November 2, 2023 • 39 mins
Joe Escalante's weekly drive thru the business end of showbiz. This week: the latest box office numbers, and Joe's feelings about the Milli Vanilli Documentary. Remember them? The guys that lip synced other people songs? Turns out it really wasn't their fault! Moral of the story: always blame the producer!
Also, the latest info from the SAG/AFTRA strike. The writers were able to take care of business, but things are still heated between the companies and the actors. Joe gives his observations on how things are going, and where things are going wrong. And, British celebs behaving badly!
Also, the latest info from the SAG/AFTRA strike. The writers were able to take care of business, but things are still heated between the companies and the actors. Joe gives his observations on how things are going, and where things are going wrong. And, British celebs behaving badly!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Joe Escalante live from Hollywood. Ifby Hollywood you mean Burbank across the street
from a Wiener Schnitzel that serves beer. This is two hours of the business,
end of show business. We doit every Sunday on KEIB eleven fifty
on your AM dial and later youcan listen to the podcast version at iHeartRadio,
(00:28):
iHeartMedia or Apple Podcasts wherever you getyour podcasts. And today we are
we are live today, right,no preemptions from the NFL. So let's
get to the movies. At themovies this week, I didn't go to
(00:50):
the movies because I was up inmy cabin in Big Bear and they were
only showing two movies that I hadalready seen and other than the Taylor Swift
movie, which I was going togo to, but they only showing it
on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.Couldn't make it those days, or I
think it was just Friday and Saturdayand Sunday that movie. Even though the
(01:15):
some theaters do this, they don'tshow it every day. They show it
on the weekends and it's pretty long. They can't have a lot of showings.
It's twenty dollars more than any othermovie, and it is raking in
the cash. So let's see exactlywhat it did. Oh, it did
(01:37):
another fourteen million this week. Thenumber one movie of the year, sorry
of the week is five Nights atFreddy's, based on the popular video game.
It did wow, seventy eight million. That's higher than expected. People
were saying fifty million is going todo more than fifty could it possibly do
(01:59):
more than sixty seventy eight million dollarsat the box office? Power video games
in that generation now just old enoughto go to the movies. Taylor Swift
did fourteen million. As I said, Killers of the Flower Moon, which
I walked out on nine million.That has done a total of forty million.
(02:24):
How much did it cost? Idon't know, two hundred million something
like that. But it's too long, too boring, and we'll talk about
that a little bit later. Tosome other things about it. Oh,
he joined, Oh, let meget, Let me get, Let me
get the whole top ten down afterdeath from Angel Studios. It's a Christian
movie. Did five million, prettygood. The Exorcists still hanging in there.
(02:50):
I've got not good reviews, butmaking some money. Fifty nine million
total. Then Pap Patrol starting todecline, but still pretty successful. Freelance
movie I don't really know about andThe Night Before Christmas of Course comes back
make some money. Saw ten stillin the theaters and Creator number ten It's
(03:10):
made thirty eight million, the mostunderrated movie of the year. Definitely go
see Creator, The Creator. It'sa good movie. Now. I did
see a movie or two. Iwatched a movie that was a Milli Vanilli
documentary on Paramount Plus, so commercialfree on Paramount Plus. It's a great
documentary. If you don't have PaaramountPlus, you're not gonna see the Milli
(03:35):
Vanilli documentary. I don't know ifyou remember that the guy there's there's a
guy named Febrius, a guy namedRobert, and Robert killed himself after you
know, the Milli Vanilli scandal endedhis career, and then it's alcohol,
(04:00):
drugs, and eventually he takes hisown life. You know, a documentary
has to have a compelling story oflike why why is this documentary going to
be made now? And what isthe message? Is it just more footage
and interviews and people patting themselves onthe back about something that they were involved
(04:20):
in. It's my least favorite kindof documentary, but this one is a
you know, it's a cautionary tale, of course, and it is really
worth watching. The two guys.The story is incredible how they found each
other in Europe and they just wantedto be famous, and it seemed like
(04:45):
they worked very hard to try tobe famous and to sing and dance.
Nick Ken sing and dance. Butwhen they met this guy, Frank Farion,
he wouldn't let them sing. Hejust liked their look. So he's
a German. He thought he couldmake money off their luck. So he
would hire other black people that couldsing but didn't look as good. Put
(05:09):
him together with these guys that lookgood, and presto, he's got himself
a a hit. Now, ofcourse, we know that they, you
know, climbed all the way tothe top of the music business and then
at some point they were exposed asthe people not that they can't sing,
(05:32):
that they weren't the ones singing onthe record that was released that said they
were the singers on it, andthat didn't they weren't the ones that were
singing on the tracks that they wereplaying while they were lip syncing at the
concerts. Now there's no shame inlip syncing at concerts. Well maybe there
is shame, but it's not unusual. They's just everybody's doing it. And
(05:57):
you know, people are just like, I'm going to make these tracks sound
perfect and then I'm gonna go onstage and they're gonna be great and I
don't have to worry about all thestage conditions. See a lot more of
this, like maybe outdoor shows.Taylor Swift, you know, doesn't have
to do it. She's got avery controlled environment. She's got a great
voice, he's young, she's energetic. But it happens all the time.
I saw Millie Vanilli after it hadhad been learned that maybe they weren't singing
(06:24):
they were lip syncing. But tome, I was like, well a
lot of people do that. SoI went to see them. I was
on stage watching them, like justoff to the side, and they were
singing. You know, they hadtheir microphones turned on. The microphones would
turn on like maybe someone turned themon towards the end of the song or
(06:44):
something. I don't know, butyou know at the end you can hear,
you know, they're talking and they'resinging, clearly singing a little bit.
I couldn't tell, but I rememberseeing the young MC that night.
He wasn't singing at all. Hewas totally lip syncing. But maybe their
sin is they were lip syncing tosomeone else's voice, and the young MC
was lip syncing to his own voice. Now, the problem is with this
(07:12):
movie, not that there's no problemswith the movie. The movie's great problems
with these idiots, right, theycould have avoided this whole problem. All
you have to do is, Imean, this shows you how cruel the
guy, Frank Ferion was, theMilli Vanilli producer, the manipulator who evidently
did this before he did it toBony m. Boniem is the greatest disco
band in the history of disco.They even did a sex pistols medley.
(07:33):
That's just a masterpiece, so Boniem. But Boniem wasn't singing. They're just
dancers, pretty faces. That's whatFrank Ferion did to them. Now,
all they had to do to avoidthe Milli Vanilli scandal was to bring Millie
and Vanilli or Robert and Fabris,bring him in the studio and let them
(07:55):
sing the tracks, you know,get him as good as they can,
and then let everybody see that andthen when they leave, bring the other
guy in and bring their vocals downand that guy's vocal up. Have them
sing along with that guy as cues, and then bring his vocals down and
their vocals up. They won't knowit, trust me, Everyone in the
(08:18):
studio can swear yeah, I sawthem singing in the studio. This is
a joke. Make videos of it, make a documentary. That's all he
had to do. But this FrankFerion guy was so arrogant. He thought
he was like a the puppet masterthat could make this all happen. So
there were plenty of witnesses saying yeah, they never were in the studio,
(08:39):
and then the guys who did comein the studio said that's my voice now
a guy suing and saying that's myvoice later, he would have a terrible
case because we have a video ofthem singing. And if they mixed him
in as a backup vocal, what'sthe sin in that no one would ever
know whose vocals were lifted in themix and who's were reduced. No one
(09:01):
could prove that it would be toohard. So the guy really blew it.
