001 Unapologetic Opulence Transcript (Robin Leach)
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Michael (quiz): All right. This person died in Las Vegas in 2018 and he was 76
Friend: Elvis Presley. He was younger than 76,
Michael (quiz): maybe, actually, maybe right here. All right. He was widely recognized. And just as widely parodied during the initial run of his show from 1984 to 1995.
Friend: I wonder if it was a guy? Um, no, no. Um, I don't know. Jerry Lee Lewis
quite, he had a distinctive British accented voice and exuberant exclamation point delivery. I can hear that specific description. Yeah, the British, I have no idea.
Michael (quiz): Okay. He was a symbol of unapologetic, opulence.
Friend: Oh, I know. Oh. Oh, you was the guy who would talk about the. Oh, gosh, I'm like something like, I want to say it's like Richard Lee or something
Michael (quiz): very close right there. I'm going to give you a couple of more clues cause you know who it is, but I can't remember his name. He wants said no one would watch lifestyles of the poor and unknown.
Yes. Lifestyles
Friend: of the rich and famous Stephen King, Stephen, who was the guy that did lifestyles of the rich and famous. What was his name?
I
know the rich and famous. Oh, like Robert leech. Is that, was that it? Um, Robin leaks, Robin leach.
Michael (quiz): Today's dead guest is Robin.
Get ready for another in her animal lifestyles, your VIP journey into the lives and loves up today's winners who really know how to enjoy that great things. I've liked.
Michael: welcome to famous and gravy a conversation about what really matters in life. One dead celebrity at a time I'm Michaela. I was born
Amit: and my name is Amit . And through a series of questions about the highs and lows of a famous person's inner and outer life. We want to figure out things in life that are actually desirable to us.
And ultimately we asked the big question, would you want
Michael: their life today? Robin leech died 2018, age 76. Here is the first line of his obituary, Robin leech, who became a symbol of unapologetic opulence as host of the popular syndicated television show lifestyles of the rich and famous in the 1980s and nineties died on Friday in Las Vegas.
Oh, man. Your thoughts about the first line of his
Amit: obituary? I think very concise, very well done, and very descriptive. What stood out to me was opulence. Yeah. That's a good word. Symbol of opulence. Symbol
Michael: of unapologetic. Opulence. Yeah. That's a
Amit: word that's kind of loaded. Yeah. That's extremely loaded. I don't like that word.
Michael: Yeah. Unapologetic. We're going to talk about that. Yeah. Opulence though. I got to say that's my favorite. And there's a bench wary. It's a very good word. In general. You remember the last
Amit: time you used it? I can tell you a time. I used it. Yeah. I was in Jordan, uh, with a friend and we were at a, like a pool resort by the dead sea.
And it was like this tiered level of pools and there was waiters and my friend turned to me and said, this is opulence.
Michael: Wow. That's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Having heard you describe that, I'm not sure I've ever had an opulent experience. I will take
Amit: you to this pool in
Michael: Jordan sometime. I hope we can make that journey.
So scale of one to 10. Oh, really? Yeah. Despite your quibbles with the word unapologetic, what that's, what took it away from the 10? What if it had just said a symbol of opulence? Wouldn't that have been incomplete? Don't we need a descriptor there.
Amit: I don't think so. Who apologizes for opulence as a television?
Well in a
Michael: time of inequality and wealth disparity in the world and in America, I feel like the nod to being unapologetic about it. It's a nod to the bigger issue, but I guess is that at the expense of honoring the man?
Amit: Yeah. That's the New
Michael: York times getting there. Dig in. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Nine it's still pretty damn good.
All right. Let's get to the categories. First question five things I love about. Really what this category is about is why we're talking about this person in the first place. What are some obvious things that we love about this person that may or may not make their life desirable? Uh, would you like to start?
Yeah, I'm
Amit: going to go with he's adorable. It was just an adorable. He had this smile and this diamond shaped face and he was compact and British and he's just cheery in his presence.
Michael: Is that physically adorable or is it like a personality vibe? I mean, or is it
Amit: all of it? I think it's all of it. I don't think you can take the physical stature without the voice and without the smile, the total package.
Completely
Michael: adorable. Are there other grown men that you're comfortable describing as adorable? Yeah, I mean, I'm comfortable
Amit: with describing other grown men is storable. I don't know who it was. But there definitely are.
