December 13, 2025 • 39 mins
Episode Description:
In an industry often defined by spotlight and spectacle, Deeper Than Music with Markivus goes beyond the surface to uncover the real stories that shape creative legends. In this powerful episode, Markivus sits down with two extraordinary guests—Irene Michaels and Howard Bloom—for an inspiring conversation about passion, discipline, reinvention, and the unseen work behind long-lasting success.
Inside the Episode
Time Management & Creative DisciplineSuccess doesn’t happen by accident. Actress, model, dancer, and philanthropist Irene Michaels shares how mental organization and staying present allow her to balance multiple creative roles with clarity and purpose. Meanwhile, legendary music publicist and author Howard Bloom breaks down his highly structured daily routine—highlighting the importance of sleep, consistency, and intentional scheduling in a demanding industry.
Early Inspirations & Finding PurposeBoth guests reflect on the moments that ignited their creative paths. Irene traces her journey back to childhood imagination and performance, evolving naturally into dance, modeling, photography, and music. Howard recounts growing up in Buffalo, New York, feeling lost until a life-changing book sparked his passion for truth, science, and music—setting him on a path that would later connect him with icons like Michael Jackson and Prince.
Evolution, Reinvention & Trusting InstinctsCareers aren’t linear, and this episode embraces that truth. Irene opens up about rediscovering her musical voice during the pandemic, proving that creativity can resurface stronger during adversity. Howard shares stories of trusting his instincts to recognize groundbreaking talent, emphasizing the importance of intuition, courage, and believing in potential before the world does. Key Takeaways
This episode is a masterclass in:
Deeper Than Music reminds listeners that behind every spotlight moment is a deeper journey—one fueled by resilience, belief, and purpose.
Listen, Like & Subscribe
Tune in to Deeper Than Music with Markivus on your favorite podcast platform and discover the stories that live beneath the sound.
Hashtags
#DeeperThanMusic #Markivus #IreneMichaels #HowardBloom #MusicIndustry #EntertainmentIndustry #CreativeJourney #SuccessStories #BehindTheScenes #Inspiration #PodcastLife #IndependentMedia
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/deeper-than-music-with-markivus--2705530/support.
In an industry often defined by spotlight and spectacle, Deeper Than Music with Markivus goes beyond the surface to uncover the real stories that shape creative legends. In this powerful episode, Markivus sits down with two extraordinary guests—Irene Michaels and Howard Bloom—for an inspiring conversation about passion, discipline, reinvention, and the unseen work behind long-lasting success.
Inside the Episode
Time Management & Creative DisciplineSuccess doesn’t happen by accident. Actress, model, dancer, and philanthropist Irene Michaels shares how mental organization and staying present allow her to balance multiple creative roles with clarity and purpose. Meanwhile, legendary music publicist and author Howard Bloom breaks down his highly structured daily routine—highlighting the importance of sleep, consistency, and intentional scheduling in a demanding industry.
Early Inspirations & Finding PurposeBoth guests reflect on the moments that ignited their creative paths. Irene traces her journey back to childhood imagination and performance, evolving naturally into dance, modeling, photography, and music. Howard recounts growing up in Buffalo, New York, feeling lost until a life-changing book sparked his passion for truth, science, and music—setting him on a path that would later connect him with icons like Michael Jackson and Prince.
Evolution, Reinvention & Trusting InstinctsCareers aren’t linear, and this episode embraces that truth. Irene opens up about rediscovering her musical voice during the pandemic, proving that creativity can resurface stronger during adversity. Howard shares stories of trusting his instincts to recognize groundbreaking talent, emphasizing the importance of intuition, courage, and believing in potential before the world does. Key Takeaways
This episode is a masterclass in:
- Creative discipline and time management
- Staying adaptable in uncertain times
- Trusting your instincts and inner voice
- Understanding that every success story has unseen layers
Deeper Than Music reminds listeners that behind every spotlight moment is a deeper journey—one fueled by resilience, belief, and purpose.
Listen, Like & Subscribe
Tune in to Deeper Than Music with Markivus on your favorite podcast platform and discover the stories that live beneath the sound.
Hashtags
#DeeperThanMusic #Markivus #IreneMichaels #HowardBloom #MusicIndustry #EntertainmentIndustry #CreativeJourney #SuccessStories #BehindTheScenes #Inspiration #PodcastLife #IndependentMedia
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/deeper-than-music-with-markivus--2705530/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Good morning, good evening, wherever you are in the world.
Deeper than music radio, behind every great song, there's even
greater story. I like to say, what's up to everybody
listening to us on iHeartRadio, speaker and all the great
platforms that are streaming deep of the music radio. And
then also I would like to say to all the
people out there in YouTube land, Hey, we're now on YouTube.
(00:28):
So we have two amazing guests. We have Howard Bloom
and Irene Michael's here to share their story and just
you know, share what the inspiration behind what you guys
do to keep people inspired. So how are you doing both,
Howard and Irene? Yeah? So Irene yes, actress, model, dancer, philanthropists.
(00:53):
First question time management? How is it that you do
everything that you do?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Like question a lot. I'm very organized.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It's all in different compartments in my mind and I
just keep focusing and I say in the moment, so
I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay, And Howard, how do you manage your time? And
like where do you get all this talent from?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I got? I have a very regular schedule includes a
total of about eight and a half hours of sleep
a night. I get up at eight o'clock in the morning,
take my bath and take a whole load of pills
because you know, I was in bed for fifteen years
with the planet fatigue syndrome, and then have a meeting
with my assistant and briefer for the day. Then I
(01:38):
drink breakfast and I go back to sleep. I get
up at three o'clock. Today. I took an old friend
who is a nephrologist, on a walk because I need
to walk eight eight miles a day, and then came
home and started worktime, which generally begins at six o'clock
and goes until one point thirty in the morning. So
(01:58):
everything is very organized.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, so I.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
See it very organized. And so you guys are both
in the entertainment field. Irene, You've been in like iconic movies,
Home Alone too, General Hospital. You've worked with icons like
Dolly Parton and Howard music publicist. Author, you've worked with
the I just saw his documentary Billy Joel. My question,
(02:24):
did you you both know at a young age that
you wanted to be in the entertainment field.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I do first, Irene, Okay, I did. Since I was
a little girl. I used to dress up all the time,
pretend I was a princess and put a veil over
my head and take a broom and make make it
my horse. So the broom was my horse, as I
was a star. And this was from a very early age,
(02:50):
I would say eleven eleven. I started taking dancing lessons,
and then I started taking singing lessons. Out of that
became modeling, and out of modeling became photography. Out of
that became a book, and out of that, well not
the book, but out of all the things that I've learned,
(03:12):
I got back into singing.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And the reason why I.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Got back into singing too is that when COVID hit,
there are something really to do, people had to stay
in the house, stay away from people. To that lasted,
as you know, a lot of time. So I went
to my pianel and I started playing played around with it.
I played the guitar. I'm not too good on the piano,
but I played the guitar, and I just said, hmm,
(03:36):
I would like to sing again. So I started writing
a little bit, and I played, and I wrote and
I played, and I thought this will work. So I
actually started singing at cabaret places here in Chicago, and
I got a lot of notice, not noticed, but yeah,
I guess noticed that people.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Were knew why I was out there.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And from there a girl had seen me and she
wanted me to cut a record about house music, and
I told her she is absolutely crazy. I am she
old to do hawk music that's for twenty year olds.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But I did, and I did.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
A remix of a remix of Devil in Disguise and.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It was pretty damn good. So I get all excited.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
And then I was invited to do a Diva show,
which is all house music. And I was on a
big stage with about four or five people, four or
five people and four or five thousand in the audience.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I was bit by the bug. So I just continued
and I loved it, always have.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
And what about yourself, Howard, Well, you know I founded
the biggest fear firm in the music industry and worked
with Michael Jackson, Prince about Marley Bet, Middler, ACDC, Heiri Smith, Pisqueen,
Run DMC, Billy Joel Biliadel, Paul Simon, Peter Kabriel and
people like that, Run DMC and Grandmaster Flash of the
Furious Five. And what when I was a kid, I
(05:02):
was totally lost kid in Buffalo, New York, which was
basically a lost town. And I picked up a book
one day and it said the first two laws of science,
or these the truth at any price, including the price
of your life. And it told the story of Galileo, who,
according to the book, had been willing to go to
the stake in order to defend this truth. That's not true,
but I needed the mythic version. And look at things
(05:25):
right under your nose as if you've never seen them before.