And this documentary doesn't really address thatof like how easy it would have
been. I don't know why theydidn't, but they they frame the scandal
in this way. It is notFabriice and Robert that are the villains,
and they've been portrayed the villains,and their careers were ruined, their lives
(09:24):
were ruined. The villains, accordingto this documentary are Frank ferry On and
Clive Davis, the manipulators. Theguys who knew that this was happening and
knew it was wrong, sent himto the Grammys. They collected a winning
Grammy and it all went downhill fromthere. So anyway, see the DOCUMENTARYILLI
(09:46):
on Paramount Plus. Let's take abreak now and check the traffic. Joe
Escalante Live from Hollywood. If byHollywood you mean Burbank, across the street
from Wiener Schnitzel, it serves beer. It is Sunday, October twenty ninth.
(10:09):
Wow. Okay, let's get backto the business end of show business.
Here. The other movie I sawthis week Omega Man. I watched
it on TCM Turner Classic Movies.I've had Turner Classic Movies forever, but
I also have the Criterion Channel,so I kind of ignore Turner Classic Movies.
But now I put on the TCMchannel all the time and I just
let it run and then I'm moreaware of their schedule. And a friend
(10:33):
of mine from law school just sentme a random text on Thursday saying,
Omega, man, I think itwas we know it was Wednesday, Omega
man, We'll be on TCM.That's seven pm. And I watched it,
made my wife watch it again.It's a masterpiece. Charlton Heston is
(10:54):
the Last Man on Earth. Maybeyou saw the Will Smith movie I Am
Legend, both based on the samebook, and I guess Charlton Heston read
that book or found the book andsaid this make a great movie. And
wow, what a great movie.Just for the scenes of post apocalyptic Los
Angeles where the streets are all emptyand he's riding around in whatever car he
(11:15):
feels like taking from the car lotsbecause he's the only one alive. What
a great movie. Were worth watchingagain? Saw The Wedding Singer again because
I had to go to an AdamSandler themed Halloween party last night, so
I went as the best man onthe Wedding Singer. Steve Buscemi was it
(11:37):
hit? My wife was George playedby Alexis Arquette, God Rest for Soul.
My wedding Singer's pretty good. There'sa couple of things in it that
are you know, a couple writingcringey moments. But Drew barrymore as perfect
in that film if you ask me. And that is my movies for the
(11:58):
week. Let's go to television.Television that we have. The strike strike
is still going on. Recently thestrikers, the Screen Actors Skilled sent a
letter to the guild signed by abunch of them saying they would rather take
stay on strike than accept a baddeal. I mean that doesn't mean anything.
(12:20):
What is a bad deal? Andso I think they should just get
back to work. Make a deal, make a three year deal, see
what they get, get it alittle pay raise, and see what they
get in three years. As faras AI goes compromise there, put a
pin in it, and then getready for three years from now, because
(12:41):
otherwise you're going to hold up productionfor the people that do work. The
problem with the Screen Actors Guild issuch a high percentage of the people don't
work that are in that guild,and they will vote to strike because they're
not working. Anyway. I'm amember of that guild. I vote not
to strike, even though I'm notgonna work anymore either way, but so
(13:07):
that that doesn't look good. Andif you don't come back to the bargaining
table, they will use actors thatare not in the guild and they will
make programming in New Zealand, Australia, India or wherever the guilds aren't covering
their work, and they're gonna win. And I think it's noble to fight
(13:31):
for the small people. But thesmall people in this world, they don't
work anyway. And how much dothe big people make? Well, here's
an article. Zendaya has just madea deal where she will get one million
dollars per episode to be in theshow Euphoria on HBO. Very popular,
(13:56):
very scandalous. It's a programer youdon't want your kids watching. But it's
for kids young adults, I guess. But her co star, Cindy Sweeney,
this is what the you know,the press want you to focus on.
She spoke out about how little shemakes if she wants to take a
(14:20):
six month break, she doesn't haveincome to cover that. I don't have
someone supporting me. I don't haveanyone I can turn to to pay my
bills or call for help. Theydon't pay actors the way they used to.
With the streamers, you no longerget residuals. The established stars still
get paid. But I have togive five percent to my lawyer, ten
(14:41):
percent to my agents, three percentor something like that to my business manager.
I have to pay my publicists everymonth, and that's more than my
mortgage. Her publicist is more thanher mortgage. I mean, some people
might say, well, wow,nobody has enough money to take a six
month break, so not a lotof sympathy there. But and then the
(15:05):
publicity, so you're paying it's moreimportant for you to be more famous than
to live in your house if you'repaying more for your publicist than you are
for your mortgage. But at thesame time, the only way for her
to get the roles that can propelher to a position like Zendayas and is
(15:28):
you know, having a good publicistand placing her in the right places at
the right time. So I understandthat. But so that's the lowest paid
person on HBO doesn't have a can'thave a six month break, and the
highest paid person is one million anepisode, so there is some money out
there, but if you go andstrike, they'll give that money to someone
(15:48):
else and they will still make programs. So I hope they get back to
work. There's a story in TheHollywood Reporter this week about Sophia Cope and
a show she had been developing atApple TV and how it they dropped it,
(16:11):
And she says they dropped it becausethey said the unlikable female lead character
was not their thing. She said, she has a new movie coming out,
Priscilla, which looks to be reallygood, and my friend saw it
and said it was really good.It's about Priscilla Presley, but I think
(16:34):
she's one of the best directors ever. Lost in translation, I don't know
if you've seen that work of genius. And she was going to make a
TV show about the Edith Wharton book, the nineteen thirteen novel The Custom of
(16:56):
the Country. Now. The Customof the Country is about a character who
obsessed with material wealth and fame andnotoriety, and she goes to New York
and tries to blend in with highsociety. It doesn't work that great for
her. I haven't read it,but I mean, this is this is
like my wife, like the herointo her these these period dramas, and
(17:22):
you put Sophia Coppola in with EdithWharton, you got a guaranteed hit.
But they dropped it because they saidthey they didn't want to promote a female
character as a negative person. Nowit just goes to the lake. I
was thinking about this while I waswatching Flower under the Flower Moon or No
(17:44):
Killers of the Flower Moon, becauseI'm like, this is a classic example
of a movie, like what whatkind of movie can you make? What
kind of movie can get green lit? Well, this movie was heavy.
The Flower Moon was heavy on thevictimhood of the Native Americans and the culpability
(18:06):
of the white colonizers. Now thatis a recipe for money in Hollywood.
They will pay for that. Theywill give you money for that. Here
comes And while I'm watching it,I'm like, you know, this movie
is terrible because it could have beena forty minute you know, documentary on
the YouTube, which it is,and it was much better to watch it
that way. And it's a terriblestory. And I got it, and
I got the gist of it withouthaving these guys, you know, pat
(18:30):
themselves on the back for three hoursand forty minutes or however long that was
it was. So I'm wondering whileI'm in the theater, I'm like,
oh, this is cause this iskind of the world we're in now,
where well, we'll give you moneyfor that, but we won't give you
money to make a woman, afemale character look bad in Edith Wharton.
(18:52):
No, but we just want wejust I just don't want to do it,
don't want to tell my boss that'swhat I'm doing. I don't want
to be blamed for it. SoI'm not going to give the money.