Michael: Okay. Yours. It's obvious the voice, the accent, the New York times obituary described it as speaking with an exclamation point.
Almost every sentence ended with this exclamation point and yeah, it was an uptick. Yeah. But pointed, I mean it's strong and just commanding, I think, to have that kind of voice and to use it as. Uh, that's something that to me is very powerful. Yeah. My
Amit: other one, which will be our number three is kind of a combination of what I said, what you just said.
One of the things I loved about him is he was good at what he did. And this isn't a comment on the content of what he did. He was just good. He was articulate. He was exuberant. He flowed really well. He was a good video journal.
Michael: So I feel like what you're commenting on there. And I think it's really true.
His work ethic he showed up and he had all passionate and was fully present for his show. Again, regardless of how you feel about that show, there was a commitment to everything he's doing on lifestyles of the rich and famous. Yeah. Whether he was playing
Amit: a part or playing what's natural. You didn't know the difference.
He was completely immersed in
Michael: that. Yeah, that's really good. Okay. So what are we at now? Is that three? We've had three
Amit: we've had adorable. We've had voice and we had had.
Michael: Okay, I'm going to offer one more. And then I think I need you to round out this category for me. I'm going to go with the concept for the show again, not to say this is a good thing or a bad thing for society, but I, I liked that he came up with, you know, what people are going to be really interested in is it's all in the title, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and to sell that show to a network and have them say, you're absolutely right.
Here's a budget for that show. Get out there and execute. That's a sneaky good idea for how to craft a career. Yeah. It was an expert marketer in that way. Yeah. Cause you know that the fun of doing it is going to be integrated into the work inevitably. So I like that career decision. Yeah.
Amit: So my I'll round it out with a number five, which is that he not only came up with it, but I think he owned what he did.
You see the things he said about it, you see how he ended his career, uh, continuing to do practically the same thing, but in a more digital. Written word reporting way for a Las Vegas periodical, but he really owned and made a lot of his career about the same thing.
Michael: The New York times of actuary described him as unapologetic.
Is that the term you were looking for owned it, but also committed. I'm going
Amit: to go with it. Cause unapologetic. I don't like, cause that means you're not apologizing for something that, that everyone wants you to apologize for. Sometimes it means that. So, no, I don't like the term unapologetic. I like ownership.
Michael: All right. Well, before we move on to the next category, then I think we've got our five let's stick on this unapologetic thing first. Do you have a moral issue with lifestyles of the rich and famous as a concept? Do you find it personally grotesque or off-putting or offensive?
Amit: Maybe now in 2021, looking back to everything that has happened in the 30 years since the show came out and maybe I do freeze framing and time where, when he created the show.
I don't know that I
Michael: do. Do you have memories of watching that growing up? Absolutely. I don't think I've ever seen them a single episode. Really? Yeah, no. I mean, it was on the TV. It just didn't catch my attention. And I know it was on all the time, but actually sitting down to watch it certainly never appointment TV and I don't have any clear memories of it.
Speaking to me in any way that was like exciting or enticing in any way, shape or form. I think
Amit: that's our different. I think if you were raised in an immigrant household, the unsaid message was okay, you can watch this because if you get good grades, maybe you can also have a chandelier.
Michael: Interesting. So it was a sort of version of the American dream on steroids.
Amit: Or my parents had no idea I was watching it, but yeah, that's a good way to put it in a version of the American dream on
Michael: steroids. All right. So at some point between young Ahmed watching lifestyles of the rich and famous as a young boy, and now you've done a kind of flip with it. Where could you pinpoint where that flip is?
Where you've decided maybe this show has some untoward
Amit: or. Yeah. So if we do a timeline, so I, I remember watching this, there was a child from reading and prepping for this episode. We saw it ended in like 94 ish. Yeah. Yeah. Which would have put me at, you know, 16, 17 years old. No, I don't think I would have had a critical eye and probably till my early twenties.
So it was in memory, but no, no looking askance back. Okay. I'm not sure I ever thought about it that much until the last week.
Michael: No, I know. I haven't. I completely forgotten about it.
Amit: Who knows where it's buried, who knows what it's, what it's affected.
Michael: Well, and you know, we didn't include this on the top five, but I does feel like a turning point in terms of how.