That's law number two. And it gave the example of
antanvan lu and Ope, the guy who invented the microscope.
So these two guys reached out across the distance of
three hundred and fifty years and saved me. And they
gave me a place to live, a place where I
account for something, and that was science. So I've been
(05:45):
in science ever since. But when I was about when
I was thirteen and had my bar mitzvah, which means
you catch a whole bunch of checks, I had enough
money to buy something new, a Hi Fi record player.
It wasn't yet stereo, with single speakers for the woofer
and the tweeter, but and I started just listening to
music obsessively. In other words, Rough Bartrak, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Bach,
(06:11):
the whole bunch of them. And that was my milieu,
that was my that was where I lived comfortably in
music because popular music, which was the music of the
kids who used to beat me up and humiliate me,
so I wanted to have nothing to do with it.
But eventually I found and nobody thought I would be
anything in music. I was thrown out of a trombone class.
(06:34):
I wanted to be like J and K Winding with
their trombone duo, and I was thrown out in the
first two weeks of class. It was my mother got
me private lessons in the violin from the second violin
It's the Buffalo Hilarmonic Orchestra. One day, as I was
scratching away trying to show him what I had learned
in the past week, I saw this fist the size
(06:56):
of a ham come across my windscreen, hit my violin. Small,
I should all the way to the windows, to the curtains.
The velvet curtains saved it and it fell harmlessly on
the velvet, crumpled down below the window. And that was
the end of my violin lessons, so I took piano lessons,
and at the end of two and a half months
during the summer, the piano teacher said, look, I got
(07:17):
a confession to make. When you walked into my studio,
I knew you would never be able to play the piano,
but I took you on because all my normal clients
were away for the summer at summer camp and I
needed to pay my rent.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
But now I'm telling you that if you continue to
work as hard as you have been working, you will
be able to play the piano. And I was never
able to find the time again to practice the piano
because my parents made me promise that if they sent
me to a wonderful private school where I had a
chance of belonging, that I would work, that I would
(07:51):
actually pay attention in class, which I had never done
because I was reading two books a day under the desk.
So but nonetheless, the least likely person my whole family
as musical, I'm not in the standard sense, and yet
I ended up founding the biggest PR firm in the
music industry, applying the lessons of my science to PR
in the music industry. Pacing and my rivals two or
(08:14):
three to one. In other words, my rivals were happy
if they got you six stories a month. I was
unhappy if we got you less than sixty stories a month.
The average was one hundred and twenty five stories a month,
and sometimes it went up to seven hundred and fifty
a month. So I did a whole different kind of
PR and PR as a matter of making a name
(08:35):
repeat itself so many times that eventually people come to
recognize it and other people start pinning their careers on it, saying, oh,
did you know I've worked for Prince, and all of
a sudden that elevates their career. And Prince was a
total Look. I have this thing in my gut and
it goes off every two years or so. It only
goes off when I see a person who has the
(08:56):
potential to be a superstar. Went off with an unknown
when I was when I founded the East Coast Public
and Artist Relations department for ABCD Records, it went off.
We had a band at number three on the charts
with a song called tell Me Something Good, and the
band was named Rufus Rufus. Yeah yeah, So I researched
(09:18):
the band and I went out in a limo one
day to pick up the band's manager, who was Tras,
who was Diana Ross's. And I knew that if I
had him with me in the limousine on the way
back to the city, he would be trapped, we would
be trapped in traffic. I would have him as a
captive audience. And I said, look, I know your band
prides itself on your democracy. Everybody is equal to everybody else.
(09:42):
But if you let me put all of the media
attention on the lead singer and you cover my ass
with the band, I will give you a star. And
the unknown singer lost in the democracy of that band
was named Shaka Khan. So, in other words, the the
star star stop. The star spotting system in my gut
(10:04):
had gone off and said this could be a star,
because I don't say that to people unless I know it.
So another unknown was this kid for Minneapolis. I had
been following his career because he was a total unknown,
and yet he got an album on the R and
B charts, and then that album went to Plattin and
no one had ever heard of him. And to my
(10:25):
in my good fortune, his manager called. A few weeks later,
his manager with the Earth Wind and Fire's manager, and
I was handling Earth, wind and Fire, and he said,
I got this new kid, would you be willing to
work with him? The new kid was the kid I
had been following on the charts, So of course my
answer was yes. And the star thing in my gut
had gone off again. And the biggest time that went
(10:48):
off was in two thousand and five when I saw
a person speaking at a space conference and he said,
when I got at Apologe, I asked myself the following question,
what three things would do the most of my lifetime
to change humanity? And his answers were the internet, alternative energy,
and space. So he went into the internet business and
(11:10):
he helped build a business that he was able to
sell and get roughly god what was it, who was
roughly a billion dollars out of it? And then he
skipped over number two alternative energy, and he went directly
to space. And he had not launched a single thing.
He had not even put a tin can but a
firecrafter in a tin can and lit it. Yet and
(11:31):
all of the major companies like Boeing were making fun
of him. But this time the starmaking machine didn't just
say this is a star. I'd been hunting myth and
so I was hunting in dark underbelly where new myths
and movements are made. That was what I was doing
when I landed in the music industry, and all of
a sudden, the star making thing went off and said,
(11:51):
this guy is not a star, he's a myth and
kids will be following his example one hundred and fifteen
years from now. And that guy's name was Elon Musk.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
So we had three conversations based on that intuition. So
the star making machine in the god can work very effectively.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It seems like you have a keen eye Gan question
twenty three. You decide to go into music initially in
your career of just multi platforms. Did you always want
to do music? I know you said that you doubted
it before with the house music. When you decided you
(12:29):
were going to go into a set. Question was it
going to be house music or another genre?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
It was my least favorite, seeing was my thing to do. Wow,
I learned to have it.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
It's treated me very well, and it's creative and I
enjoyed doing it. That my age, I think is pretty
upstanding to do all these things that I do and
get some words from my songs.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's very good guess for music.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Yes, wow.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
And Howard you mentioned the it factor, the star factor
that makes your gut go off. What are there any
characteristics or any qualities that, like with a Prince of
Billy Joel that you see that gives you that spody
sense if.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
You will, it's market. It is entirely unpredictable. There are
no criterion. It just goes off and you know it's Look,
when I had my three conversations with Elan Musk, I
could not tell him why I was wasting his time
because it took ten years for me to articulate, to
put into words what my gut was telling me. And
(13:33):
if I had, if it had been ten years earlier
at during the phone conversations, I would have said, I'm
calling you because you are a myth in the making,
and perhaps I can help you become even more of
a myth. But I couldn't say that because it took
ten years to articulate it. The thing in the gut
is so wordless and so just. It's a body sensation.
(13:55):
It's a muscular sensation. It doesn't talk to your mind
except to say this person is a servant, So you know,
there were a lot of people who were obviously starts.
Michael Jackson was huge. He was the biggest phenomenon in
the history of the music industry when I first started
working with him. But he and I had a soul connection.
We our souls were connected as if we were sign
(14:16):
these twins. It was absolutely astonishing. And one day I
got a call. I was sitting in my office on
fiftie fifth Street in Manhattan, and I kept a little
red knapsack behind my desk with everything I would need
in taste. I got an emergency call to go out
on the road somewhere, and I got a call at
four o'clock saying, Michael is canceling his tour. You're the
(14:37):
only one he will listen to. You've got to be
out here by eleven o'clock tonight, meaning out in Hollywood.
And that was because Michael and I had this soul connection.
Think of what it's like to be the only person
in the world Michael Jackson, the biggest star in the
history of the music industry, will listen to. That's astonisher.
And I could tell you the stories of how I
(14:59):
learned what I learned about Michael. And it wasn't from
reading a thousand clippings on him, which I had done.
