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, especially you you're traveling all over the world.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
You know. The craziest thing happened to me is you
talk about luggage and loss. I was working in Canada
on TV show and at the culmination of the series
would end months later. Me, my orchestra, we all had
to get on flights. I had a plane at the time,
and we all had to get to la Let's say
(26:27):
it was a Tuesday, and get on a plane Wednesday
Wednesday to go to Hong Kong. Now I got to
move a band, me, et cetera. Back then I think
it was Western Skip You remember Western Airlines. Yeah, how
unreliable they were, et cetera. The short of it is,
all my guys get on a plane. All the luggage
(26:48):
in the music is coming to Vegas, where I lived
at the time. I land early on my plane. I
get to my house and I get a phone call
from my assistant and she said, Western is late again.
The boys and the luggage. I won't get here until
the evening. We don't think we can get the luggage
tomorrow because customs are now holding all the luggage. I said,
(27:10):
but we've got a plane, no more now Hong Kong.
We but they won't release it. I get in my
station wagon with one of my assistants and we drive
out to mccaren field and I go into this customs
area and there's a guy. Well, you know their attitude,
power driven, I said to the guy, I said, sir Bob,
we did the show and paul Anka and I've got
(27:31):
my music and my guy and I'm looking behind him
and there's a net over all the luggage and all
the music, this huge net. I said, By the way,
that's that's our stuff, our music. So I'm sorry I
can't help you. You have to come back tomorrow, I said,
We've got to be on an airplane. We need that. Sorry,
come back, don't bother me. I backed the station wagon
(27:52):
into this open area to where the net is. I
start loading all the luggage and the music into my
station wagon as much as I could hold. And this
guy's looking at you can't do that, you gots America.
I said, I'm doing it. I'm going to Hong Kong, right.
So I load up what I know I need and
(28:14):
I bring everything to my house. And now I think
I'm set to go to Hong Kong, and I start
unpacking stuff that I know I need. I unpacked this.
I get a phone call from my attorney the next morning.
He said, did you break into an area at the
(28:35):
customs out at Macaren and loaded? I said, yeah, I did.
I said, we're leaving, you know, on the night flight.
We got to get to Hong Kong. He said, well,
you're in trouble. He said, you'd better send that luggage back.
So I said, but he said, you better send it back.
You've got a shitload of trouble coming. So I unpacked
(28:55):
the stuff that I know we need, and I start
putting books in from my library to fill the bags
with what I think. Fade out, fade in. Now, I
got lawyers, I got the American government all over my ass.
You took this luggage, you were smuggling in drugs, you
were smuggling in a body. I mean, you wouldn't believe
(29:17):
that shit that were town at me. Now I'm in
Hong Kong with the stuff my lawyers are calling me.
I got the top guy in Vegas, I got a
guy in Washington. You smuggled a body, and you took
this anyway. It gets to the point where I now
have to go in front of the district attorney in
Las Vegas and I'm working at the Riviera Hotel and
(29:40):
he sits me down. He said, you know, I would
be much more severe and what you did. But I
know what you're about. He said. I used to be
a dishwasher at Caesar's Palace and you always came in
every time you do a show, through the kitchen to
get to the stage. You never went to the public areas,
(30:02):
and you were the only guy that would stop and
talk to us. And I was just earning nothing, trying
to get my way through through college, and you would
bring a CDs and you'd be so kind. He said,
I know that you're not the guy that they said
you are, and I'm going to fit you with a
twenty five thousand bubba and it was all over. And
(30:23):
this guy today is one of the top attorneys in
Las Vegas. Wow, you talk about luggage, Huh, that's crazy.
Is then a wild story? I was smuggling in a
body drugs. I mean, they throw everything at you, right.
You know your.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Career, you know is an independent contractor, you know, and
I know you had We've talked before about odd jobs
and whatever, but you ever in your life have a
salaried job. Ever?
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Well, when I was a kid, I worked as a waiter,
go salaried. I worked as a caddie, salaried. But skip,
you have to understand, I was writing music at fourteen.
I left at fourteen to go to New York because
I collected super wrappers, because I wanted to get to
New York. That's a whole other story, Campbell's soup. When
I get home, I had jobs, you know. I worked
in restaurants, I was the caddy, I had a paper route.