But if you bring me this heavyhanded white guys, the oppressor colonizer against
the Native Americans, I will giveyou money for them. And it would
be great if they give money forboth, because both stories deserve to be
told. What are we not seeing? I'm in the theater watching Flarermunga.
(19:12):
What am I not seeing? Becausethese guys are talented as a talented filmmaker,
talented actors. What am I notseeing? Because they had to do
this and this is the only storythat they could get sold. It just
had to think of something because there'sso much repetition going on in this movie.
(19:33):
It was over and over and Iwas just getting so bored my mind
wandered, and it wandered in thatway. So hopefully in the future all
stories will get told. Let's takea break. Joe Sclante, Life from
Hollywood, Joe Wesclante Live from Hollywood. Quite Hollywood. You need a burbank
and continue with the business and orshow business and the Ticketmaster Live Nation ticket
(20:00):
fight with the government is still goingon. There's a senator named Amy Klovichar
who was saying that despite the promisesof Live Nation, they still haven't done
enough, so that fight's still goingalong. In the intellectual property realm of
the show today. Very interesting storyabout Taco Bell. I talked about this
(20:23):
a little bit earlier in the year. Taco Bell was threatening to file I
don't know if they did file theirthreatening to file a trademark in the trademark
court. You can go in andfile a cause to cancel someone else's trademark.
Pick any trademark you want, Disneyland, Mickey Mouse. You could go
(20:44):
in there and say I believe thatthis trademark should be canceled so that everybody
can use this mark. You cando that. Taco Bell wanted to do
it against some restaurant that trademarked thename Taco Tuesday, and Taco Bell would
(21:08):
love to use the word Taco Tuesday. And you know, I know what
you're thinking. Wait a second,there's a trademark on Taco Tuesday. I
see Taco Tuesday written everywhere. Yes, but this little restaurant can't go after
El Barrito Junior in Seal Beach andstop them from using the word Taco Tuesday.
They cannot. There's too many andthe policing would be too hard,
(21:32):
and that's not what they're all about, evidently. But Taco Bell, they
could go after Taco Bell uses yourtrademark, You go after him, you
win. So Taco Bell knows this, and they say, we got to
have that thing canceled, so let'sgo after him. So they went after
him, and you want them tothe best thing you would like them to
do is withdraw their trademark and justcancel it themselves so you don't have to
(21:53):
have the trial to see if itshould be canceled. Now, what would
what would that look like? Like? How do you how do you make
a claim that something should be canceled? Well, you go to the trademark
(22:15):
tribunal and you and you say thisdidn't qualify for a trademark in the first
place, and in this case,I think they might have won that because
to do a trademark, it can'tbe there's a couple of rules. It
can't be overly descriptive. It can'tbe generic. Like you can't make a
trademark claim on something like fast cars. We have fast cars, and then
(22:38):
someone else tries to build a carand says that their cars fast. Ah,
No, we have the trademark onfast cars. It's too descriptives.
Just describes their cars. Maybe redcars. No, too descriptive, too
generic. Taco Tuesday, let's thinkabout that. So you're in the trademark
office and some guy comes in andsays, I want to trademark this term
(22:59):
top go Tuesday, sell tacos onTuesday, and I want to and I
want to advertise that they have tacoson Tuesdays. So some trademark schmuck said,
Okay, I can't. I'm gonnaI'm gonna allow you to be the
only one that can say Taco Tuesday. That's what goes on in the trademark
office. The wrong trademarks issued allthe time. And uh in this case,
(23:25):
h I mean, it's just theit's the it's the fault of the
of the guy who said, yeah, okay, I guess you know,
and he gave these guys a trademarkon Taco Tuesday. Never should have done
it. So uh Now, TacoBells probably suing people for trademark violations all,
you know, all the time,and they're they're probably and and in
this case, they wanted to violatesomeone else's trademark, and but they know
(23:48):
they're a target, so they justsaid, let's I mean, you could
say that they use their muscle.And these guys had no chance because it
would have taken about one hundred grandat least to fight this thing. And
I think you still would have lostbecause they it would be just a monumental
fight to say that no, Ishould be the only one using Taco Tuesday.
(24:11):
Now here's another problem that happens intrademark courts. This happened to the
banded black flag. There was ablack flag versus black flag case. The
judge in that case said, youknow, you have not been policing the
black flag logo. There's t shirtseverywhere using your black flag logo and now
they don't even have the right toprevent other peoples from using the black flag
(24:32):
logo because they never policed it andpeople were using it and mocking it and
parodying it for decades. And sonow, as far as I know,
I haven't looked on maybe they appealedthis or whatever that was a ruling at
one point, Yeah, you lostit. You lost your ability to protect
your mark because you never policed itin the first place. Now, these
(24:53):
restaurants, because they're never going aroundand police their mark and telling people that
they can't use the trademark, myguess is it would have been fairly easy
to convince the court or the tribunalto take away their trademark and cancel it
because they're not policing it and they'regonna and so you know, why would
(25:17):
they like if they sued Taco Bell, that would be their defense too,
Like, why is this selective prosecutionagainst Taco Bell when they're not policing it
all over the country with all theselittle restaurants, little taco trucks or whatever
that are using the term Taco Tuesday. So they would have won no matter
how big or small they were.So Tacobo's calling it like a victory.
(25:41):
And this doesn't mean that that Tacobell can only use Taco Tuesday. It
means everybody gets to use Taco Tuesday. And they were framing it in the
kind of a righteous campaign of we'refreeing Taco Tuesday from the clutches of these
this Gregory's restaurant and bar in NewJersey. So good news for intellectual property
(26:04):
and free speech all the way around. That has been settled. They have
dropped their reversed there or canceled theirown trademark. But it's funny to me
that a restaurant called Gregory's Restaurant inNew Jersey was the Taco Tuesday trademark holder.
And it's not surprising. Taco Tuesdayis a gringo thing that's for white
(26:26):
people to, you know, getcheap tacos. There's a taco place on
Carson in Hawaiian Gardens here in southernCalifornia. It's called Taco San Pedro,
and it's got these really good taketos. It's really good. It's got a
line out the door all the time. Now on Tuesdays they're closed. I'm
(26:48):
thinking, why are they closed onTuesdays? It's crazy they're closed on Tuesdays
because people come in there on Tuesdaysand want a cheap taco and there's where's
your Taco Tuesday deal? They're like, what are you talking about? We
don't have a Taco Tuesday deal.Well, screw this place. Then,
so there's a lot of ill willbecause they didn't have a Taco Tuesday special
and people are incensed, probably whitepeople, And so they said, guess
(27:15):
what, We'll close on Tuesdays.How do you like that? And then
on Tuesdays we'll go eat other people'scheap tacos. Who's the sucker now,
if you get a chance. TacoSampedro right off the six o five Freeway
on Carson in the beautiful town ofHawaiian Gardens. Also in the realm of
intellectual property, I have a veryinteresting story about a Thai restaurant called Thai
(27:41):
Food. I'm not going to tellyou the name of the restaurant just yet,
but when one of the Google searches, one of the most popular Google
searches that there is is like MexicanFood near Me, Barbecue near Me,
McDonald's near Me. This restaurant changedtheir name to Typhood near Me. So
(28:06):
when you search Ti Food near Mein New York City? What do you
think comes up? You're right,Typhood near Me. You just put you
just entered it in the search engine. So this this place is uh,
well, when you go to NewYork it's you'll see it. It's near
you, and the uh the yeah, it's optimized for search engine discovery.