It was from standing next to him with his shoulder
next to mine, his elbow next to mine, is left
knee next to mine, and feeling his feelings. My first
meeting with Michael. I've been working with his brothers and
(15:19):
I taken them on. I refused to work with him
for four months and then they insisted on a meeting.
And I've been told that if you want to be
a real man, you say no. You have the courtesy
of saying no to people's faces. And here the brothers
were in town and they were asking for a meeting.
So I went into the Helmsley Palace to be a
man and do the decent, ethical thing and say no
(15:41):
to their face. And they were on one of the
top floors of the Helmsley Palace. I went down the hallway,
knocked on the door. The door opened just a bit,
and that thing in the gut said, these guys are
in trouble. These are five of the most moral, ethical,
tearing people who will ever meet in your life, and
they are in trouble. Now it's you're in trouble, and
you need then you need me, because then I will
(16:03):
fight on your behalf. And it took three months to
articulate the problem. I mean, I could see that somebody
was doing evil things to their pulp publicity and giving
them a bad name, and at first I pinpointed it
to Don King. Now, Don King killed the man with
his bare hands and his shoes, kicking the band to death,
(16:23):
So you don't mess with Don King. I messed with
Don King, and I got a gag order put on
Don King because his involvement had poisoned the press against
the Jackson's tour that year.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
So this is the victory tour.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Victory tour, yes, exactly. You're very well informed. So but
what I detected was that there was somebody behind the
scenes hidden. Don King was flamboyant, there was nothing hidden
about Don King, but there was somebody else who was
screwing around with this tour and doing destructive things. And
(16:59):
it turned out to be somebody who was out there
to take the power, the glory, and some of the
money from what Michael Jackson had produced, but doing it
at Michael Jackson and his brother's expense. And eventually, as
I got closer and closer to figuring out who that
person was, and that person knew it. He poisoned the
(17:20):
well between me and Michael, and he got me kicked
off the tour. We were still doing the publicity, but
I wasn't out at every single show every single night
briefing the press in the press room after the show
was over, which is what I had been doing. And
I was no longer there as a soul companion to
Michael because the people remember. A year after Michael's death,
(17:42):
which hit me and a lot of people like a
personal blow in the gut. There was a press conference
and several people went on stage and said, look, look
what we've done for Michael Jackson since his death. We've
doubled the value of his estate. Now, how gross and vampeur.
Well can you get celebrating the fact that you are
(18:04):
living off the proceeds of Michael Jackson's death and those
people help bring about his death.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Wow, that is deep. I want to transition.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I'm interesting.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You stab it in theoretical physics at the age of ten.
By the time I was twelve, my mother got me
a meeting with the head of the graduate physics department
at the University of Buffalo the head of a graduate
physics department is going to talk to a twelve year old,
You've got to be kidding me. It's a waste of
his time. So I went into his office. He probably
anticipated five minutes. We were talking about the heaviest scientific
(18:37):
topic of the time, steady state theory of the universe
versus Big Bang theory of the universe. And it was
the year when the opponent of steady state theory was
sure he was going to destroy Big Bang theory and
we would never hear about it again. Did that pradition
come true? Not exactly. So we were discussing the interpretation
of the Doppler shift, and he kept me in his
(18:59):
office for an hour, and when we came out, he
put his hand on my shoulder and said to my mom,
you don't have to say for grad school in theoretical
physics for him. He'll get into any school he wants. So,
and I built my first Boolly and algebra machine that year,
my first computer. A co designed a computer that won
some Science Fair awards. This is all while I was twelve,
(19:21):
and then at sixteen, I worked as a lab assistant
in the world's largest cancer research facility, the ROSWELLT Park
Memorial Cancer Research Institute in Buffalo, New York, and came
up with the theory of the beginning, middle, and end
of the universe that predicted thirty eight years in advance
dark energy, which no one is able to explain, but
(19:42):
this theory explains it. So that's the background from which
I came into the music industry. Plus I to me,
science meant the aspiration to omnisciens, the desire to know everything.
And the pivot was that line about looking for things
aren't under your nose as if you've never seen them before,
(20:03):
and then proceed from there. And one of the things
I could see right under my nose from the age
of twelve was the difference between the kind of Lutheran
life religion my synagogue followed. You know, you're all prisoners
between impews, and to get to the center, you have
to go over everybody's deeds, and it's a gross discomfort
for everyone. That religion of imprisonment was one form of religion,
(20:28):
and then there was the black form of religion, which
was in the United States Holy Roller religion, and it
was totally different. It was about bringing God into the
body of a human being. So that human being could
be shouting for three hours and rolling around on the floor.
That's why they called it the Holy Roller Church. And
that's an ecstatic religion, that's the very opposite. So I
(20:51):
was aware of these two different forms of human experience.
And then at the age of sixteen, I was I
was the head of something called the program Committed in
my high school. And the juniors came to me and said,
we're having a dance. Would you advertise it for us?
And I that was my job. I was the MC
(21:11):
off the school assemblies every single morning, and I programmed
two of them a week, and so I had to
do that for them. Even though if there was a
dance or party of any kind at Buffalo, New York,
I was cordially invited to stay as far away as possible,
preferably Cleveland or Albuquerque. So I got on stage, I
put a piece of music on the turntable. I got
(21:32):
on stage. I don't know how to dance. I cannot
do the box step, I cannot do the fox trot,
I cannot do the waltz. And I danced, and as
I was dancing, I saw jaws dropping, I saw pupils dilating,
eyes opening wide. I saw faces melting. I saw that
audience of three hundred and fifty people who really didn't
like me come together as one big amebic blob and
(21:55):
reach pipe out to me a pseudopod, And I had
an out about the experience. I was on the ceiling
watching all of this happen, and I was danced by
the force that came through my body up to my
head somewhere it was utterly transmographied and flowed back down
to the audience. And it was an astonishing experience. And
when I finished, that audience did something they would never
(22:18):
do again, and they had never done before in my
experience at that high school. They surged through the foot
of the stage. They picked me up off the proscenium,
They put me on their shoulders, they carried me out
of the auditorium up the foot footpath to the building
where we had our classes, and only then did they
put me down. So one of my advantages and working
(22:40):
with my artists and the music businesses, I had had
this ecstatic experience. I knew what they went through on stage.
I am passed with them. All of them lived in
my heart. Michael Jackson lives in my heart. Prince lives
in my heart even though they're both dead. They were
my babies. And so it was the ability to know
what Michael Jackson or Prince went through that performance experience
(23:04):
that gave me that BLUs of my science gave me
a massive edge for your over might over might Irene.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
That is that the energy that you get when you
perform your music. Because I know twenty twenty three and
your music has been award winning, can you describe and
everything that you do with each passion, what energy and
how it uplifts you?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Well, every time I go on stage, I'm very excited
and very nervous at the same time. I think every
celebrity I have talked to a performer all feel the
same way for about five seconds. So, but it is
that energy also fear, that little bit of fear that
makes you go out there. So you're out there in
(23:53):
front of all these people. This is live concerts or
what happened is that recording studios? Yes, so you feed
off the audience. You see, if they like you, they
have to respond to you, and if their face is
just no expression, I get worried.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But I've never had that.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I think just one time At the very very beginning,
I slipped up on a song and I slept all
the wrong words.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
But it still went. I didn't stop.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, that's the difference between that going into a recording studio.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's quite a big difference.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I didn't think I'd liked it at first because there
was no audience, but.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I really did. I really did.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I love the experience to go into a studio in
a small little box with a microphone and headphones and
start creating with engineers that are musicians or digital engineers.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So much fun. It still is.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
I'm going to continue doing that. Like I like performing,
I also like writing. And is that answer your question?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Your book? What inspired you to write the book and
what was the motivation?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
What's the title of Uh?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
You do you know the title of the book because
I I on beauty right ion Beauty Living Beautifully after
fifty Yes, right, Yeah, it's a it's a book about
beauty and all the beauty secrets. Being backstage quite a bit,
I learned a lot of secrets from different celebrities, and uh,
(25:25):
I'll tell you a few of them. Zita Jones and
Cita Jones puts coffee on her body, coffee grounds to
keep her her skin smooth. Wow, it just takes all
the dead cells off. That was the one thing she did.