(31:14):
But after that, from age fifteen on, I was in
Hello Dreamland, show business.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That was it. You've always worked for yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Always? And then I had you know, managers, but I've
never had real partners. Other than Irfeld.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
My first job on salary. I was sixteen years old.
My mother marched me down to the local supermarket called
the Popular Supermarket, told me to give me a job.
And you know, probably the lowest scale job in the
supermarket is facing the shelves. I don't know if you
know what that means. But somebody comes along. Let's say,
(31:52):
there's you know, heinz ketchup, So somebody takes a bottle.
Another person comes along, they take a bottle. Now it's
it's hard to see the ketchup. So the job facing
the shelves meant that you would take whatever was on
that shelf and bring it forward, So you'd have to
walk down the aisle, do every aisle in the supermarket,
one after another, and then start over again. The same
(32:14):
way they say. You know, when they paint the George
Washington Bridge, by the time they finished, it's time, you know,
to paint it again. You know, I got to start over.
So you're constantly doing that and facing the shelves. It's
the worst job. And I have to tell you my
friend Larry David's wife Ashley, who I'm totally crazy about,
this is one of her favorite stories. So when I
(32:35):
was doing this job. It was so mindless and it
was so boring. And you know, this is before the
days of you know, being able to put buds in
your ear and listen to music or look at a smartphone.
This was just the most tedious, boring job. And back
in the day, food wasn't sealed. Like if you wanted
(32:56):
to buy a bottle of ketchup, you just open it
right up. You know. Now everything's got one of the
you know, incredible seals on it, and then something even
below the seal. But then you just open things up.
You know, it's just very simple. So one of my
things that I would do when I was bored is
I would take a toothpick, go over to the peanut
butter aisle, take a jar of peanut butter, take the
(33:18):
top off, and with the toothpick right fuck you in
the peanut butter, and then screw the cap back on,
put it back on the shelf. And I can't tell
you how many times I'd be working in the store
facing the shelves and I'd look toward the manager's desk
and this irate and irate woman would be there folding
(33:38):
a jar of peanut butter. Pointing with her index finger
like like, look at this, look at this, look at this.
And I was about fifty yards away watching this. And
the manager, his name was Tom Wassel. He would glare
at me. He couldn't ever catch me doing it, but
he knew that I had to be the guy that
put it. He would just look over whoever the person
(34:00):
who was talking to, look over their shoulder. If he
could spot me and give me a look, that would
just kill because he knew you, son of a bitch,
I know you that's doing this. But the greatest joy
was not writing fuck you in the peanut butter. The
greatest joy was the thought of some person that gets
home from the grocery store. They unpack all this stuff whatever.
(34:22):
One of their kids says, Mommy, can I get a
peanut butter jelly sandwich. She'd take the lid off the
peanut butter and said that, I can't explain to you
that I was making a dollar twenty five an hour. Yeah,
I had to join the Amalgamated meat Cutters and butcher
Workmen of North Americay. Had he gives them part yea Yeah,
you had to give them part of your dollar and
(34:44):
a quarter an hour. Yeah, yeah, but the joy that
I used to get out of doing this with those
jars of peanut butter, it was just, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
It was My only experience was the Campbell soup thing,
you know, at fourteen or fifteen, when I heard about
New York and how to get there. We didn't have
any money, you know. And when I read in the
paper IgA Campbell soup contest forty kids from Canada, whoever
collects the most wrappers gets to go to New York.
(35:12):
I'm down. So I go down to this guy Abraham,
who owned the place down on Somerset, and I said,
can I have a job. I want to pack the
bags and I was clocking all the women who come
through when I pack it with Campbell soup. And then
I'd go over to the island look at the Campbell
soup to see what I could rip off in the
pack and put the ones in the But I was
collecting Campbell soup and I was going to these homes
(35:34):
with these women. But anyway, I won, right, I won
for my district, and next thing you know, I'm going
to New York. They gave us a box lunch which
was warp by the time we got to New York,
watered down pickles and shit, and we get to New
York and I'm staying at the y Sloanhouse. The Sloanhouse,
the way I'm saying, that was my first introduction. I'd
(35:55):
never seen anything like New York. And on Canada there
was no high rises and that was it through Campbell
Super Rappers at IgA.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
How old were you when you wrote Diana, you were?
