B (17:00)
He's the least judgmental person on the planet. Oh, and number one. So I move out to LA, and I don't have. I have $1,000 and a Celica, and a friend that I graduated with would let me stay in his house till I got an apartment. So I had a bunch of opportunities. I was doing standup at the time. And the catch, a rising star. Guys I knew in New York, they said, we'll set you up in Universal and let you do some sales. You could do, stand up there and do some sales. So I had somewhat of a job, and then I said, I'll wait her if I have to, but I want to just see if standup can work, do all sports radio and see if I can get a TV job. So I end up doing some stuff on national radio. And then the local station said, you. You know, we carry your show, but do you want to do something locally? I go, yeah. So they go, okay, you can fill in on the weekends. And then they just said, we got to diversify. Our. You know, they're getting pressured to diversify. It's all white guys. So I said, I read Jim Brown's book. It was in paperback. I had Larry Bird and Jim Brown's book when I moved out. So I read Jim Brown's book cover to cover, and I go, you know, Jim Brown lives in Hollywood Hills. They go, yeah, we can get a hold of him. I go, I think he'd want to do it. But I go, you should be prepared, reading this book. He doesn't care much, much about sports as he does about kids, society, what's wrong, right? And I go, we're fine with that. So they reached out to him, but they don't let me do the hosting with him. They pick somebody else to host with him. He says, yes, he names his number, they do it. So they let someone else host with him. Well, after that person I was there, I would come in after. So I come in after, watch him, and the kid's Jewish, and he's going back and forth. And Jim goes, what does it mean to be a Jew in America? What's the hardest thing about being Jewish? What about your family? Tell me about this. What are your ethics? After two weeks, he goes, I have no interest in doing the show with him. He's, like, flipping out. He doesn't want to talk about his religion, doesn't want to talk about this. So I said, I will do the show with him. And we. From that point on, from 94 until he passed away, we were really good friends. And he was so happy that I was doing well. And we hosted the show together for the next four years every Sunday. And then he would do other things the way we did UFC is I was doing standup, and the standup guys, Semaphore bought, they start, they hook up with the Gracies, and the Gracies say, we got this great idea. You're promoters. They show them what it's like in Brazil. They go, we'd like to do that, but we're gonna form an octagon. How do you do it? John Melius of Apocalypse now, they get him involved because they know the people in theater. John Melius loves the idea, designs the octagon, puts it on paper. So they go, when are you coming home? I go, Thanksgiving. They go, can you come by our office? I go, yes. They show me the video. I go, great, I'll watch. They go, but it's kind of boring. All they do is, like, jiu jitsu. They were just on their backs and goes on for hours. I go, yeah, we're do mixed martial arts. They tell me the premise. They go, would you do something on it? I go, yeah, but I'm not qualified. I'll do the ring reporting. Go, great. So they go, who should do color? I go, well, Jim Brown called the Zaire fight. He called major fights before. I'm sure he could figure it out. Sure enough, I get a call. No cell phones back. Then I put Jim on in this theater. They talk to him. He goes, brian, I won't talk to him. You tell him I need $20,000. So I go, he wants $20,000 in first class. Fight in first class flight. They go, he's in. So then Jim did the first six just like that. We got there a week early. We looked at the fighters, knew something about him. He would make his own conclusions, and he'd go, do it. And then he loved it. So we stayed in touch all the time. All the Super Bowls, major events. Anytime he was in town, dedicating a statue, coming in to meet with people, do Howard Stern pop over. But. And then when I would go over with my friends to his house, the first thing he would say is, look at you. What are you, German? He goes, what does it mean to be German? He goes, well, I don't really touch my heritage. Where do you live? What'd your mom do? What is it like, oh, my dad died in ninth grade. Wow. What was that like within 10 minutes. He would do a sincere autopsy on the person all the time because he wants to know where you stood, what made you. But he wasn't judging you.