Another person I told him I would never say their name,
put mayonnaise all over their hair at night. They got
(25:47):
they were her hair actually worked. The other thing it
was Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor used to put el vera.
She used to sleep in Elvira bed. It was kind
of like a ton of a little And that's why
her skin was so pure and white and beautiful, and
she aged. Even when she passed away, she looked beautiful.
(26:08):
And the rest of the secrets I can't tell you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Wow, that's definitely insightful. And both of you have had
a long and very awarding career. What do you think
now about the new era, the digital era, the social
media era. What are your thoughts on entertainment and then
now with all these platforms.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Well, I think it's a blessing, Anna Kurtz. At the
same time, what I hate seeing about the Internet and
the cell phones, there's all the young children having.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Their heads just down all the time.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
They don't socialize with their friends at the dinner table,
and don't talk to their parents. They're just very unsocial,
and I think that's could be dreadful when they get
to being the real world. I have no idea what
the real world is going to be like in twenty
twenty years, and for that matter, even one year. So
the internet has helped many artists as an exposed many
(27:09):
many artists.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Get an artist on platform for their work.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And so for that, of course, all the learning things
that we do and have from the computers is brilliant.
But then like when I was there, I think I
think it was the Grammys last year there was a
or maybe it was the Grammys, but anyhow, there was
a major event and the song that one song of
the year was electronic. Everybody, all the others were very
(27:36):
angry because they spend their life writing and here is
one room just listening around with some with some knobs.
I don't mind. I don't mean to undermine it. So
that's the bad part of it. And people the things
that they could do on the computer, like put the
president's head on a pig or some silly stuff like that,
(27:59):
say things.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I know when.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Dolly Pardon, she was ill for a little while just recently,
and there was a big rumor that.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
She had passed away.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I got so many calls from that because my husband
kind of represents her, and it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
It was all AI.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And there was something else from AI that was really
buffle when Connie Francis died, and that I think is
pretty recent and being a big star in icon so
for so many years when she passed away and had
enemies in the business as we all do, the AI
said all this craziness about people showing up at her
(28:36):
at her coffin and saying horrible things and awful things
on the internet. So that for that reason, I don't
like it, because you can you can do anything, almost
can do anything. So but I like what I type.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
Yeah, and howard your sake?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I mean, coming from the entertainment and pr how do
you feel about social media and technology now?
Speaker 4 (29:01):
It is such a gift that it defies belief. Back
in the night of nineteen eighties when I first got Yeah,
I first got my first laptop in nineteen eighty three
when I was working with the Jacksons. It was a
tiny little thing from Radio Shack and it hole held
an entire eight K of memory. People don't even remember
what a K is anymore because they're accustomed to megabytes
(29:22):
and gigabytes and terabytes, but all of a sudden, handwriting
for me is painful. All of a sudden, I could
type and make any correction I wanted, and move blocks
of copy around. It was absolutely liberating. Now am on
my eighth book, and I do intense research on every
single sentence so that you can rely on the fact
(29:45):
that I have given you a statement that is absolutely
pinned down, that is definitive, that is authoritative. Because kids
grow up on my books, and I mean sixteen year
olds read my books and they said me, emails about
your book change my life. I didn't think I had
any purpose or meaning in life. Now I know I
(30:06):
have a purpose and a meaning. I've got something like
three hundred pages of these letters from people who read
the books. So I need to be an absolute authority
to do that. In the old days, sometimes it could
take me a week to fact check a sentence. Now
it takes me ten minutes, twenty minutes. I put my
(30:26):
ais to work and then I compare their answers and
I make them back check each other. Because there are
a lot of hallucinations, a lot of phony things. They
will tell you, But what a blessing to get a
week's worth of work done in ten or twenty minutes.
It's absolutely astonishing. And does it dehumanize the work? No,
(30:48):
it rehumanizes work because I can do more of the
work that I do and the AI can't do. And
that is my people call it mythopoetic combination of science,
history and this kind of knowledge of spiritual stuff, if
we want to call it that. That came from my
experience first being on stage and then working with other artists,
(31:10):
because they touched the boundaries of the ecstatic of the transcendent,
and that is something in science we have to be
aware of as a reality and we have to be
able to explain it as a reality.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
And what about the I know there was a AI
actress and then also with the AI artists for example
Irene with you, how do you feel about that, like
AI music, AI actresses and actors.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Do you feel like that would eliminate like a career
for a normal person. Is it an enhancement? What is
your take on that?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well? I wish I had that answer. I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
What my hunch is, of course, will take up people's
position and our performer on stage. I went to see
a group was all They were all passed away and
what is it called that where they're really not there
but they make them look so like.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
The Holograms, Yes, the holograms.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And there was a group on stage and I went
there with my husband. This was London, and he didn't
say much about it, and I didn't, you know, I
wasn't into music at that time when they were very popular,
and I was I was watching them. You know, I'm
making my kids, Hey, they're dating good, you know, and
so forth, and so at the end my husband said
they're not real and I, what do you mean, They're
(32:31):
not real?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
They are reel. No, they're not real. I would not
believe him. They were so perfect.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And now you know, that's becoming a rage right now.
So I really don't know what's going to happen. I mean,
internet in the world travels so fast you really can't
keep up with it. It's hard to learn everything. I
never will.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I don't anyone. Well, maybe that's the exploring uh AI.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
What I worry about AI is people listen to the
phone things that it says.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
But it is a very good tool.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Especially for authors and people who just want to have
their simple questions.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Answered absolutely well.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Another author asked me last week, who did your book
cover for you? This is the Case of the Sexual
Cosmos cover, which is gorgeous. Let me see if I
can show it to you. It's over rare reason it's
over on top. Can you see it, to the top
of the air conditioner? So there we go. That's it.
That's the Case of the Sexual Cosmos. So he said,
(33:33):
where did you get this for just cover? Who made
it for you? I made it with chat cheapt I
made it with chat cheap pt. Wow, isn't that My
entry to popular culture was I had graduate fellowships at
at four universities in what is today called Euroscience, and
I jumped ship for an opportunity to help found a
(33:55):
commercial arts studio because that's closer to the land where
the gods are, that's closer to the area of these
transcendent experiences we're talking about. And that's how I got
into popular culture. And I was going to tell you
a story about that, but now I'm blanking out what
the story was. At any rate. I so I was
involved in our Direction. I actually made it on the
(34:17):
cover of Art Direction magazine. It used to take us
days to do I can do in half an hour
these days with the AI tools, with the visualization tools.
Laurah is well talked about application for creating visuals that
I haven't yet tried. Schat GPT was doing just fine
(34:38):
for me. And last week or two weeks ago, you know,
I go on five hundred and twenty five radio stations
every Wednesday night at one six in the morning, and
I get my assignment from my host, George Norri. The
show is coast to Coast AM sometime in the afternoon,
and then I have to become the world's leading expert
(34:58):
on it by the time I'm the show bosonic at night.
So the topic was a song that had just gone
to number one on one of Billboard's charts that was
entirely done by AI. Vocals were done by all the production,
the instruments, everything was done by AI. And I listened
(35:20):
and I thought, this is a very strong song, this
is a very good song. And the people who were
criticizing it said it lacked any human emotion. Are you
kidding me? This machine knows how to imitate, And as
a consequence, it was imitating some of the best singers
in the business and combining them and it was singing
with emotion. Now, don't ask me how that happens that
(35:43):
a machine. I mean, he could give us a bunch
of cues, emotional cues, and we humans are very good
at responding. We respond almost automatically to certain emotional cues. Well,
people like me and the sciences can't explain what those
cues are. A producer will have his own story of
what those cues are. But those cues just hit something
automatic inside you, and the machine had gotten it licked.
(36:05):
It knew how to sing with emotion. So what will happen?
I will get upset if my ais try to write
my books for me and put them out under my name.
That will be a bit discerning because I still feel
all of these things accelerate the human atos giving us rollers,
(36:26):
they give us roller skates. Now, how much faster can
you go on roller skates than if you're just walking?