How old?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Fifteen ish? Fourteen to fifteen? I went down on Easter vacation,
recorded it in May. I was fifteen. By the time
I turned sixteen, I was on Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
So is it based on a real experience?
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Oh well, I wish there was an experience. She had
nothing to do with me.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
When you say I'm so young and you're so old?
There you go, how old were you? And how old
was this victim? Here? You?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
No, No, I was a victim. She was loving it.
So here I am at fifteen? Yeah, I had a
crush on this girl, Diana, who's three years older. Really attractive.
But you have to go back to the fifties when
sexuality and that whole social thing was you know, if
you're too short if you're too old, if you're too.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
And at that age, that's a big gap, three years big.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah. So she wanted nothing to do with me. Nothing.
So I sit down and I'm playing piano now because
I got thrown out a shorthand, and I'm taking piano
lessons because I'm really a huge fan of music. And
I start, you know, I started because I won three
awards in school for my short stories, and everybody say, ah,
you're a writer. So my dad gets me a gig
(37:21):
at the Ottawa Citizen as a cub reporter. But at
home and with my piano lessons, I'm writing songs. So
I start, I'm so young, you're so old. This is
my darling I've been told because everybody kept telling me
she's too old and you're too young, and nothing's going
to happen. Not Shakespeare, just kid with a feeling and
wrote with what I saw, and you become what you see.
(37:41):
And I wrote it. I didn't know, and then you know,
when I left home with that and a few songs
in my pocket, I get to New York in front
of all the suits and it becomes a hit. I
go back to Ottawa and there's parades and all that
stuff going on. Now She's looking at me like I'm
Troy Donahue, right, I'd already traveled and done, and I said,
(38:04):
this ain't gonna work anymore, honey words, I'm over it.
And nothing ever came of it.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
That was it. That was it.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
But I thank you for the inspiration.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
And I love when you still start your show when
you come in from the back of the audience to
walk toward the stage and you start seeing Diana and
people just go wild. They go wild, And then I
could do I could do your act. I've seen it
enough times. I like when you say, okay, I had
to get that out of the way.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I love you madly, but I'd love to see you
try it once.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I know. Adie always says to me when she's nervous,
and if we're a private plane or a helicopter and
there's turbulence and she gets nervous, really scared. I always
look over and say, listen, I guarantee you I can
get this plane on the ground. Of course, I don't
tell her that I can get it on the ground
at one piece. I can just get it on the ground.
(38:54):
But the same way I could do your act. You know,
I could never do your act.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I was telling Michelle the other day because we flew
fifteen hours from Asia back home fifteen hours now, I said,
you know what, when I think when I was fifteen
years old and I'm on those prop planes going to Asia,
I don't know how the hell I did it. Those
props took so long and so many stops, and I'm
(39:20):
on there with Jerry Lee Lewis, who hated me. I
was this kid, very successful and he was crazy, so
down there with Buddy Hard but we would sit on
these prop planes skip. I don't know how the hell
I did it. And then when somebody said maybe close
to nineteen sixty where they got these jet engines, I'm
I ain't getting on that. What do you mean a
jet engine? No? Fuck, what is a jetit? I was
(39:42):
scared to death to get on a jet.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
We talked about this on the Mark Burnett podcast. But
when he and I were on a plane and forty
one thousand feet a private jet and lost an engine,
it wasn't dicey, but it was you know, you can't
help but think, you know. And Mark looked over me.
He said, are we going to die? And I said yes,
but not today.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
You know, years ago with the Beatles thing hit, and
I'm traveling all over the world and enjoying all of
that stuff. I'd hit every country and the Beatles hit,
and you know, I'm evolving as a writer. And I
decided to move to Italy part time because I loved
Italy and I wanted to record an Italian and I
wanted to give back to Germany. Were recorded in German
and French, and I go to Italy and I used
(40:41):
to fly from New York t w A all the
way over for my stay in Italy, and I got
to know them so well. They invite me up to
the cockpit and I'd sit there wa with these pilots
that you know that'd sit in the chair you were allowed.