Celebrity and how wealth is portrayed in pop culture. Does it represent something important, I guess is the question, is it, is it capturing something about how society has turned its attention in a certain direction? Done. So ever since I think
Amit: absolutely it does. And in the same way that maybe wall street did or any other pop cultural things of the 80th.
Absolutely. It's easy to look back now, 35 years later and say it totally is 100% eighties, opulence indulgence extravagance. Right. But
Michael: that's not exactly my question. I guess what I'm trying to get at is is that turn towards celebrating opulence indulgence. Extravagance. Is that something that has been with us ever since that did not exist before did lifestyles of the rich and famous usher in something new that even though the show itself is no longer on the air, the attitude perspective, values it's championing continue to be important in terms of.
TV or what's in pop culture overall? Absolutely.
Amit: I would say absolutely.
Michael: It's an important issue.
I
Amit: mean, I think that type of format and that type of, of just celebrating celebrity for, for celebrity's sake or for richness sake. Yeah, it was ahead of itself, but certainly that's, what's defined so much of the last 15 years of all pro.
Michael: Yeah. Wow. Okay. Let's move on category two now. Kovich, Malcovich what this category is about. It's a reference to the movie being John Malcovich where you can take a portal into John Malcovich his mind and have a front row seat to his experiences. If you could take a portal into Robin Leach's mind and have a front row seat to one of his experiences, is there something that.
You'd like to sit through.
Amit: Yeah. But it's not experience that he directly had and the one I'm going with, because it was just relevant to my own timeline. I'm going to go win with when Arnold Schwartzenegger became governor of California. So granted this was years before, maybe a decade before Trump became president, but I remember following an hour life cycle, Jesse Ventura becoming governor.
A few years later Schwartzenegger and this was jarring to me, somebody in my mid twenties at the time. And I wonder if he looked at that and this was, you know, 10 plus years before his death and thought, what the hell did I do?
Michael: Interesting. You think? So you think he might've felt. Like he had a part in Schwartzenegger his rise.
Amit: I don't know. I'm using Schwartzenegger as just a symbol of rich and famous crossing over into having great influence on individual. Lives, not just on the
Michael: screen, in your living room and into political life, I suppose,
Amit: political life. But yeah, you're a government of the people in for the people you're no longer an entertainer.
And so he, no doubt in the show, no doubt played some role in the trajectory of celebrity as public figure and public figure just eventually just becomes nothing but a public figure. There's no lines drawn.
Michael: Huh, that's interesting. You chose Schwarzenegger's right. I get that makes a lot of sense. I
Amit: was very tempted to go with the more obvious the Trump election in 2016.
Sure. But also it was a year before he died. It was perhaps, maybe the beginning. It was a tremor. I guess what I want to know is did it feel like a possible.
Michael: And of course what's interesting about that is that Trump himself appeared on lifestyles of the rich and famous several times. Although I had a hard time digging up the, the appearance dates.
Did you find information?
Amit: I found one that was like, he was with Michael Jackson was also there. And I think it was 94 ish at the opening of one of the Atlantic city hotels. And I'm not even sure that that was an episode of the show as opposed to just something Robin leach was present at. Yeah. But it seems like he was passing through the show at some point.
Michael: All right. Well, my Malcovich Malcovich moment was not particularly interesting, probably because I already mentioned it. I think the moment that the network said. We're going to air your show. I think it just had to have been very exciting to say, we want to do a TV show lifestyles of the rich and famous, and here's what I'm going to do.
And here's what the show is going to. What do you think? And I'm saying yes. That had to feel triumphant just to pitch a story and to have it be bought.
Amit: Yeah, because I'm in there. It had to have seemed asinine in, in many people's eyes at
Michael: the time. Well, I wonder about that. You think so? Yeah. I don't know. I guess I give people too much.
I don't give people enough. Yeah. And again, brilliant
Amit: marketer. He probably knew exactly how to pitch it and what the appeal is. I mean, it's, it's the perfect commercial
Michael: creation. Okay. Well, let's move on. We're going to go through some of these a little bit fast. We want to get at love life. And we're going to ask the question.
Were there any divorces? The answer here is yes, it was married in 1968, divorced 1977. Yeah,
Amit: that's what I saw. I didn't, I didn't find a whole lot more about it. Me
Michael: neither Googled his ex-wife and found nothing in terms of information on this. All we know is it seemed like he only had the one marriage and three kids, uh, with that one marriage.