And ultimately you don't want the roller skates to take
over the world. You want them to continue to serve us.
But at every level where we do things with machines,
that gives us the time to rise to a whole
new level of what we as humans, and only we
(36:48):
humans can do.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Well, I want to go out and do a new
song from Chat. I'm going to write a song Chat
and AI thank you, and.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I want to say thank you so much for being
on the show. And as always, it seems like time
flies when you're when you're with great minds. My last
question to both of you, I'll start off with you Irene.
Where can people find you? And what does twenty twenty
six look like for you?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Well, then you certainly find me on the internet, so
that's definitely one of the things that's good for house.
A bit can find on all the music platforms Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple,
so forth. And as far as twenty twenty six, I'm
going to do much of the same thing. Keep writing,
keep performing, and keep making no dreams, because I think
(37:42):
a person without.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
A dream is very difficult.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
If you have nothing to work for or you want,
you have nothing to achieve, it's not good.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So that's twenty twenty six for.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Me, and turn six for me is well mapped out
because I got to write ten books. I've got two
more books than me at least, and I'm eighty two
years old. Wow, and it takes me a minimum five
years to write a book. Although with AI, maybe it'll
be down to four and a half. So those next
(38:12):
two books have got to be written. They must be written.
And there is an AI called the Bloombot, and it
is a machine to be me when I die and
when we're still training it. And it is very hard
to train it because it's based on chat CHPT and
chat cheapt is based on giving you orthodoxies, and all
(38:33):
of my thoughts are in between, in the space in
between the orthodoxies. So it's very hard for the computer
to learn how to do that. But we're training it.
It's eighty five percent there. I will have some time
at twenty twenty we will go on stage I and
the Bloombot and we will have a discussion in front
of a live audience. And it'll be the first time
that an author has ever gone on stage with his
(38:55):
digital twin or whatever you want to call it. The Bloombot.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
You have to invite us, for sure, Wow, you have
to invite us.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Yes, I want.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
My mind is blowing right now, So ladies and gentlemen, crazy,
we'll leave you with that. With the Bloombot, and it's myself,
Howard Bloom and Irene Michaels signing off on deeper than music.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Thank you for tuning in
Speaker 4 (39:20):
Thank you, thank you, and I agree
Good morning, good evening, wherever you are in the world.
Deeper than music radio, behind every great song, there's even
greater story. I like to say, what's up to everybody
listening to us on iHeartRadio, speaker and all the great
platforms that are streaming deep of the music radio. And
then also I would like to say to all the
people out there in YouTube land, Hey, we're now on YouTube.
(00:28):
So we have two amazing guests. We have Howard Bloom
and Irene Michael's here to share their story and just
you know, share what the inspiration behind what you guys
do to keep people inspired. So how are you doing both,
Howard and Irene? Yeah? So Irene yes, actress, model, dancer, philanthropists.
(00:53):
First question time management? How is it that you do
everything that you do?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Like question a lot. I'm very organized.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It's all in different compartments in my mind and I
just keep focusing and I say in the moment, so
I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay, And Howard, how do you manage your time? And
like where do you get all this talent from?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I got? I have a very regular schedule includes a
total of about eight and a half hours of sleep
a night. I get up at eight o'clock in the morning,
take my bath and take a whole load of pills
because you know, I was in bed for fifteen years
with the planet fatigue syndrome, and then have a meeting
with my assistant and briefer for the day. Then I
(01:38):
drink breakfast and I go back to sleep. I get
up at three o'clock. Today. I took an old friend
who is a nephrologist, on a walk because I need
to walk eight eight miles a day, and then came
home and started worktime, which generally begins at six o'clock
and goes until one point thirty in the morning. So
(01:58):
everything is very organized.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, so I.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
See it very organized. And so you guys are both
in the entertainment field. Irene, You've been in like iconic movies,
Home Alone too, General Hospital. You've worked with icons like
Dolly Parton and Howard music publicist. Author, you've worked with
the I just saw his documentary Billy Joel. My question,
(02:24):
did you you both know at a young age that
you wanted to be in the entertainment field.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I do first, Irene, Okay, I did. Since I was
a little girl. I used to dress up all the time,
pretend I was a princess and put a veil over
my head and take a broom and make make it
my horse. So the broom was my horse, as I
was a star. And this was from a very early age,
(02:50):
I would say eleven eleven. I started taking dancing lessons,
and then I started taking singing lessons. Out of that
became modeling, and out of modeling became photography. Out of
that became a book, and out of that, well not
the book, but out of all the things that I've learned,
(03:12):
I got back into singing.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And the reason why I.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Got back into singing too is that when COVID hit,
there are something really to do, people had to stay
in the house, stay away from people. To that lasted,
as you know, a lot of time. So I went
to my pianel and I started playing played around with it.
I played the guitar. I'm not too good on the piano,
but I played the guitar, and I just said, hmm,
(03:36):
I would like to sing again. So I started writing
a little bit, and I played, and I wrote and
I played, and I thought this will work. So I
actually started singing at cabaret places here in Chicago, and
I got a lot of notice, not noticed, but yeah,
I guess noticed that people.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Were knew why I was out there.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And from there a girl had seen me and she
wanted me to cut a record about house music, and
I told her she is absolutely crazy. I am she
old to do hawk music that's for twenty year olds.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But I did, and I did.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
A remix of a remix of Devil in Disguise and.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It was pretty damn good. So I get all excited.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
And then I was invited to do a Diva show,
which is all house music. And I was on a
big stage with about four or five people, four or
five people and four or five thousand in the audience.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I was bit by the bug. So I just continued
and I loved it, always have.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
And what about yourself, Howard, Well, you know I founded
the biggest fear firm in the music industry and worked
with Michael Jackson, Prince about Marley Bet, Middler, ACDC, Heiri Smith, Pisqueen,
Run DMC, Billy Joel Biliadel, Paul Simon, Peter Kabriel and
people like that, Run DMC and Grandmaster Flash of the
Furious Five. And what when I was a kid, I
(05:02):
was totally lost kid in Buffalo, New York, which was
basically a lost town. And I picked up a book
one day and it said the first two laws of science,
or these the truth at any price, including the price
of your life. And it told the story of Galileo, who,
according to the book, had been willing to go to
the stake in order to defend this truth. That's not true,
but I needed the mythic version. And look at things
(05:25):
right under your nose as if you've never seen them before.
That's law number two. And it gave the example of
antanvan lu and Ope, the guy who invented the microscope.
So these two guys reached out across the distance of
three hundred and fifty years and saved me. And they
gave me a place to live, a place where I
account for something, and that was science. So I've been
(05:45):
in science ever since. But when I was about when
I was thirteen and had my bar mitzvah, which means
you catch a whole bunch of checks, I had enough
money to buy something new, a Hi Fi record player.
It wasn't yet stereo, with single speakers for the woofer
and the tweeter, but and I started just listening to
music obsessively. In other words, Rough Bartrak, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Bach,
(06:11):
the whole bunch of them. And that was my milieu,
that was my that was where I lived comfortably in
music because popular music, which was the music of the
kids who used to beat me up and humiliate me,
so I wanted to have nothing to do with it.
But eventually I found and nobody thought I would be
anything in music. I was thrown out of a trombone class.
(06:34):
I wanted to be like J and K Winding with
their trombone duo, and I was thrown out in the
first two weeks of class. It was my mother got
me private lessons in the violin from the second violin
It's the Buffalo Hilarmonic Orchestra. One day, as I was
scratching away trying to show him what I had learned
in the past week, I saw this fist the size
(06:56):
of a ham come across my windscreen, hit my violin. Small,
I should all the way to the windows, to the curtains.
The velvet curtains saved it and it fell harmlessly on
the velvet, crumpled down below the window. And that was
the end of my violin lessons, so I took piano lessons,
and at the end of two and a half months
during the summer, the piano teacher said, look, I got
(07:17):
a confession to make. When you walked into my studio,
I knew you would never be able to play the piano,
but I took you on because all my normal clients
were away for the summer at summer camp and I
needed to pay my rent.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
But now I'm telling you that if you continue to
work as hard as you have been working, you will
be able to play the piano. And I was never
able to find the time again to practice the piano
because my parents made me promise that if they sent
me to a wonderful private school where I had a
chance of belonging, that I would work, that I would
(07:51):
actually pay attention in class, which I had never done
because I was reading two books a day under the desk.