Back then, there was none of this terrorist shit. I'll
never fear. One day, we're landing in Rome and that's
(41:02):
a t w A good land your room and a
latitude sixty five or two three thirty thousand feet and
the ground. Go back to the pilots. I'm sitting there here,
that's all right over there. And then make a left
turn of the longer two to six or two okay,
right now with a five or seven or two three,
(41:23):
But you gave it the same coordinance to the PanAm
plant coming in from the north. What's what's going on?
And the ground goes, that's all right, lookout. I'll never
forget that. That's all right, lookout, said there's a ship.
What do you mean?
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Lookout?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
You know it was so different back then, you know,
you didn't have all this great stuff in the cockpit.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Now, speaking of technology, I love a great app. If
somebody tells you about new apps. But there are two
apps I was going to mention you and the Jordan.
Jordan's get a kick out of it too. Don't know
if you're familiar with this search engine called Perplexity. It's
an app that you must download on your phone. If
you're searching for something in Google, you know, you just
(42:07):
type it in the box and Google spits out an answer.
Perplexity gives you so much detail. If I typed in
who is Paul Anka? Not only will it tell me
you know anything that's on Wikipedia, it'll show pictures of you,
it'll talk, it'll show your tour schedule, it'll show Oh,
the depth that it goes to is extraordinary. So that's Perplexity.
(42:29):
The other one people who are using AI apps and
chat GPT is you know, always been one of them,
but now there's an app called chat GPT four. I
was at a board meeting in New York this past week,
and I chair the Nominating Governance Committee. So I was
(42:51):
thinking at this meeting, the meeting prior, the people that
gave reports, like on the Compensation Committee, Nominating Governance Committee,
the committee, it was taking them too long. Their reports
were too long. So I typed into chat gpt, what's
a good way to get people on boards to give
(43:11):
reports that are not very lengthy? Fifteen seconds it's spit
out literally five or seven pages with ideas of how
to motivate people to summarize and talk about strategy and
list and then a letter. It wrote a letter that
you could write to each person that's on the committee.
(43:32):
The letter was in there on chat GPT four. This
is I mean, no one is going to replace songwriters
like you. I mean, everybody knows you as a performer,
but you know, I think of you is obviously much
more than that, and being such a prolific songwriter, but
you're going to be able to write songs using AI.
(43:52):
That is just going to be I mean now they
can the way I talked to at the very beginning
of this podcast about you in the way you can
disguise your voice. It can replicate your voice. You can
have something you just just give it a little snippet
of your voice, and it can take your voice and
sing my way in your voice, not in Paul's voice,
(44:15):
in my voice, and it actually sounds like I'm singing
the song. So I mean, I think you know we're
getting into a place because Paul keeps talking about the
changes in the way things were, in the way things are,
and you know how extraordinary it's been. This stuff is
next level.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Man, that's right. AI is the future.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
And obviously we know about the applications Jordan in health
and healthcare and you know all you know how pharmaceuticals
will be created. I know all that, But just in
the arts, in entertainment, the things that they're already doing.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
That's right, just over a lot of people out of work.
You know, it's between the AI and the aliens. You
know my rap on that, but indigenous to what you
were talking about. You know, one of my special moments
is when I hear from my friend Warren Buffett and
I don't like to drop names. But he called me
a while back. He said, Bill Gates is here with
(45:10):
me and he's showing me this. Gee. What was that
first machine? That's something? Gee? He said. I asked the
machine to give me four different versions of my way,
and it spit it out in one minute. I said, really, Warren,
He said yeah, And I knew then that day when
he told me what was coming down the road. It
(45:31):
was amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
And how long ago was that?
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Two years ago?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Really?
Speaker 1 (45:37):
I guess Gates was hip to it and took it
to Warren and he was showing Warren what it could do.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
You know, you use it, Jordan, you use any ai
or too much.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
The thing that I'm most fascinated by with it is
the voice cloning. There's versions of you know, okay, you
can hear Paul McCartney sing an Amy Winehouse song or
a Stevie Wonder song. And there's this whole little cottage
industry of people on YouTube that are using the voice
cloning software to have Frank Sinatra singer, Michael Jackson song
or something like that. And it's it's interesting to me.