So question four net worth. What did you find? I found 15 million. That's what I saw too. How does that sit? What do you think about that number? Uh, it sets.
Amit: With me, it's a square mail to me. So I, I also uncovered that the criteria for the show, which he created and hosted was supposedly a net worth of 50 million.
Wow. And so the fact that his ultimate may or may not have been 15 million. Was less than that, but it was still unambiguously rich. Yeah,
Michael: it seems right. That was more or less my reaction it seemed about right. Which is really what the net with question is really all about. What if it had been a hundred million?
How would that have set? Because if I was thinking about, this is a man who champions lifestyles of the rich and famous, right? So a hundred million seems like a threshold amount. That's pretty encouraging. Hypothetically, what if he had been worth a hundred million? I don't think that would
Amit: sit as well. It would seem like too much.
And maybe if this whole timeline were fast-forwarded and this show somehow magically started 25 years later, the number would make sense, but it seems too high. I mean, it's still an ultra wealthy number. The other reason why I don't make it since well as I don't like the participatory story behind. That by profiling the red shoe yourself become one of them.
Yeah. It seems weird. It's as if like Harry Kerry became like a pitcher at the end of his career.
Michael: Right, right, right. So it's funny. He needs to be rich enough that he can cover the very wealthy, but he can't actually have so much money. That as you said, he becomes one of them. So that's one of the reasons 15 million since very well.
Yeah.
Amit: And I don't know that he was rich enough back then. I mean, there was maybe like a Gatsby of some to it. Is that with the tuxedo look and the accent and all, he just, he was able to play it very well and feel comfortable in the private jets and the mansions to where he was invited in. It didn't look like Barbara Walters was coming in to expose this lifestyle
Michael: well, and that gets back to one of the things I had on five things.
I love about you. I mean, I really liked that he is able to vicariously experience. Extreme wealth while having, what is admittedly a good amount of money? No question about at 15 million, but some in a very high category, but it's not quite the same thing. I mean, he, he is aware of and is having firsthand knowledge of the 0.001%.
And has an intimacy with that experience that I think is sort of brilliant in a way to like, I'll just cover this and I'll get to experience some of it. Even if that feels a little slimy, it has a, has a cleverness to it. Absolutely. The other thing did make my top five list. I also kind of liked that he landed in.
There's something perfect about, yeah. That's that's like where this was supposed
Amit: to end, you know, the quiz. I don't think he died in Vegas was that night in Cabo. He was a resident. He was living in Vegas.
Michael: Oh, sorry. I got that wrong. Okay. We'll issue a correction. All right. Question. Five Simpsons or Saturday night live.
Did he ever have an appearance on either one? This is a measure of fame. Cause if you host Saturday night live or featured on the Simpson. You've clearly made it. What did you find
Amit: that didn't have to do any research? It was Dana Carvey doing an impression of him on Saturday night. Live is possibly a higher up in my memory than the direct memory of Robin leech.
Michael: Yeah. I went back and watched it. It didn't make me laugh as much, but, uh, but it's nice. It's fine. Never saw him on the Simpsons, but for what it's worth, he did do a spot on family guy. So I don't know.
Amit: I think. I don't think he could have escaped the grip of the Simpsons. There's no way he wasn't at least in it.
In some part
Michael: I said, I didn't find it though. At least as a character, I would agree. I don't know how you could be Robin leech. Overlap that much with the Simpsons in the nineties and not be a character, but I didn't see the episode there a pretty well researched a Simpsons Wiki out there where you can look this stuff up pretty easily.
I don't know, luck. I would
Amit: also add this isn't there. This category is about the Simpsons and SNL, but I don't think we can conclude this category without mentioning that he showed up in several rap songs. He showed up in the ludicrous song. He showed up in a biggie song. Yeah, he was named dropped a few times on
Michael: tracks.
Okay. Now is the point in the recording where we get to the next set of questions that are a little bit more introspective. This is a little bit more about the inner life. Don't not dealing with facts quite as much. This set of questions begins with man in the mirror. This is about self perception. Did.
His reflection in the mirror at your thoughts? Yeah.
Amit: I'm going with the S and my barometer for this category is on poise. Just how you carry yourself. And it seems like he was pretty comfortable, pretty comfortable in his skin. I said, number one, he was an adorable man in the eighties. I think he must've recognized that.