(28:37):
And can you do that? Canyou call your restaurant Ti Food near me
is a deceitful because it's not nearme. Well, when you're there,
it is near you. So Ithink it's just funny and genius at the
same time. Typhood near Me.Thanks Google for directing everybody to my restaurant.
Is it good? I don't know. When I go to New York
(28:59):
next, I think I might goto what's my favorite Thai restaurant? I
have a great one. I willtell you after the break. Joe Ascalante,
(29:29):
here's my loyal Joe Escalante live fromHollywood. If by Hollywood you mean
bird Bank. Continue with the businessend of show business here on k E.
I B eleven fifty on your AMdial. And what is my favorite
Thai restaurant? I asked myself rightbefore the break. It's called tie not
corn N a k O r N. And it is on Beach Boulevard at
(29:55):
the corner of Beach and Chapman.Right behind that Carl's Junior there in the
beautiful city of Stanton, California.Stanton used to be Stanton when I grew
up, but the demographics have changed. It's now Stanton. And there's a
good restaurant down there called Park Avenuealso and ill garage right behind it,
right down the street. There's alot of good restaurants in this kinky,
(30:18):
stupid area. That's just like,why is it a city? But I
got some good restaurants. Okay,let's continue with the show business and get
away from the restaurants. I havea lot of celebrities behaving badly today.
I mean there's so many I can'tfill up a whole show on this,
so it's pretty negative. But we'llgo over a few of them first.
(30:44):
One. Jonathan Major's the star ofa bunch of like Loki and ant Man
Wasp movies. Great actor. He'sgot a scandal. We've talked about it
before. It's probably the best actorwith a scandal right now. And he's
got some domestic violence issues and stillgoing he's going to trial over there.
He's in the Manhattan courtroom right nowtrying to have his case thrown out.
(31:11):
And that's you know, what theytried to do. But the plaintiff or
the it's a criminal case. Sobut the victim is Grace Jabbari. And
there's a new one hundred and fifteenpage filing that Variety just obtained, and
the new news is, hey,there's a whole nother story of him doing
(31:32):
the same thing in London, andthat is going to they're going to try
to get that into the trial.So look for a trial coming up soon
with Jonathan Major's. And the defenseis trying to say, hey, this
lady attacked him. She's the abuser. And he's saying no, no,
(31:52):
no, yeah, that's what he'ssaying. She's saying, what, no
way. This guy's a big,giant guy and he abused me and assaulted
me or whatever. And then therewas an enough stories about him to get
him dropped, not by his agent, but get him dropped from a bunch
of movies. But William moorese Ithink still represents him, which I think
is meaningful because if they would havelooked into it and said, hey,
(32:12):
the guy's rotten, they would havedropped him, but they didn't drop him.
So maybe he's not rotten at all. Maybe he's just got a bad
you know, some bad outbursts andneeds to learn a lesson. Someone else
needs to learn a lesson. Wow, Dwight Howard, former LA Laker,
NBA All Star, an All Star, eight time NBA All Star. This
(32:34):
guy is huge. He is beingsued. This is not a criminal case.
This is a This one is aguy. It's from a guy.
A guy said, Hey, thisguy, I met him online. I
went over to his house and wehad freaky deky times together. And then
he brought out this is this iswhere the like. It looks like,
(32:57):
okay, big deal. You youmet him at his house, he met
him online, You went and youguys had an intimate contact. And how
why is he why is he nowbeing sued? If that's what you you
freely went over there and that's whatyou wanted to do. Obviously that's what
you went over there to do,well, he says. Dwight Howard brought
(33:20):
out a transgendered male to female outof the side hatch, so to speak,
and her name was Kitty. Sokitty comes out. Now this guy
Harper, the plaintiff in this case, says I wasn't with that and I
(33:45):
didn't want to do I didn't wantto be involved in that, and I
told him no. But then hesays that Howard started getting on him and
then held him down, pinned himdown, and only stopped when he found
out he wasn't enjoying it. Well, I don't know this one. Howard's
(34:07):
defense is this guy is just okay, I admit, you know, I
hooked up with this guy online,and now he's trying to assume because I'm
famous and I'm rich and this one, I tend to believe Howard. There's
no evidence that the guy was harmed. It's just him making a story up
to get money, is it true? Well? Maybe, but you put
(34:29):
yourself in this position if you're havingsexual texts with him, and these texts
have all come out, and youwent over to his house and now you're
in a position where if something badhappens, there's no witnesses. So why'd
you go there if you didn't knowhim that well to where you were already.
I mean, this just goes tomorality, Like if you want to
have sexual experiences without knowing the person. That's right away, it's bad,
(34:55):
it's wrong. So if to me, it's wrong if you try to come
up with a lawsuit out of thisencounter, which was morally objectionable in the
first place and not safe, andnow you were going to say, well,
yeah, I mean that was I'mthe only witness, but this is
(35:17):
what happened. Now, and whatabout miss Kitty? Why aren't you ssuing
miss Kitty? Miss Kitty has nomoney, so Miss Kitty's not getting sued.
So this one, I think,I mean, Howard's coming out and
it's just saying, hey, lookI did this. I'm not going to
be blackmailed. So when that whenthe stars come out and say I will
not be blackmailed. These these guystend to go back into the shadows because
(35:43):
they were banking on the effect,on the prospect that the person wouldn't want
to shame of all this coming outin public, especially a professional athlete.
But he's this guy said look,I'm yeah, as I did it,
but I didn't do that, Soit's going to be tough. So I
think Howard's gonna win. There's anotherone, Noel Clark. Noel Clark is
(36:06):
an actor, a British actor.I believe he's British, but he's in
a British show called Doctor Who.Now we all know what Doctor Who is.
It's a British show. Now he'sbeen accused in a bombshell twenty twenty
one report from the Guardian. Hewas accused. The Guardian is an English
(36:27):
newspaper. He was accused of groping, harassment and bullying by twenty women twenty
so Clark denied the claims, buthe said he would be seeking professional help
to educate himself and change for thebetter. So he's obviously a cad.
He needs some help. But he'ssuing the Guardian because they put him through
(36:50):
a trial by media, he says, and they ruined his career by printing
the stories about what he had done. Now, if you are like one
of my listeners, you would say, well, if that's he's suing them
from defamation, he would have toprove number one that what they're saying is
(37:13):
false. Does it make someone spiton the ground, Yes, twenty women
accuse you a battery makes you spiton the ground, because that's prong number
one for defamation. Number two isit true. Well, in the UK
they have a different standard than herein the United States. In the United
States, if you try to suethe newspaper for that, he'd have to
(37:35):
prove that it wasn't true. He'dhave to go to court and say this
is not true. I have neverbattered these women and how dare you say
that? And then it wouldn't goanywhere because you got twenty women who say
you battered him. Now in theUK, it's different. You sue them
and you don't have to prove thatit's not true. That yeah, you
don't have to part of their defense. They're going to come back and say,
(38:00):
well, it's really true and ifthat is true, and they're allowed
to report on it. But theburden of proof has shifted in the United
Kingdom. Now the Kingdom, it'seasier for you to sue someone for defamation
because you don't have to prove thatwhat they said was false. They have
to do it. They have toprove that it was true. And that
(38:20):
is why you see people like JohnnyDepp will go over there and sue for
defamation. A lot of people willgo and sue over there for defamation if
they if they if the defamation happenedhere and there they're going to sue there.