So but nonetheless, the least likely person my whole family
as musical, I'm not in the standard sense, and yet
I ended up founding the biggest PR firm in the
music industry, applying the lessons of my science to PR
in the music industry. Pacing and my rivals two or
(08:14):
three to one. In other words, my rivals were happy
if they got you six stories a month. I was
unhappy if we got you less than sixty stories a month.
The average was one hundred and twenty five stories a month,
and sometimes it went up to seven hundred and fifty
a month. So I did a whole different kind of
PR and PR as a matter of making a name
(08:35):
repeat itself so many times that eventually people come to
recognize it and other people start pinning their careers on it, saying, oh,
did you know I've worked for Prince, and all of
a sudden that elevates their career. And Prince was a
total Look. I have this thing in my gut and
it goes off every two years or so. It only
goes off when I see a person who has the
(08:56):
potential to be a superstar. Went off with an unknown
when I was when I founded the East Coast Public
and Artist Relations department for ABCD Records, it went off.
We had a band at number three on the charts
with a song called tell Me Something Good, and the
band was named Rufus Rufus. Yeah yeah, So I researched
(09:18):
the band and I went out in a limo one
day to pick up the band's manager, who was Tras,
who was Diana Ross's. And I knew that if I
had him with me in the limousine on the way
back to the city, he would be trapped, we would
be trapped in traffic. I would have him as a
captive audience. And I said, look, I know your band
prides itself on your democracy. Everybody is equal to everybody else.
(09:42):
But if you let me put all of the media
attention on the lead singer and you cover my ass
with the band, I will give you a star. And
the unknown singer lost in the democracy of that band
was named Shaka Khan. So, in other words, the the
star star stop. The star spotting system in my gut
(10:04):
had gone off and said this could be a star,
because I don't say that to people unless I know it.
So another unknown was this kid for Minneapolis. I had
been following his career because he was a total unknown,
and yet he got an album on the R and
B charts, and then that album went to Plattin and
no one had ever heard of him. And to my
(10:25):
in my good fortune, his manager called. A few weeks later,
his manager with the Earth Wind and Fire's manager, and
I was handling Earth, wind and Fire, and he said,
I got this new kid, would you be willing to
work with him? The new kid was the kid I
had been following on the charts, So of course my
answer was yes. And the star thing in my gut
had gone off again. And the biggest time that went
(10:48):
off was in two thousand and five when I saw
a person speaking at a space conference and he said,
when I got at Apologe, I asked myself the following question,
what three things would do the most of my lifetime
to change humanity? And his answers were the internet, alternative energy,
and space. So he went into the internet business and
(11:10):
he helped build a business that he was able to
sell and get roughly god what was it, who was
roughly a billion dollars out of it? And then he
skipped over number two alternative energy, and he went directly
to space. And he had not launched a single thing.
He had not even put a tin can but a
firecrafter in a tin can and lit it. Yet and
(11:31):
all of the major companies like Boeing were making fun
of him. But this time the starmaking machine didn't just
say this is a star. I'd been hunting myth and
so I was hunting in dark underbelly where new myths
and movements are made. That was what I was doing
when I landed in the music industry, and all of
a sudden, the star making thing went off and said,
(11:51):
this guy is not a star, he's a myth and
kids will be following his example one hundred and fifteen
years from now. And that guy's name was Elon Musk.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
So we had three conversations based on that intuition. So
the star making machine in the god can work very effectively.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It seems like you have a keen eye Gan question
twenty three. You decide to go into music initially in
your career of just multi platforms. Did you always want
to do music? I know you said that you doubted
it before with the house music. When you decided you
(12:29):
were going to go into a set. Question was it
going to be house music or another genre?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
It was my least favorite, seeing was my thing to do. Wow,
I learned to have it.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
It's treated me very well, and it's creative and I
enjoyed doing it. That my age, I think is pretty
upstanding to do all these things that I do and
get some words from my songs.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's very good guess for music.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Yes, wow.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
And Howard you mentioned the it factor, the star factor
that makes your gut go off. What are there any
characteristics or any qualities that, like with a Prince of
Billy Joel that you see that gives you that spody
sense if.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
You will, it's market. It is entirely unpredictable. There are
no criterion. It just goes off and you know it's Look,
when I had my three conversations with Elan Musk, I
could not tell him why I was wasting his time
because it took ten years for me to articulate, to
put into words what my gut was telling me. And
(13:33):
if I had, if it had been ten years earlier
at during the phone conversations, I would have said, I'm
calling you because you are a myth in the making,
and perhaps I can help you become even more of
a myth. But I couldn't say that because it took
ten years to articulate it. The thing in the gut
is so wordless and so just. It's a body sensation.
(13:55):
It's a muscular sensation. It doesn't talk to your mind
except to say this person is a servant, So you know,
there were a lot of people who were obviously starts.
Michael Jackson was huge. He was the biggest phenomenon in
the history of the music industry when I first started
working with him. But he and I had a soul connection.
We our souls were connected as if we were sign
(14:16):
these twins. It was absolutely astonishing. And one day I
got a call. I was sitting in my office on
fiftie fifth Street in Manhattan, and I kept a little
red knapsack behind my desk with everything I would need
in taste. I got an emergency call to go out
on the road somewhere, and I got a call at
four o'clock saying, Michael is canceling his tour. You're the
(14:37):
only one he will listen to. You've got to be
out here by eleven o'clock tonight, meaning out in Hollywood.
And that was because Michael and I had this soul connection.
Think of what it's like to be the only person
in the world Michael Jackson, the biggest star in the
history of the music industry, will listen to. That's astonisher.
And I could tell you the stories of how I
(14:59):
learned what I learned about Michael. And it wasn't from
reading a thousand clippings on him, which I had done.
It was from standing next to him with his shoulder
next to mine, his elbow next to mine, is left
knee next to mine, and feeling his feelings. My first
meeting with Michael. I've been working with his brothers and
(15:19):
I taken them on. I refused to work with him
for four months and then they insisted on a meeting.
And I've been told that if you want to be
a real man, you say no. You have the courtesy
of saying no to people's faces. And here the brothers
were in town and they were asking for a meeting.
So I went into the Helmsley Palace to be a
man and do the decent, ethical thing and say no
(15:41):
to their face. And they were on one of the
top floors of the Helmsley Palace. I went down the hallway,
knocked on the door. The door opened just a bit,
and that thing in the gut said, these guys are
in trouble. These are five of the most moral, ethical,
tearing people who will ever meet in your life, and
they are in trouble. Now it's you're in trouble, and
you need then you need me, because then I will
(16:03):
fight on your behalf. And it took three months to
articulate the problem. I mean, I could see that somebody
was doing evil things to their pulp publicity and giving
them a bad name, and at first I pinpointed it
to Don King. Now, Don King killed the man with
his bare hands and his shoes, kicking the band to death,
(16:23):
So you don't mess with Don King. I messed with
Don King, and I got a gag order put on
Don King because his involvement had poisoned the press against
the Jackson's tour that year.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
So this is the victory tour.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Victory tour, yes, exactly. You're very well informed. So but
what I detected was that there was somebody behind the
scenes hidden. Don King was flamboyant, there was nothing hidden
about Don King, but there was somebody else who was
screwing around with this tour and doing destructive things. And
(16:59):
it turned out to be somebody who was out there
to take the power, the glory, and some of the
money from what Michael Jackson had produced, but doing it
at Michael Jackson and his brother's expense. And eventually, as
I got closer and closer to figuring out who that
person was, and that person knew it. He poisoned the
(17:20):
well between me and Michael, and he got me kicked
off the tour. We were still doing the publicity, but
I wasn't out at every single show every single night
briefing the press in the press room after the show
was over, which is what I had been doing. And
I was no longer there as a soul companion to
Michael because the people remember. A year after Michael's death,
(17:42):
which hit me and a lot of people like a
personal blow in the gut. There was a press conference
and several people went on stage and said, look, look
what we've done for Michael Jackson since his death. We've
doubled the value of his estate. Now, how gross and vampeur.