Thanks. So I'm going in the absolutely.
Michael: Yes. I wonder how he would have responded to being called the doorbell. I agree. And for a similar reason, the smile, he's got a great smile and I think anybody who's got that great of a smile has to have practiced it a bit in the
Amit: mirror, but you also, so it's, there's no doubt you can't fully fake it either.
Yeah. People always will know how genuine it is. And there's no doubt that the comfort in your own skin, in your own body. And what you see when you look in the mirror plays a part in those
Michael: angles. So I think we both have a confident, yes. All right. The next self perception question, did he record the outgoing message on his voicemail or home answering machine?
Whatever it may have been. I think the answer here is obviously
Amit: he did. I don't even think we need to talk about it. If the voice itself is in the top five things I love
Michael: about you, then he absolutely was enamored of his own voice. Yeah, I agree. All right. Question regrets, public or private. What don't you have here?
Amit: Public? I found nothing again. You brought up unapologetic. It doesn't seem like he had any, at least vocalized private. I don't know. I don't know how you could live to 2017 and play such a pivotal part in the catapulting of celebrity and wealth, extreme wealth, extreme wealth without having some. Second thoughts.
Michael: Yeah. I wonder. I mean, there's no read on it because as you said, there's nothing public about him defending his career choice because he must have received that question. Right. It seems like people surely were asking him, Hey Robin, don't you think you're celebrating? Extravagance and lavishness and gluttony and the worst parts about celebrity and fame in a way that's exploitative and ultimately sends a bad message for him to be described as unapologetic in his obituary.
He must have been presented with that question. And I do. If he developed a defensive posture to it that walled off any room for self-reflection or if he genuinely felt that way in his heart of hearts, I have done nothing wrong here. I have built a career on a system that was presented to me, and I should not have to defend that for any reason.
Amit: And if you do take an opposite stance, you're essentially a racing your life's work.
Michael: Yeah. So let me ask this though. I mean, I've said a couple times in this conversation that I look at his decision and see a kind of cleverness to it. Because if you say I'm going to be a journalist who creates this TV show, where I get on jet airplanes and yachts and visit castles and hang out with beautiful celebrities and try and ask them softball questions.
Do you think that that is a. Thoroughly selfish decision. Or do you think that he was able to tell himself a story that something and what I'm doing here is of service to humanity?
Amit: I think the latter, I think telling yourself that I would guess he did that. I am providing
Michael: a service. Let's take that a step further.
If he's saying people need to see this, and this is a service to the world to see how the rich and famous are living. What is the rationalization around?
Amit: Aspiration it's me at nine years old thinking I need to get good grades so I can have
Michael: a chandelier. Yeah. But surely the celebration of materialism is obviously has its limits or I don't know, maybe it's self-evident to me.
Amit: I mean, maybe you're just putting a goalpost. You're just saying success is this I'm painting a picture of achieving. We're not celebrating Nobel prize winners, but if it's viewed by people that have no hopes and that you see people that have things, I don't know if it purely creates a false sense of want or if it maybe does something for
Michael: aspiration seems like a pretty hefty rationalization.
Another perhaps more generous interpretation of. Life's work is that I do think that a generation ago there was a little bit more of an attitude of marveling at human achievement marveling at technological progress marveling at how we had unlocked the secrets of the natural world and could live. In material extravagance, and maybe even a belief that all of civilization was heading in this direction that by 2050, we'd all have yachts and that we'd all be eating caviar and champagne.
I guess what I'm getting to here is, is there an explicit promotion of class in a way that says some of humanity is obviously better than. Other parts of humanity. I don't know. I haven't seen the show. It seems like that's there. It seems like
Amit: that's there, but I it's difficult to remove it from context of when that was like, we're not even that deep into color television when this comes out.
Michael: That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. So let's finish up this category. Regrets, none public with. I presume that there's some private regrets, but it's sort of hard to get at because if so, you don't obviously see it in his body language or in certainly in any decisions made after his peak in 94. Yeah. Pure speculation, pure speculation.
All right. Question nine. Good dreams are bedrooms. What do you got? I'm
Amit: going to go with good dreams and I'm going to, I'm going to stick with that as if there were regrets and the. Manifest themselves privately or at a time that, that we were completely unaware. He also just, I mean, he looked like he was having a good time.