So that's the difference between the UKin the United States, in the
defamation world. All Right, youlearn something today, all right, let's
(38:44):
uh, let's end it right there. And I will now leave you with
just a taste of the greatest songever written. Remind you the Vandals.
Tickets for our Christmas shows and theHouse of Blues Anaheim and Ventura are now
on sale. I will see youthere and I will see you next week.
Joe Escalante live from Hollywood. Ifby Hollywood you mean Burbank across the street
from a Wiener Schnitzel that serves beer. This is two hours of the business,
end of show business. We doit every Sunday on KEIB eleven fifty
on your AM dial and later youcan listen to the podcast version at iHeartRadio,
(00:28):
iHeartMedia or Apple Podcasts wherever you getyour podcasts. And today we are
we are live today, right,no preemptions from the NFL. So let's
get to the movies. At themovies this week, I didn't go to
(00:50):
the movies because I was up inmy cabin in Big Bear and they were
only showing two movies that I hadalready seen and other than the Taylor Swift
movie, which I was going togo to, but they only showing it
on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.Couldn't make it those days, or I
think it was just Friday and Saturdayand Sunday that movie. Even though the
(01:15):
some theaters do this, they don'tshow it every day. They show it
on the weekends and it's pretty long. They can't have a lot of showings.
It's twenty dollars more than any othermovie, and it is raking in
the cash. So let's see exactlywhat it did. Oh, it did
(01:37):
another fourteen million this week. Thenumber one movie of the year, sorry
of the week is five Nights atFreddy's, based on the popular video game.
It did wow, seventy eight million. That's higher than expected. People
were saying fifty million is going todo more than fifty could it possibly do
(01:59):
more than sixty seventy eight million dollarsat the box office? Power video games
in that generation now just old enoughto go to the movies. Taylor Swift
did fourteen million. As I said, Killers of the Flower Moon, which
I walked out on nine million.That has done a total of forty million.
(02:24):
How much did it cost? Idon't know, two hundred million something
like that. But it's too long, too boring, and we'll talk about
that a little bit later. Tosome other things about it. Oh,
he joined, Oh, let meget, Let me get, Let me
get the whole top ten down afterdeath from Angel Studios. It's a Christian
movie. Did five million, prettygood. The Exorcists still hanging in there.
(02:50):
I've got not good reviews, butmaking some money. Fifty nine million
total. Then Pap Patrol starting todecline, but still pretty successful. Freelance
movie I don't really know about andThe Night Before Christmas of Course comes back
make some money. Saw ten stillin the theaters and Creator number ten It's
(03:10):
made thirty eight million, the mostunderrated movie of the year. Definitely go
see Creator, The Creator. It'sa good movie. Now. I did
see a movie or two. Iwatched a movie that was a Milli Vanilli
documentary on Paramount Plus, so commercialfree on Paramount Plus. It's a great
documentary. If you don't have PaaramountPlus, you're not gonna see the Milli
(03:35):
Vanilli documentary. I don't know ifyou remember that the guy there's there's a
guy named Febrius, a guy namedRobert, and Robert killed himself after you
know, the Milli Vanilli scandal endedhis career, and then it's alcohol,
(04:00):
drugs, and eventually he takes hisown life. You know, a documentary
has to have a compelling story oflike why why is this documentary going to
be made now? And what isthe message? Is it just more footage
and interviews and people patting themselves onthe back about something that they were involved
(04:20):
in. It's my least favorite kindof documentary, but this one is a
you know, it's a cautionary tale, of course, and it is really
worth watching. The two guys.The story is incredible how they found each
other in Europe and they just wantedto be famous, and it seemed like
(04:45):
they worked very hard to try tobe famous and to sing and dance.
Nick Ken sing and dance. Butwhen they met this guy, Frank Farion,
he wouldn't let them sing. Hejust liked their look. So he's
a German. He thought he couldmake money off their luck. So he
would hire other black people that couldsing but didn't look as good. Put
(05:09):
him together with these guys that lookgood, and presto, he's got himself
a a hit. Now, ofcourse, we know that they, you
know, climbed all the way tothe top of the music business and then
at some point they were exposed asthe people not that they can't sing,
(05:32):
that they weren't the ones singing onthe record that was released that said they
were the singers on it, andthat didn't they weren't the ones that were
singing on the tracks that they wereplaying while they were lip syncing at the
concerts. Now there's no shame inlip syncing at concerts. Well maybe there
is shame, but it's not unusual. They's just everybody's doing it. And
(05:57):
you know, people are just like, I'm going to make these tracks sound
perfect and then I'm gonna go onstage and they're gonna be great and I
don't have to worry about all thestage conditions. See a lot more of
this, like maybe outdoor shows.Taylor Swift, you know, doesn't have
to do it. She's got avery controlled environment. She's got a great
voice, he's young, she's energetic. But it happens all the time.
I saw Millie Vanilli after it hadhad been learned that maybe they weren't singing
(06:24):
they were lip syncing. But tome, I was like, well a
lot of people do that. SoI went to see them. I was
on stage watching them, like justoff to the side, and they were
singing. You know, they hadtheir microphones turned on. The microphones would
turn on like maybe someone turned themon towards the end of the song or
(06:44):
something. I don't know, butyou know at the end you can hear,
you know, they're talking and they'resinging, clearly singing a little bit.
I couldn't tell, but I rememberseeing the young MC that night.
He wasn't singing at all. Hewas totally lip syncing. But maybe their
sin is they were lip syncing tosomeone else's voice, and the young MC
was lip syncing to his own voice. Now, the problem is with this
(07:12):
movie, not that there's no problemswith the movie. The movie's great problems
with these idiots, right, theycould have avoided this whole problem. All
you have to do is, Imean, this shows you how cruel the
guy, Frank Ferion was, theMilli Vanilli producer, the manipulator who evidently
did this before he did it toBony m. Boniem is the greatest disco
band in the history of disco.They even did a sex pistols medley.
(07:33):
That's just a masterpiece, so Boniem. But Boniem wasn't singing. They're just
dancers, pretty faces. That's whatFrank Ferion did to them. Now,
all they had to do to avoidthe Milli Vanilli scandal was to bring Millie
and Vanilli or Robert and Fabris,bring him in the studio and let them
(07:55):
sing the tracks, you know,get him as good as they can,
and then let everybody see that andthen when they leave, bring the other
guy in and bring their vocals downand that guy's vocal up. Have them
sing along with that guy as cues, and then bring his vocals down and
their vocals up. They won't knowit, trust me, Everyone in the
(08:18):
studio can swear yeah, I sawthem singing in the studio. This is
a joke. Make videos of it, make a documentary. That's all he
had to do. But this FrankFerion guy was so arrogant. He thought
he was like a the puppet masterthat could make this all happen. So
there were plenty of witnesses saying yeah, they never were in the studio,
(08:39):
and then the guys who did comein the studio said that's my voice now
a guy suing and saying that's myvoice later, he would have a terrible
case because we have a video ofthem singing. And if they mixed him
in as a backup vocal, what'sthe sin in that no one would ever
know whose vocals were lifted in themix and who's were reduced. No one
(09:01):
could prove that it would be toohard. So the guy really blew it.