Well can you get celebrating the fact that you are
(18:04):
living off the proceeds of Michael Jackson's death and those
people help bring about his death.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Wow, that is deep. I want to transition.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I'm interesting.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You stab it in theoretical physics at the age of ten.
By the time I was twelve, my mother got me
a meeting with the head of the graduate physics department
at the University of Buffalo the head of a graduate
physics department is going to talk to a twelve year old,
You've got to be kidding me. It's a waste of
his time. So I went into his office. He probably
anticipated five minutes. We were talking about the heaviest scientific
(18:37):
topic of the time, steady state theory of the universe
versus Big Bang theory of the universe. And it was
the year when the opponent of steady state theory was
sure he was going to destroy Big Bang theory and
we would never hear about it again. Did that pradition
come true? Not exactly. So we were discussing the interpretation
of the Doppler shift, and he kept me in his
(18:59):
office for an hour, and when we came out, he
put his hand on my shoulder and said to my mom,
you don't have to say for grad school in theoretical
physics for him. He'll get into any school he wants. So,
and I built my first Boolly and algebra machine that year,
my first computer. A co designed a computer that won
some Science Fair awards. This is all while I was twelve,
(19:21):
and then at sixteen, I worked as a lab assistant
in the world's largest cancer research facility, the ROSWELLT Park
Memorial Cancer Research Institute in Buffalo, New York, and came
up with the theory of the beginning, middle, and end
of the universe that predicted thirty eight years in advance
dark energy, which no one is able to explain, but
(19:42):
this theory explains it. So that's the background from which
I came into the music industry. Plus I to me,
science meant the aspiration to omnisciens, the desire to know everything.
And the pivot was that line about looking for things
aren't under your nose as if you've never seen them before,
(20:03):
and then proceed from there. And one of the things
I could see right under my nose from the age
of twelve was the difference between the kind of Lutheran
life religion my synagogue followed. You know, you're all prisoners
between impews, and to get to the center, you have
to go over everybody's deeds, and it's a gross discomfort
for everyone. That religion of imprisonment was one form of religion,
(20:28):
and then there was the black form of religion, which
was in the United States Holy Roller religion, and it
was totally different. It was about bringing God into the
body of a human being. So that human being could
be shouting for three hours and rolling around on the floor.
That's why they called it the Holy Roller Church. And
that's an ecstatic religion, that's the very opposite. So I
(20:51):
was aware of these two different forms of human experience.
And then at the age of sixteen, I was I
was the head of something called the program Committed in
my high school. And the juniors came to me and said,
we're having a dance. Would you advertise it for us?
And I that was my job. I was the MC
(21:11):
off the school assemblies every single morning, and I programmed
two of them a week, and so I had to
do that for them. Even though if there was a
dance or party of any kind at Buffalo, New York,
I was cordially invited to stay as far away as possible,
preferably Cleveland or Albuquerque. So I got on stage, I
put a piece of music on the turntable. I got
(21:32):
on stage. I don't know how to dance. I cannot
do the box step, I cannot do the fox trot,
I cannot do the waltz. And I danced, and as
I was dancing, I saw jaws dropping, I saw pupils dilating,
eyes opening wide. I saw faces melting. I saw that
audience of three hundred and fifty people who really didn't
like me come together as one big amebic blob and
(21:55):
reach pipe out to me a pseudopod, And I had
an out about the experience. I was on the ceiling
watching all of this happen, and I was danced by
the force that came through my body up to my
head somewhere it was utterly transmographied and flowed back down
to the audience. And it was an astonishing experience. And
when I finished, that audience did something they would never
(22:18):
do again, and they had never done before in my
experience at that high school. They surged through the foot
of the stage. They picked me up off the proscenium,
They put me on their shoulders, they carried me out
of the auditorium up the foot footpath to the building
where we had our classes, and only then did they
put me down. So one of my advantages and working
(22:40):
with my artists and the music businesses, I had had
this ecstatic experience. I knew what they went through on stage.
I am passed with them. All of them lived in
my heart. Michael Jackson lives in my heart. Prince lives
in my heart even though they're both dead. They were
my babies. And so it was the ability to know
what Michael Jackson or Prince went through that performance experience
(23:04):
that gave me that BLUs of my science gave me
a massive edge for your over might over might Irene.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
That is that the energy that you get when you
perform your music. Because I know twenty twenty three and
your music has been award winning, can you describe and
everything that you do with each passion, what energy and
how it uplifts you?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Well, every time I go on stage, I'm very excited
and very nervous at the same time. I think every
celebrity I have talked to a performer all feel the
same way for about five seconds. So, but it is
that energy also fear, that little bit of fear that
makes you go out there. So you're out there in
(23:53):
front of all these people. This is live concerts or
what happened is that recording studios? Yes, so you feed
off the audience. You see, if they like you, they
have to respond to you, and if their face is
just no expression, I get worried.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But I've never had that.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I think just one time At the very very beginning,
I slipped up on a song and I slept all
the wrong words.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
But it still went. I didn't stop.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, that's the difference between that going into a recording studio.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's quite a big difference.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I didn't think I'd liked it at first because there
was no audience, but.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I really did. I really did.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I love the experience to go into a studio in
a small little box with a microphone and headphones and
start creating with engineers that are musicians or digital engineers.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So much fun. It still is.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
I'm going to continue doing that. Like I like performing,
I also like writing. And is that answer your question?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Your book? What inspired you to write the book and
what was the motivation?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
What's the title of Uh?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
You do you know the title of the book because
I I on beauty right ion Beauty Living Beautifully after
fifty Yes, right, Yeah, it's a it's a book about
beauty and all the beauty secrets. Being backstage quite a bit,
I learned a lot of secrets from different celebrities, and uh,
(25:25):
I'll tell you a few of them. Zita Jones and
Cita Jones puts coffee on her body, coffee grounds to
keep her her skin smooth. Wow, it just takes all
the dead cells off. That was the one thing she did.
Another person I told him I would never say their name,
put mayonnaise all over their hair at night. They got
(25:47):
they were her hair actually worked. The other thing it
was Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor used to put el vera.
She used to sleep in Elvira bed. It was kind
of like a ton of a little And that's why
her skin was so pure and white and beautiful, and
she aged. Even when she passed away, she looked beautiful.
(26:08):
And the rest of the secrets I can't tell you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Wow, that's definitely insightful. And both of you have had
a long and very awarding career. What do you think
now about the new era, the digital era, the social
media era. What are your thoughts on entertainment and then
now with all these platforms.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Well, I think it's a blessing, Anna Kurtz. At the
same time, what I hate seeing about the Internet and
the cell phones, there's all the young children having.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Their heads just down all the time.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
They don't socialize with their friends at the dinner table,
and don't talk to their parents. They're just very unsocial,
and I think that's could be dreadful when they get
to being the real world. I have no idea what
the real world is going to be like in twenty
twenty years, and for that matter, even one year. So
the internet has helped many artists as an exposed many
(27:09):
many artists.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Get an artist on platform for their work.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And so for that, of course, all the learning things
that we do and have from the computers is brilliant.
But then like when I was there, I think I
think it was the Grammys last year there was a
or maybe it was the Grammys, but anyhow, there was
a major event and the song that one song of
the year was electronic. Everybody, all the others were very
(27:36):
angry because they spend their life writing and here is
one room just listening around with some with some knobs.
I don't mind. I don't mean to undermine it. So
that's the bad part of it. And people the things
that they could do on the computer, like put the
president's head on a pig or some silly stuff like that,
(27:59):
say things.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I know when.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Dolly Pardon, she was ill for a little while just recently,
and there was a big rumor that.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
She had passed away.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I got so many calls from that because my husband
kind of represents her, and it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
It was all AI.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And there was something else from AI that was really
buffle when Connie Francis died, and that I think is
pretty recent and being a big star in icon so
for so many years when she passed away and had
enemies in the business as we all do, the AI
said all this craziness about people showing up at her
(28:36):
at her coffin and saying horrible things and awful things
on the internet. So that for that reason, I don't
like it, because you can you can do anything, almost
can do anything. So but I like what I type.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
Yeah, and howard your sake?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I mean, coming from the entertainment and pr how do
you feel about social media and technology now?