(46:10):
I mean, I the ethics of it are a whole
other question but just purely from curiosity. I think it's
interesting in the way that early hip hop samplers were
interesting too. I think that, you know, there's a way
to make it artful, but I know that the ethics
around it are pretty dubious at times.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, it's going to be an experience for a lot
of people that are not expecting. Yeah, deadly.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
The rights issues. You know, I've learned a lot on
this podcast about rights issues because we've had people like
Michael bubleon and he wants to sing you know, White Christmas,
and he didn't write it, he doesn't own it. And
it turns out that iHeart has to pay a fee.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
That's what our world's about. Skip, I've got b M
I or as gap. I mean, basically, what is every
time a song is used in any fashion, whether it's
on radio or CDs, when they were sold, et cetera,
et cetera, you've got to pay the publisher and the writers.
The curious thing is, and for years we've been fighting it,
the artist never gets paid. Every time you'd hear let's say,
(47:15):
White Christmas Bing Crosby the publisher Berlin, but not Bing
Crosby would get paid. Singers don't get paid every time
it's played.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
But how do you know here's my question. When we
did this with Buble, he's saying, like less than one
verse of something that's right? So how many words do
you have to use? Six to be then said to
say you have to pay for that right.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
It's like if you're stealing a song, they're going to
watch you to six notes. But if you've got more
than two or three bars, four bars which goes by quickly,
you've got to pay a license.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
I've got you under my skin making me sweat, Paul,
we pay put a big sens or bleep over all that.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
How did they But how do they determine the amount
that is paid?
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Well, the societies, if you will, have these rate sheets,
whether it's Aska or BMI, and they monitor everybody, you know,
certain lounges or public places, radio ets. They've got to
write out what they're using and they sit there and
there's a formula as to how much you get predicated
on words place. You know, when I had the Tonight
(48:30):
Show theme, for instance, nobody expected you know, when I
gave Johnny Carson half of it, you remember, got thrown off.
They didn't want me blah blah blah. And they put
the Tonight Show theme on our theme right, and they
only played it for fifteen seconds. There was a formula
for every television show as to how much you would
(48:52):
get paid for the theme, and we started getting X amount.
But nobody knew at that time, because even Johnny said
to me, Oh, I'm gonna do this for a couple
of years, and you know, till I find something else.
What thirty years later, what was the number this song
starts earning. It's like a slot machine into year four
(49:13):
or five, six, seven, eight. Well, the society bm I,
what have you? They're going, what the fuck? That's too
much money. They go in, they reassess it, and they
changed the formula so we'd make less money. I mean
that's okay, okay, I put kids through college. Johnny did
very well. But the game was it's beyond what we
(49:33):
think it should be worth because they're monitoring every television show,
they're monitoring every radio station as to what's played and
how you get paid.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
What are your memories of Johnny?
Speaker 2 (49:43):
How did you first get tight with him?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Where shall I start? First of all, Johnny Carson was
probably the best to this day. He was the guy,
There's no question about it. I met him early in
the sixties when he was just finding his way, you know,
he had somewhat of a career. And I was doing
a television show in London and I wanted a comedy relief.
(50:06):
I said, send me some kinescopes back then, send me
kinescope a bunch of comics. And I sat there in
London with Granada, who were producing at Granada TV, and
I start looking at a bunch of comics. Well, this
one comes on where this guy is glush, drinks all night,
but he's got to get up at six in the morning.
He's got a kiddie show. He's got to be there
at seven. These kids are all like what seven six,
(50:28):
screaming kids. But he come in hungover every night. And
it was Johnny doing this bit that after drinking and
barely getting out of bed he had to go hear
these kids and he's doing old Well. I thought it
was very funny. You'd have to see it, I said,
that guy. So Johnny comes over does the show. I
you know, I meet him, nice guy, but quiet. And
(50:49):
I go back to New York when I was finished,
and I run into him on fifty seventh Street in
a building. Hey, John, I have been a fine what
are you up to? I'm going to do this show,
you know, take it for a year or two, blah
blah blah, which I explained to you. And one thing
leads to another to where he wants a new theme
on the show, and you know that story. But through
the following years, not the easiest guy to get to know.