And this documentary doesn't really address thatof like how easy it would have
been. I don't know why theydidn't, but they they frame the scandal
in this way. It is notFabriice and Robert that are the villains,
and they've been portrayed the villains,and their careers were ruined, their lives
(09:24):
were ruined. The villains, accordingto this documentary are Frank ferry On and
Clive Davis, the manipulators. Theguys who knew that this was happening and
knew it was wrong, sent himto the Grammys. They collected a winning
Grammy and it all went downhill fromthere. So anyway, see the DOCUMENTARYILLI
(09:46):
on Paramount Plus. Let's take abreak now and check the traffic. Joe
Escalante Live from Hollywood. If byHollywood you mean Burbank, across the street
from Wiener Schnitzel, it serves beer. It is Sunday, October twenty ninth.
(10:09):
Wow. Okay, let's get backto the business end of show business.
Here. The other movie I sawthis week Omega Man. I watched
it on TCM Turner Classic Movies.I've had Turner Classic Movies forever, but
I also have the Criterion Channel,so I kind of ignore Turner Classic Movies.
But now I put on the TCMchannel all the time and I just
let it run and then I'm moreaware of their schedule. And a friend
(10:33):
of mine from law school just sentme a random text on Thursday saying,
Omega, man, I think itwas we know it was Wednesday, Omega
man, We'll be on TCM.That's seven pm. And I watched it,
made my wife watch it again.It's a masterpiece. Charlton Heston is
(10:54):
the Last Man on Earth. Maybeyou saw the Will Smith movie I Am
Legend, both based on the samebook, and I guess Charlton Heston read
that book or found the book andsaid this make a great movie. And
wow, what a great movie.Just for the scenes of post apocalyptic Los
Angeles where the streets are all emptyand he's riding around in whatever car he
(11:15):
feels like taking from the car lotsbecause he's the only one alive. What
a great movie. Were worth watchingagain? Saw The Wedding Singer again because
I had to go to an AdamSandler themed Halloween party last night, so
I went as the best man onthe Wedding Singer. Steve Buscemi was it
(11:37):
hit? My wife was George playedby Alexis Arquette, God Rest for Soul.
My wedding Singer's pretty good. There'sa couple of things in it that
are you know, a couple writingcringey moments. But Drew barrymore as perfect
in that film if you ask me. And that is my movies for the
(11:58):
week. Let's go to television.Television that we have. The strike strike
is still going on. Recently thestrikers, the Screen Actors Skilled sent a
letter to the guild signed by abunch of them saying they would rather take
stay on strike than accept a baddeal. I mean that doesn't mean anything.
(12:20):
What is a bad deal? Andso I think they should just get
back to work. Make a deal, make a three year deal, see
what they get, get it alittle pay raise, and see what they
get in three years. As faras AI goes compromise there, put a
pin in it, and then getready for three years from now, because
(12:41):
otherwise you're going to hold up productionfor the people that do work. The
problem with the Screen Actors Guild issuch a high percentage of the people don't
work that are in that guild,and they will vote to strike because they're
not working. Anyway. I'm amember of that guild. I vote not
to strike, even though I'm notgonna work anymore either way, but so
(13:07):
that that doesn't look good. Andif you don't come back to the bargaining
table, they will use actors thatare not in the guild and they will
make programming in New Zealand, Australia, India or wherever the guilds aren't covering
their work, and they're gonna win. And I think it's noble to fight
(13:31):
for the small people. But thesmall people in this world, they don't
work anyway. And how much dothe big people make? Well, here's
an article. Zendaya has just madea deal where she will get one million
dollars per episode to be in theshow Euphoria on HBO. Very popular,
(13:56):
very scandalous. It's a programer youdon't want your kids watching. But it's
for kids young adults, I guess. But her co star, Cindy Sweeney,
this is what the you know,the press want you to focus on.
She spoke out about how little shemakes if she wants to take a
(14:20):
six month break, she doesn't haveincome to cover that. I don't have
someone supporting me. I don't haveanyone I can turn to to pay my
bills or call for help. Theydon't pay actors the way they used to.
With the streamers, you no longerget residuals. The established stars still
get paid. But I have togive five percent to my lawyer, ten
(14:41):
percent to my agents, three percentor something like that to my business manager.
I have to pay my publicists everymonth, and that's more than my
mortgage. Her publicist is more thanher mortgage. I mean, some people
might say, well, wow,nobody has enough money to take a six
month break, so not a lotof sympathy there. But and then the
(15:05):
publicity, so you're paying it's moreimportant for you to be more famous than
to live in your house if you'repaying more for your publicist than you are
for your mortgage. But at thesame time, the only way for her
to get the roles that can propelher to a position like Zendayas and is
(15:28):
you know, having a good publicistand placing her in the right places at
the right time. So I understandthat. But so that's the lowest paid
person on HBO doesn't have a can'thave a six month break, and the
highest paid person is one million anepisode, so there is some money out
there, but if you go andstrike, they'll give that money to someone
(15:48):
else and they will still make programs. So I hope they get back to
work. There's a story in TheHollywood Reporter this week about Sophia Cope and
a show she had been developing atApple TV and how it they dropped it,
(16:11):
And she says they dropped it becausethey said the unlikable female lead character
was not their thing. She said, she has a new movie coming out,
Priscilla, which looks to be reallygood, and my friend saw it
and said it was really good.It's about Priscilla Presley, but I think
(16:34):
she's one of the best directors ever. Lost in translation, I don't know
if you've seen that work of genius. And she was going to make a
TV show about the Edith Wharton book, the nineteen thirteen novel The Custom of
(16:56):
the Country. Now. The Customof the Country is about a character who
obsessed with material wealth and fame andnotoriety, and she goes to New York
and tries to blend in with highsociety. It doesn't work that great for
her. I haven't read it,but I mean, this is this is
like my wife, like the herointo her these these period dramas, and
(17:22):
you put Sophia Coppola in with EdithWharton, you got a guaranteed hit.
But they dropped it because they saidthey they didn't want to promote a female
character as a negative person. Nowit just goes to the lake. I
was thinking about this while I waswatching Flower under the Flower Moon or No
(17:44):
Killers of the Flower Moon, becauseI'm like, this is a classic example
of a movie, like what whatkind of movie can you make? What
kind of movie can get green lit? Well, this movie was heavy.
The Flower Moon was heavy on thevictimhood of the Native Americans and the culpability
(18:06):
of the white colonizers. Now thatis a recipe for money in Hollywood.
They will pay for that. Theywill give you money for that. Here
comes And while I'm watching it,I'm like, you know, this movie
is terrible because it could have beena forty minute you know, documentary on
the YouTube, which it is,and it was much better to watch it
that way. And it's a terriblestory. And I got it, and
I got the gist of it withouthaving these guys, you know, pat
(18:30):
themselves on the back for three hoursand forty minutes or however long that was
it was. So I'm wondering whileI'm in the theater, I'm like,
oh, this is cause this iskind of the world we're in now,
where well, we'll give you moneyfor that, but we won't give you
money to make a woman, afemale character look bad in Edith Wharton.
(18:52):
No, but we just want wejust I just don't want to do it,
don't want to tell my boss that'swhat I'm doing. I don't want
to be blamed for it. SoI'm not going to give the money.
But if you bring me this heavyhanded white guys, the oppressor colonizer against
the Native Americans, I will giveyou money for them. And it would
be great if they give money forboth, because both stories deserve to be
told. What are we not seeing? I'm in the theater watching Flarermunga.
(19:12):
What am I not seeing? Becausethese guys are talented as a talented filmmaker,
talented actors. What am I notseeing? Because they had to do
this and this is the only storythat they could get sold. It just
had to think of something because there'sso much repetition going on in this movie.