Speaker 4 (29:01):
It is such a gift that it defies belief. Back
in the night of nineteen eighties when I first got Yeah,
I first got my first laptop in nineteen eighty three
when I was working with the Jacksons. It was a
tiny little thing from Radio Shack and it hole held
an entire eight K of memory. People don't even remember
what a K is anymore because they're accustomed to megabytes
(29:22):
and gigabytes and terabytes, but all of a sudden, handwriting
for me is painful. All of a sudden, I could
type and make any correction I wanted, and move blocks
of copy around. It was absolutely liberating. Now am on
my eighth book, and I do intense research on every
single sentence so that you can rely on the fact
(29:45):
that I have given you a statement that is absolutely
pinned down, that is definitive, that is authoritative. Because kids
grow up on my books, and I mean sixteen year
olds read my books and they said me, emails about
your book change my life. I didn't think I had
any purpose or meaning in life. Now I know I
(30:06):
have a purpose and a meaning. I've got something like
three hundred pages of these letters from people who read
the books. So I need to be an absolute authority
to do that. In the old days, sometimes it could
take me a week to fact check a sentence. Now
it takes me ten minutes, twenty minutes. I put my
(30:26):
ais to work and then I compare their answers and
I make them back check each other. Because there are
a lot of hallucinations, a lot of phony things. They
will tell you, But what a blessing to get a
week's worth of work done in ten or twenty minutes.
It's absolutely astonishing. And does it dehumanize the work? No,
(30:48):
it rehumanizes work because I can do more of the
work that I do and the AI can't do. And
that is my people call it mythopoetic combination of science,
history and this kind of knowledge of spiritual stuff, if
we want to call it that. That came from my
experience first being on stage and then working with other artists,
(31:10):
because they touched the boundaries of the ecstatic of the transcendent,
and that is something in science we have to be
aware of as a reality and we have to be
able to explain it as a reality.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
And what about the I know there was a AI
actress and then also with the AI artists for example
Irene with you, how do you feel about that, like
AI music, AI actresses and actors.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Do you feel like that would eliminate like a career
for a normal person. Is it an enhancement? What is
your take on that?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well? I wish I had that answer. I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
What my hunch is, of course, will take up people's
position and our performer on stage. I went to see
a group was all They were all passed away and
what is it called that where they're really not there
but they make them look so like.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
The Holograms, Yes, the holograms.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And there was a group on stage and I went
there with my husband. This was London, and he didn't
say much about it, and I didn't, you know, I
wasn't into music at that time when they were very popular,
and I was I was watching them. You know, I'm
making my kids, Hey, they're dating good, you know, and
so forth, and so at the end my husband said
they're not real and I, what do you mean, They're
(32:31):
not real?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
They are reel. No, they're not real. I would not
believe him. They were so perfect.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And now you know, that's becoming a rage right now.
So I really don't know what's going to happen. I mean,
internet in the world travels so fast you really can't
keep up with it. It's hard to learn everything. I
never will.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I don't anyone. Well, maybe that's the exploring uh AI.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
What I worry about AI is people listen to the
phone things that it says.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
But it is a very good tool.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Especially for authors and people who just want to have
their simple questions.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Answered absolutely well.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Another author asked me last week, who did your book
cover for you? This is the Case of the Sexual
Cosmos cover, which is gorgeous. Let me see if I
can show it to you. It's over rare reason it's
over on top. Can you see it, to the top
of the air conditioner? So there we go. That's it.
That's the Case of the Sexual Cosmos. So he said,
(33:33):
where did you get this for just cover? Who made
it for you? I made it with chat cheapt I
made it with chat cheap pt. Wow, isn't that My
entry to popular culture was I had graduate fellowships at
at four universities in what is today called Euroscience, and
I jumped ship for an opportunity to help found a
(33:55):
commercial arts studio because that's closer to the land where
the gods are, that's closer to the area of these
transcendent experiences we're talking about. And that's how I got
into popular culture. And I was going to tell you
a story about that, but now I'm blanking out what
the story was. At any rate. I so I was
involved in our Direction. I actually made it on the
(34:17):
cover of Art Direction magazine. It used to take us
days to do I can do in half an hour
these days with the AI tools, with the visualization tools.
Laurah is well talked about application for creating visuals that
I haven't yet tried. Schat GPT was doing just fine
(34:38):
for me. And last week or two weeks ago, you know,
I go on five hundred and twenty five radio stations
every Wednesday night at one six in the morning, and
I get my assignment from my host, George Norri. The
show is coast to Coast AM sometime in the afternoon,
and then I have to become the world's leading expert
(34:58):
on it by the time I'm the show bosonic at night.
So the topic was a song that had just gone
to number one on one of Billboard's charts that was
entirely done by AI. Vocals were done by all the production,
the instruments, everything was done by AI. And I listened
(35:20):
and I thought, this is a very strong song, this
is a very good song. And the people who were
criticizing it said it lacked any human emotion. Are you
kidding me? This machine knows how to imitate, And as
a consequence, it was imitating some of the best singers
in the business and combining them and it was singing
with emotion. Now, don't ask me how that happens that
(35:43):
a machine. I mean, he could give us a bunch
of cues, emotional cues, and we humans are very good
at responding. We respond almost automatically to certain emotional cues. Well,
people like me and the sciences can't explain what those
cues are. A producer will have his own story of
what those cues are. But those cues just hit something
automatic inside you, and the machine had gotten it licked.
(36:05):
It knew how to sing with emotion. So what will happen?
I will get upset if my ais try to write
my books for me and put them out under my name.
That will be a bit discerning because I still feel
all of these things accelerate the human atos giving us rollers,
(36:26):
they give us roller skates. Now, how much faster can
you go on roller skates than if you're just walking?
And ultimately you don't want the roller skates to take
over the world. You want them to continue to serve us.
But at every level where we do things with machines,
that gives us the time to rise to a whole
new level of what we as humans, and only we
(36:48):
humans can do.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Well, I want to go out and do a new
song from Chat. I'm going to write a song Chat
and AI thank you, and.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I want to say thank you so much for being
on the show. And as always, it seems like time
flies when you're when you're with great minds. My last
question to both of you, I'll start off with you Irene.
Where can people find you? And what does twenty twenty
six look like for you?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Well, then you certainly find me on the internet, so
that's definitely one of the things that's good for house.
A bit can find on all the music platforms Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple,
so forth. And as far as twenty twenty six, I'm
going to do much of the same thing. Keep writing,
keep performing, and keep making no dreams, because I think
(37:42):
a person without.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
A dream is very difficult.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
If you have nothing to work for or you want,
you have nothing to achieve, it's not good.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So that's twenty twenty six for.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Me, and turn six for me is well mapped out
because I got to write ten books. I've got two
more books than me at least, and I'm eighty two
years old. Wow, and it takes me a minimum five
years to write a book. Although with AI, maybe it'll
be down to four and a half. So those next
(38:12):
two books have got to be written. They must be written.
And there is an AI called the Bloombot, and it
is a machine to be me when I die and
when we're still training it. And it is very hard
to train it because it's based on chat CHPT and
chat cheapt is based on giving you orthodoxies, and all
(38:33):
of my thoughts are in between, in the space in
between the orthodoxies. So it's very hard for the computer
to learn how to do that. But we're training it.
It's eighty five percent there. I will have some time
at twenty twenty we will go on stage I and
the Bloombot and we will have a discussion in front
of a live audience. And it'll be the first time
that an author has ever gone on stage with his
(38:55):
digital twin or whatever you want to call it. The Bloombot.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
You have to invite us, for sure, Wow, you have
to invite us.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Yes, I want.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
My mind is blowing right now, So ladies and gentlemen, crazy,
we'll leave you with that. With the Bloombot, and it's myself,
Howard Bloom and Irene Michaels signing off on deeper than music.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Thank you for tuning in
Speaker 4 (39:20):
Thank you, thank you, and I agree
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