He seemed to enjoy it. He kept doing what he was doing good or bad. I think it seems like he liked what he was doing. He liked the world that was created and AC. Touch to experience
Michael: that part of it, even if only for the duration of a segment. Yeah. Who cares, still
Amit: got invited
Michael: to the party. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good case and I should have explained with good dreams or bad bedrooms.
This is absolutely a projection question. We have no idea. I like what you said in the past though, that it's something in the, I, I wrote down bad dreams, but for the life of me, I can't remember why. I just have to imagine that you go to sleep at night, knowing somebody's always got more than you. It's always doing better is always winning in a different way perhaps, but I don't see it in the eye.
If that's the test, if there is something in his eyes, then I think I'm going to flip my answer. I'm going to go. Good dreams too. All right. Question 10 cocktail coffee, or. Which of these would you like to do with Robin leach? What did you have? So we can
Amit: acknowledge the question with, he actually had a signature drink associated with him, which is champagne.
That just has to be said, but I don't even think I want the champagne with him. I want the cannabis. I want to know what. He really thinks. And maybe what he really thinks is exactly what was presented, but need a little more truth serum to be
Michael: convinced. Do you think getting high with him is how you'd get that out of him?
If he trusts
Amit: me
Michael: and my friends, think you can establish the rapport after a long head with Robin leach and get at the interim. Like, if you're going to get at the darkness, that's the best option between cocktail, coffee and cannabis for experimenting with that? Yeah,
Amit: I think so. I think if I'm the editor of this like pot den session and I can take it to a philosophical realm.
Yeah,
Michael: yeah, yeah, no, I think you're right. I wouldn't cocktail. And basically, I just want to hear the stories that didn't make it to the show. It's similar sort of thing. I don't want to necessarily know what he really thinks. Although to hear you describe it. I certainly have more curiosity than I did before, but I also want to know the full picture of what he saw of what was happening before the camera went on, who the extremely rich and extremely famous people really, really are.
And if he could shine light on this bizarre phenomenon of wealth and celebrity in this very narrow, but extremely important vendor.
Amit: Yeah. So we kind of want the same information from him, slightly different angles. We just have different modes that we think. It would've come out.
Michael: Well, I think that the sanction is that you, I think, are more interested in how he really feels about the inner life.
I think I'm more interested in what he really knows, and if there was a whole different show to be had, that was not going to be as markable. And certainly not going to be as deferential to the guests, because again, having not seen the show, my understanding is that there was softball questions and everybody looks great.
I want to know. What, if anything is actually going on in the stratosphere of the rich and famous.
Amit: Yeah. There's gotta be a lot of off-camera stuff of domestic workers and whatnot. That there's no way he didn't see. Yeah, exactly.
Michael: Exactly. Okay. I'm actually very excited for our last question. It's called the VanDerBeek in reference to James VanDerBeek who in varsity blues famously said, I don't want your life Ahmed.
Do you want Robin Leach's life?
Amit: No, I don't. And this isn't about the questions I raised about the long-term implications or moral playing out of this type of celebrity celebration, that he was a part of
Michael: contributions to society or lack thereof, right? Yeah.
Amit: I wouldn't want to be the. Profiler his life was defined by profiling other lives by not being necessarily a participant.
And I don't think I'd want to get all the way through mine knowing that I wasn't the player. I wasn't
Michael: the maker. Yeah. The author of your own life. You're following somebody else's script or, or a lot of other people's scripts and trying to make sense of it.
Amit: Yeah. And it's not, I don't think that's a general comment about journalism because I think it's different because you're, you're, you're not adding a new lens to it.
You're just shining a light on it to
Michael: really good answer. Before I give you my answer. I think I need some clarification on the question on what the VanDerBeek is all about. I wrote I'm open to it and depends on the question. Am I trading my life for his in the VanDerBeek? You know, when you say, I don't want your life, or are you simply saying if given the opportunity to take this.
Sure I'll take it. I think your, your
Amit: soul is in, in some cycle of reincarnation and this life is going on and you can be placed in it with all that you know, of how it played out eventually and what led to it. And you can say, okay, I'll take this or
Michael: pass, pass. Let's see what comes along next. And oh, we'll wait
Amit: around.