(19:33):
It was over and over and Iwas just getting so bored my mind
wandered, and it wandered in thatway. So hopefully in the future all
stories will get told. Let's takea break. Joe Sclante, Life from
Hollywood, Joe Wesclante Live from Hollywood. Quite Hollywood. You need a burbank
and continue with the business and orshow business and the Ticketmaster Live Nation ticket
(20:00):
fight with the government is still goingon. There's a senator named Amy Klovichar
who was saying that despite the promisesof Live Nation, they still haven't done
enough, so that fight's still goingalong. In the intellectual property realm of
the show today. Very interesting storyabout Taco Bell. I talked about this
(20:23):
a little bit earlier in the year. Taco Bell was threatening to file I
don't know if they did file theirthreatening to file a trademark in the trademark
court. You can go in andfile a cause to cancel someone else's trademark.
Pick any trademark you want, Disneyland, Mickey Mouse. You could go
(20:44):
in there and say I believe thatthis trademark should be canceled so that everybody
can use this mark. You cando that. Taco Bell wanted to do
it against some restaurant that trademarked thename Taco Tuesday, and Taco Bell would
(21:08):
love to use the word Taco Tuesday. And you know, I know what
you're thinking. Wait a second,there's a trademark on Taco Tuesday. I
see Taco Tuesday written everywhere. Yes, but this little restaurant can't go after
El Barrito Junior in Seal Beach andstop them from using the word Taco Tuesday.
They cannot. There's too many andthe policing would be too hard,
(21:32):
and that's not what they're all about, evidently. But Taco Bell, they
could go after Taco Bell uses yourtrademark, You go after him, you
win. So Taco Bell knows this, and they say, we got to
have that thing canceled, so let'sgo after him. So they went after
him, and you want them tothe best thing you would like them to
do is withdraw their trademark and justcancel it themselves so you don't have to
(21:53):
have the trial to see if itshould be canceled. Now, what would
what would that look like? Like? How do you how do you make
a claim that something should be canceled? Well, you go to the trademark
(22:15):
tribunal and you and you say thisdidn't qualify for a trademark in the first
place, and in this case,I think they might have won that because
to do a trademark, it can'tbe there's a couple of rules. It
can't be overly descriptive. It can'tbe generic. Like you can't make a
trademark claim on something like fast cars. We have fast cars, and then
(22:38):
someone else tries to build a carand says that their cars fast. Ah,
No, we have the trademark onfast cars. It's too descriptives.
Just describes their cars. Maybe redcars. No, too descriptive, too
generic. Taco Tuesday, let's thinkabout that. So you're in the trademark
office and some guy comes in andsays, I want to trademark this term
(22:59):
top go Tuesday, sell tacos onTuesday, and I want to and I
want to advertise that they have tacoson Tuesdays. So some trademark schmuck said,
Okay, I can't. I'm gonnaI'm gonna allow you to be the
only one that can say Taco Tuesday. That's what goes on in the trademark
office. The wrong trademarks issued allthe time. And uh in this case,
(23:25):
h I mean, it's just theit's the it's the fault of the
of the guy who said, yeah, okay, I guess you know,
and he gave these guys a trademarkon Taco Tuesday. Never should have done
it. So uh Now, TacoBells probably suing people for trademark violations all,
you know, all the time,and they're they're probably and and in
this case, they wanted to violatesomeone else's trademark, and but they know
(23:48):
they're a target, so they justsaid, let's I mean, you could
say that they use their muscle.And these guys had no chance because it
would have taken about one hundred grandat least to fight this thing. And
I think you still would have lostbecause they it would be just a monumental
fight to say that no, Ishould be the only one using Taco Tuesday.
(24:11):
Now here's another problem that happens intrademark courts. This happened to the
banded black flag. There was ablack flag versus black flag case. The
judge in that case said, youknow, you have not been policing the
black flag logo. There's t shirtseverywhere using your black flag logo and now
they don't even have the right toprevent other peoples from using the black flag
(24:32):
logo because they never policed it andpeople were using it and mocking it and
parodying it for decades. And sonow, as far as I know,
I haven't looked on maybe they appealedthis or whatever that was a ruling at
one point, Yeah, you lostit. You lost your ability to protect
your mark because you never policed itin the first place. Now, these
(24:53):
restaurants, because they're never going aroundand police their mark and telling people that
they can't use the trademark, myguess is it would have been fairly easy
to convince the court or the tribunalto take away their trademark and cancel it
because they're not policing it and they'regonna and so you know, why would
(25:17):
they like if they sued Taco Bell, that would be their defense too,
Like, why is this selective prosecutionagainst Taco Bell when they're not policing it
all over the country with all theselittle restaurants, little taco trucks or whatever
that are using the term Taco Tuesday. So they would have won no matter
how big or small they were.So Tacobo's calling it like a victory.
(25:41):
And this doesn't mean that that Tacobell can only use Taco Tuesday. It
means everybody gets to use Taco Tuesday. And they were framing it in the
kind of a righteous campaign of we'refreeing Taco Tuesday from the clutches of these
this Gregory's restaurant and bar in NewJersey. So good news for intellectual property
(26:04):
and free speech all the way around. That has been settled. They have
dropped their reversed there or canceled theirown trademark. But it's funny to me
that a restaurant called Gregory's Restaurant inNew Jersey was the Taco Tuesday trademark holder.
And it's not surprising. Taco Tuesdayis a gringo thing that's for white
(26:26):
people to, you know, getcheap tacos. There's a taco place on
Carson in Hawaiian Gardens here in southernCalifornia. It's called Taco San Pedro,
and it's got these really good taketos. It's really good. It's got a
line out the door all the time. Now on Tuesdays they're closed. I'm
(26:48):
thinking, why are they closed onTuesdays? It's crazy they're closed on Tuesdays
because people come in there on Tuesdaysand want a cheap taco and there's where's
your Taco Tuesday deal? They're like, what are you talking about? We
don't have a Taco Tuesday deal.Well, screw this place. Then,
so there's a lot of ill willbecause they didn't have a Taco Tuesday special
and people are incensed, probably whitepeople, And so they said, guess
(27:15):
what, We'll close on Tuesdays.How do you like that? And then
on Tuesdays we'll go eat other people'scheap tacos. Who's the sucker now,
if you get a chance. TacoSampedro right off the six o five Freeway
on Carson in the beautiful town ofHawaiian Gardens. Also in the realm of
intellectual property, I have a veryinteresting story about a Thai restaurant called Thai
(27:41):
Food. I'm not going to tellyou the name of the restaurant just yet,
but when one of the Google searches, one of the most popular Google
searches that there is is like MexicanFood near Me, Barbecue near Me,
McDonald's near Me. This restaurant changedtheir name to Typhood near Me. So
(28:06):
when you search Ti Food near Mein New York City? What do you
think comes up? You're right,Typhood near Me. You just put you
just entered it in the search engine. So this this place is uh,
well, when you go to NewYork it's you'll see it. It's near
you, and the uh the yeah, it's optimized for search engine discovery.
(28:37):
And can you do that? Canyou call your restaurant Ti Food near me
is a deceitful because it's not nearme. Well, when you're there,
it is near you. So Ithink it's just funny and genius at the
same time. Typhood near Me.Thanks Google for directing everybody to my restaurant.