(51:14):
I think Seinfeld just did a whole rap on him
with somebody tearing them apart, which I'm not going to
endorse it this part, but tough to get to know.
You started hearing stories of you know, drinking too much,
and you know, some guys can drink and hold it
and some guys become warriors, you know. And now I'm
hearing you know, Sunny Warburn he owned the Jets, for instance,
(51:35):
and we all knew each other back then, Joe name
of it. Johnny shows up for whatever reason, maybe he
needed Sonny for some business though, and Johnny had been
drinking and starts fighting with the Jets football team, who
tower over everybody. Right, So it gets to the point
where they locked Johnny outside of the terrace for about
an hour until he can cool off. So it all
(51:57):
started back then, not the easiest to get to know,
and the stuff out there publicly that, you know, counterbalance
who he was and how great he was at his work.
You know. The one that I did hear that I
was just amazed at was you know, Frank created Jillie's.
Frank Sinatra created Jillie's restaurant and bar for Jillie, who
(52:19):
was his right hand, right hand, and left hand and
foot whatever he had to deal with people with. But
he was Frank's guy, and he had this bar. It
was the popular place. Well, Johnny wanted to get tight
with Frank and Frank didn't care. But after work he
and McMahon would go over to Julie's bar and on
one night, and Johnny was a drummer and wherever he
(52:41):
could he played, had Buddy rich on all the time,
but he played at home. He was a drummer, so
he'd go over there and try and sit in with
the trio that was there. But on one night he
gets there and he was lit, and he started like
grabbing the asses of these chicks at the bar and
flirting with him. What have you, blah blah blah. So
what he didn't know then was on Friday nights the
(53:02):
boys would have their side dishes there their girlfriends, mistresses
on Saturday, the wives. So now it's a Friday night
and he's carrying on with them and they're over there
drinking in the guy's notes. Anyway, they go over and
they take them, they throw them down a flight of stairs,
must have been three or four stairs down to the bathrooms,
(53:22):
and they go down. They start beating the shit out
of them. Johnny Carson, somebody's doing They're killing Johnny Carson.
Jillie had to go down stop them, you know, straighten
them out whatever. But you hear those stories, and you
know that was way back when we didn't want to
believe it. And you know, the whole drinking issue was
(53:43):
an issue with Johnny. But as I say, the best
at what he did and smart and a loner in
a sense, you know, So you know, I didn't really
get to know him. I was younger and I didn't
walk in those circles, you know. But hey, he did
what he did and he was the best at I'd
like to leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
And we wound up with the themes on which is great.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, Dad, At the silly, quick little fifteen seconds, and
here it is on our show.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Jordan. You've heard everything from me writing in the peanut
butter jars to Paul how we first met Johnny Cars
and everything in between. But if we pretty much covered
the landscape, I.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Think we might have to do a part two of
these one of these days.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
But I had a blast. Thank you so much, guys.
It's always fun to be with you.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Paul.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
We're blessed to have the best producer in the podcast world.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Jordan. There ain't no us I tell you that. How
we locked into a first time, it's like he's a blessing,
our maiden voyage and finding Jordan. We are so blessed.
Talk to you anytime you want, Jordan, anytime you want.
And we got more to our story, you know that.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
And by the way, and the story is still evolving. Yeah,
it's not just the old story. You know. There's going
to be another news story next week. I can guarantee
you that we got new stories, all right.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
Every time we call somebody that we want on, they
give us a left turn look out. We're learning a
lot from this, yeah, but we're getting great responses, Jordan,
you know, thanks to you and the team effort. We're
getting great feedback. I'm loving it.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
You guys are teaching us all about friendship and what
it means to be a good friend. And I think
that's the thing I'm the most excited to share with
people too, is that you know, between the two of
you and the friends that you have on it's really
cool to see.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
So I thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Well, you know my feeling about friendship that's paramount, you know,
and loyalty.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
This is a masterclass.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
So we've got a couple of great guests coming up,
so we're looking forward to doing it.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Yeah, we're not going to say anything. We got them.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Look Out.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Ronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
It was engineered by Todd Carlum and Graham Gibson, mixed
and mastered by the wonderful Mary Dude.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Paul Anka
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