Yeah, but there's a possibility that nothing comes through. Right. It's not like take door number one. And if you don't have to run one, there's going to be plenty of other doors. It's just saying it's this one. It could be nothing. It could be infinite darkness. If you don't take this store, let
Michael: me put it like that.
Let me say this. I am more open to Robin Leach's life than I would have thought I would have thought that I would have been discussing. And that it's ultimately a shallow pursuit with no stakes and spiritually devoid, morally devoid, and not really about establishing meaningful relationships with other people on planet earth with this short life.
So there's a lot about it. That's unattractive to me from the outside looking. Not really knowing much about the quality of his relationships other than the fact that he was divorced and never remarried, which does seem a little bit telling for somebody of his stature. Yeah. There's also a part of me that looks at this life and thinks it's all a big fucking show.
The planet earth and all these over-involved monkeys running around this planet, lighting fires and hopping on jets and eating fish eggs, and doing all the absurd, weird things that humans do. I kind of want to see what that looks like at the extremes. And I kind of want to know, because he did have a front row seat to a certain kind of instinct, run a muck.
And I feel like there may be some real. Wisdom to be gleaned from that firsthand knowledge. Oh, good take. Yeah, that said if that were the case, the ultimate piece that's missing was the great think piece at the end of his life. Like that would have rounded it out from me. If I had seen a, my reflecting on 20 years of covering the rich and famous.
And here's what it all means, kind of deeper philosophical thing. Then I think it would have been very onboard and it wouldn't have even had to been that good of an article. I just would have wanted him to give it a shot. The fact that's not out there lends me a little bit towards the, I don't want your life Robin leach that I'd rather not take it, but I'm more open to it than I would.
Yeah, it's
Amit: interesting. What you're saying is that if you could go in with the perspective that you think your soul carries, that seeing all of this at the extremes, you can't not take something away, you can't have a interesting, if not all trouble angle of what the whole circus is for.
Michael: Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Yeah. I couldn't have put it any better. So is that sorry you go on with. I got an answer. You got to answer. Do I get to take that sensibility with me into this life? Yeah. You
Amit: got to take the sense. I mean, you can't voice it, but it's inside of you.
Michael: God, it feels so fucking shallow saying yes, but I think I want your life rather.
Great.
Amit: I may, I may, after you've told me, I mean, what I said was, you know, You basically took the opposite angle. I said, I don't want to just be a full observer and commentator and presenter. And you're like, I mean, imagine all the things that those eyes see and what you can do with that information
Michael: internally.
Yeah. But it does sort of require that you buy into the it's all a big fucking joke attitude of that does not sit
Amit: well. We also don't know. I mean, you said you don't like that. There wasn't a think piece at the end, but who are we to say that there wasn't. Inside of his private conversations with those closest to him.
Michael: That's true. That's absolutely right. There's nothing that has been made public, but it could exist.
Amit: I also need to bring up this point, you contacted me a couple of months ago and said, let's create a podcast about celebrities. So it would be very hard for you to say, nah, that's vapid.
Michael: Yeah, that's true. All right.
You know what? I think we've arrived. We are at the final moment of our podcast, the pearly gates, where I'm at, you are Robin leach and you are going before St. Peter, and you have an opportunity to make your pitch for why you should be led in the floor. Is yours.
Amit: Okay. I'm not going to attempt an imprint.
I'm addressing St. Peter. I was about to say God, but because I'm addressing St. Peter, I'm addressing his Lieutenant.
Michael: Whatever's most comfortable for you. Okay.
Amit: So here we are. You look back at what I created, which was this immense trend. Some might say exploitation, some might say materialism, some might say spiritual absence.
None of that is true. I am an entertainer. I entertained tens of millions of people by showing them a slice of at the time on ambiguous happiness. There is nothing wrong with showing people, things they can strive for. In fact, it's a good thing to celebrate it, to always be on a. Is forgetting about the other things, but knowing there is still a party to be had, there's a mansion to be lived in.
There's a large pool to be swimming. Life does not always have to be that complicate. And it can be fun and fancy lemon
Michael: was beautiful.
Thank you for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate and review. You can sign up for our mailing list@famousandgravy.com and you can follow us on Twitter at famous and gravy. Our show was co-created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael.
Mixing mastering and sound design by Morgan Honaker graphic designed by Brandon Burke and original music by Kevin Strang. Thank you again for listening and hope to see you next time.