Is it good? I don't know. When I go to New York
(28:59):
next, I think I might goto what's my favorite Thai restaurant? I
have a great one. I willtell you after the break. Joe Ascalante,
(29:29):
here's my loyal Joe Escalante live fromHollywood. If by Hollywood you mean
bird Bank. Continue with the businessend of show business here on k E.
I B eleven fifty on your AMdial. And what is my favorite
Thai restaurant? I asked myself rightbefore the break. It's called tie not
corn N a k O r N. And it is on Beach Boulevard at
(29:55):
the corner of Beach and Chapman.Right behind that Carl's Junior there in the
beautiful city of Stanton, California.Stanton used to be Stanton when I grew
up, but the demographics have changed. It's now Stanton. And there's a
good restaurant down there called Park Avenuealso and ill garage right behind it,
right down the street. There's alot of good restaurants in this kinky,
(30:18):
stupid area. That's just like,why is it a city? But I
got some good restaurants. Okay,let's continue with the show business and get
away from the restaurants. I havea lot of celebrities behaving badly today.
I mean there's so many I can'tfill up a whole show on this,
so it's pretty negative. But we'llgo over a few of them first.
(30:44):
One. Jonathan Major's the star ofa bunch of like Loki and ant Man
Wasp movies. Great actor. He'sgot a scandal. We've talked about it
before. It's probably the best actorwith a scandal right now. And he's
got some domestic violence issues and stillgoing he's going to trial over there.
He's in the Manhattan courtroom right nowtrying to have his case thrown out.
(31:11):
And that's you know, what theytried to do. But the plaintiff or
the it's a criminal case. Sobut the victim is Grace Jabbari. And
there's a new one hundred and fifteenpage filing that Variety just obtained, and
the new news is, hey,there's a whole nother story of him doing
(31:32):
the same thing in London, andthat is going to they're going to try
to get that into the trial.So look for a trial coming up soon
with Jonathan Major's. And the defenseis trying to say, hey, this
lady attacked him. She's the abuser. And he's saying no, no,
(31:52):
no, yeah, that's what he'ssaying. She's saying, what, no
way. This guy's a big,giant guy and he abused me and assaulted
me or whatever. And then therewas an enough stories about him to get
him dropped, not by his agent, but get him dropped from a bunch
of movies. But William moorese Ithink still represents him, which I think
is meaningful because if they would havelooked into it and said, hey,
(32:12):
the guy's rotten, they would havedropped him, but they didn't drop him.
So maybe he's not rotten at all. Maybe he's just got a bad
you know, some bad outbursts andneeds to learn a lesson. Someone else
needs to learn a lesson. Wow, Dwight Howard, former LA Laker,
NBA All Star, an All Star, eight time NBA All Star. This
(32:34):
guy is huge. He is beingsued. This is not a criminal case.
This is a This one is aguy. It's from a guy.
A guy said, Hey, thisguy, I met him online. I
went over to his house and wehad freaky deky times together. And then
he brought out this is this iswhere the like. It looks like,
(32:57):
okay, big deal. You youmet him at his house, he met
him online, You went and youguys had an intimate contact. And how
why is he why is he nowbeing sued? If that's what you you
freely went over there and that's whatyou wanted to do. Obviously that's what
you went over there to do,well, he says. Dwight Howard brought
(33:20):
out a transgendered male to female outof the side hatch, so to speak,
and her name was Kitty. Sokitty comes out. Now this guy
Harper, the plaintiff in this case, says I wasn't with that and I
(33:45):
didn't want to do I didn't wantto be involved in that, and I
told him no. But then hesays that Howard started getting on him and
then held him down, pinned himdown, and only stopped when he found
out he wasn't enjoying it. Well, I don't know this one. Howard's
(34:07):
defense is this guy is just okay, I admit, you know, I
hooked up with this guy online,and now he's trying to assume because I'm
famous and I'm rich and this one, I tend to believe Howard. There's
no evidence that the guy was harmed. It's just him making a story up
to get money, is it true? Well? Maybe, but you put
(34:29):
yourself in this position if you're havingsexual texts with him, and these texts
have all come out, and youwent over to his house and now you're
in a position where if something badhappens, there's no witnesses. So why'd
you go there if you didn't knowhim that well to where you were already.
I mean, this just goes tomorality, Like if you want to
have sexual experiences without knowing the person. That's right away, it's bad,
(34:55):
it's wrong. So if to me, it's wrong if you try to come
up with a lawsuit out of thisencounter, which was morally objectionable in the
first place and not safe, andnow you were going to say, well,
yeah, I mean that was I'mthe only witness, but this is
(35:17):
what happened. Now, and whatabout miss Kitty? Why aren't you ssuing
miss Kitty? Miss Kitty has nomoney, so Miss Kitty's not getting sued.
So this one, I think,I mean, Howard's coming out and
it's just saying, hey, lookI did this. I'm not going to
be blackmailed. So when that whenthe stars come out and say I will
not be blackmailed. These these guystend to go back into the shadows because
(35:43):
they were banking on the effect,on the prospect that the person wouldn't want
to shame of all this coming outin public, especially a professional athlete.
But he's this guy said look,I'm yeah, as I did it,
but I didn't do that, Soit's going to be tough. So I
think Howard's gonna win. There's anotherone, Noel Clark. Noel Clark is
(36:06):
an actor, a British actor.I believe he's British, but he's in
a British show called Doctor Who.Now we all know what Doctor Who is.
It's a British show. Now he'sbeen accused in a bombshell twenty twenty
one report from the Guardian. Hewas accused. The Guardian is an English
(36:27):
newspaper. He was accused of groping, harassment and bullying by twenty women twenty
so Clark denied the claims, buthe said he would be seeking professional help
to educate himself and change for thebetter. So he's obviously a cad.
He needs some help. But he'ssuing the Guardian because they put him through
(36:50):
a trial by media, he says, and they ruined his career by printing
the stories about what he had done. Now, if you are like one
of my listeners, you would say, well, if that's he's suing them
from defamation, he would have toprove number one that what they're saying is
(37:13):
false. Does it make someone spiton the ground, Yes, twenty women
accuse you a battery makes you spiton the ground, because that's prong number
one for defamation. Number two isit true. Well, in the UK
they have a different standard than herein the United States. In the United
States, if you try to suethe newspaper for that, he'd have to
(37:35):
prove that it wasn't true. He'dhave to go to court and say this
is not true. I have neverbattered these women and how dare you say
that? And then it wouldn't goanywhere because you got twenty women who say
you battered him. Now in theUK, it's different. You sue them
and you don't have to prove thatit's not true. That yeah, you
don't have to part of their defense. They're going to come back and say,
(38:00):
well, it's really true and ifthat is true, and they're allowed
to report on it. But theburden of proof has shifted in the United
Kingdom. Now the Kingdom, it'seasier for you to sue someone for defamation
because you don't have to prove thatwhat they said was false. They have
to do it. They have toprove that it was true. And that
(38:20):
is why you see people like JohnnyDepp will go over there and sue for
defamation. A lot of people willgo and sue over there for defamation if
they if they if the defamation happenedhere and there they're going to sue there.
So that's the difference between the UKin the United States, in the
defamation world. All Right, youlearn something today, all right, let's
(38:44):
uh, let's end it right there. And I will now leave you with
just a taste of the greatest songever written. Remind you the Vandals.
Tickets for our Christmas shows and theHouse of Blues Anaheim and Ventura are now
on sale. I will see youthere and I will see you next week.
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